The tunnel stretched ahead, an artery of stone and silence, each step echoing like a warning. The walls were jagged, streaked with streaks of molten rock that had cooled long ago. The further I walked, the more it felt like I was stepping away from something I couldn't fully understand—and the closer I came to something I feared.
The core.
It was buried deep beneath the island, hidden under layers of rock, beneath algorithms and forgotten histories. If I was going to fix this, if I was going to pull the plug on whatever nightmare this was, I had to reach it. No shortcuts. No rewinding time.
I felt it before I saw it.
A pulse in the air—thick, vibrating, resonating in my chest like a second heartbeat. The walls around me shifted, the cold stone vibrating in time with the low hum that filled the tunnel. It was as if the island itself was alive—breathing, waiting.
A split second before I reached the end of the tunnel, the lights flickered. Then, out—darkness closed in like a tomb. My hand went instinctively to the knife at my side, but I didn't draw it. This wasn't an enemy I could fight with steel.
I swallowed. The weight of the situation was impossible to ignore.
"I'm coming," I muttered to the darkness. It didn't answer.
The tunnel opened into a vast chamber, and I stepped into the center. The floor was smooth and slick with something I couldn't place—almost organic. My footfalls made no sound as I stepped forward.
At the center of the room stood an obelisk, a towering black monolith covered in faint, glowing symbols. It hummed with energy. From it, I could feel the pulse—the life of the island itself—pushing against me, testing me.
I raised my hand. The words Project PROMETHEUS echoed again in my mind. I had been part of this once, an architect of whatever twisted creation this was. Had I been so blind? So arrogant to believe I could control it?
"Welcome back," the voice echoed again, soft but cold. Familiar.
The voice from the cube.
"What is this? What do you want from me?" I growled, trying to suppress the shaking in my hands. I hated how this felt. It felt too much like I was being led.
"You were never supposed to remember," the voice answered, calm, unhurried. "You were the backup. The fail-safe. This place needed you to rebuild it. It's why we brought you here."
The obelisk hummed louder, resonating with each word.
"You brought me here?" My voice cracked before I could stop it. "How? Why?"
The voice didn't answer right away. The hum of the obelisk grew louder—faster.
"You were the only one who could see the truth. The only one who could fix what we broke," it said, and I could feel its cold fingers pressing against my thoughts. "This world wasn't meant to fall apart. But when we lost you… when we lost control… the system fractured. The players, the tests—they were never supposed to happen. But they did. They are."
I stepped back.
The chamber pulsed. The air tasted like static. I wasn't sure what part of the island I was standing on anymore. My legs trembled with exhaustion, but I couldn't afford to stop. I reached into my pack and pulled out the artifact, the broken compass. It felt lighter than it had before. It felt like it was alive.
The obelisk trembled in response.
"You can shut it all down," the voice whispered, coaxing, like a lover. "One choice. One command. You know how to fix it."
I was still staring at the obelisk when I realized the floor beneath me was changing. The slick surface wasn't just slippery—it was alive with code. Lines of code, pulsing like veins beneath the surface, expanding and contracting. A sequence—my sequence—formed in front of me.
A command prompt.
I stepped back, heart hammering. I didn't have to understand how it worked. I didn't have to understand why it was asking me.
I had to choose.
But I knew the truth.
This was the point of no return. There was no going back.
I gritted my teeth, looking at the glowing symbols, the one line of code hovering before me:
Override System—[Y/N]?
"Y," I said, my voice low and determined.
And then, the walls screamed.
The obelisk's hum grew louder until it felt like it was tearing apart my brain. I dropped to my knees, clutching my head as the world twisted. The island trembled. Beneath me, the very earth cracked open, as if all the forgotten players, all the lost souls trapped here, were rising.
And then, silence.
Not peace. Just silence. A silence too thick to breathe through.
I waited. The air hung heavy.
Slowly, I stood.
Nothing moved. Not a sound. No pulse. No hum. No life.
The system had been… shut down.
I took a shaky breath. The world around me still felt… wrong, but there was nothing else to do. I couldn't fix it—not by myself.
I could only survive.
LEVEL 10 UNLOCKED
Skill Unlocked: System Mastery — Access the core of the island's control system.
Agility: +20%
Resistance to Shutdown: +50%
But the question remained: what was I going to do with the wreckage?