The descent was endless. Spiral steps coiled like the spine of a buried titan, stone slick with moisture and decay. The walls breathed—no, pulsed—like there was a heart beneath the earth, pounding in time with mine.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
With every step, the air thickened. My breath became fog. My fingers tightened around the hilt of the blade I'd fashioned from scavenged steel and sinew.
I didn't know what I expected at the bottom. A lair? A lab? Maybe just a really well-decorated grave.
What I found was... different.
The staircase ended in a massive chamber, smooth and circular, lit from above by a glowing red crystal suspended mid-air. Beneath it, a pedestal. Floating above the pedestal: a cube.
Not just any cube. The artifact from the vision back in the ruins. The one carved with symbols that changed every time I blinked.
And carved along the walls—no photos this time, no ghosts—just names.
Hundreds. Thousands.
Some scratched in panic. Others etched clean and deep like someone took their time. I scanned them, a few standing out:
Gavin Wilder
Marie Lorenz
N. Vega
Ethan Wilder
My name.
I took a step back.
How the hell was my name already here?
That's when the cube pulsed.
"Ethan 'Echo' Wilder," a voice said—not human, not mechanical, just there. "Initiating sequence: Core Synchronization."
"Wait—what?"
Before I could react, the cube split apart. Six smaller cubes spun in a spiral, faster and faster, until they became a sphere of motion. Symbols lit up on the walls, forming a ring around the chamber.
Then the room spoke again.
"Would you like to restore your memories?"
I froze. Every instinct screamed no. But curiosity? That little demon always gets the better of me.
"Yes."
A blinding light slammed through my skull.
I staggered, memories crashing in like a dam had broken loose—
A man in a lab coat handing me a file labeled Project PROMETHEUS.
A briefing room.
A simulation chamber.
People arguing.
Me, volunteering.
Volunteering.
I wasn't dragged into this.
I signed up.
The voice returned. Calm. Gentle.
"You are not a player. You are the architect."
My knees hit the floor.
"No. No, I'm a detective. I crash-landed here. I—"
"You were placed here for calibration. You chose to forget, for the integrity of the game. But the system is unstable. Players are dying. The simulation is fracturing. It needs its creator."
I stared up at the spinning cube, heart thundering.
What game?
What simulation?
And then it hit me—
The crashes. The anomalies. The hallucinations. The players. This entire island.
It wasn't a place.
It was a program.
One I had helped build.
One I had locked myself inside.
The cube slowly descended until it hovered right in front of me, humming with energy.
"You may regain control," the voice said. "But doing so will erase the current world. Everyone inside will be lost."
My hand hovered inches from the cube.
Nora. The others. The survivors.
They were real now. Weren't they?
I pulled back.
"No," I said. "Not yet. I'm going to fix this the hard way."
The cube pulsed.
"Manual override accepted. You have chosen the path of responsibility."
A click echoed from behind the pedestal. A panel opened, revealing a tunnel carved through bedrock.
And in it—the original server logs.
The core of the simulation.
If I could reach it, maybe I could stabilize this world. Or at least figure out who else was behind this mess.
I took one last look at the names on the wall.
Mine didn't scare me anymore.
But the emptiness next to it?
That meant the story wasn't done yet.
Not by a long shot.
LEVEL 9 UNLOCKED
Skill Unlocked: Code Vision — Temporarily perceive hidden anomalies in the environment.
Intelligence: +15%
Decision Tree Access: Enabled (Choose critical plot paths)
The island wasn't cursed.
It was coded.
And I was the ghost in the machine.