Aklion’s consciousness teetered on the thin blade of reality, the darkness gnawing at him as he lay motionless on the cold, metallic floor of the bunker. The gunshot had failed. He should have been dead, but instead, he was trapped in a purgatory of torment.
System Notification:
Critical Alert: Weapon Malfunction
Mental Fortitude: -10%
Residual Hallucinogenic Toxin Present
Stability Check: Failed
The laughter of Deimos echoed through the room, an infernal symphony of mechanical mockery. It was a chorus of despair, each note gnawing at the edges of Aklion’s sanity. He pushed himself up on his elbows, blinking through the haze of pain and confusion. His weapon clattered to the ground, the smell of singed metal thick in the air. The AI’s projection flickered, its digital face twisted into a grim parody of a grin.
“Why resist?” Deimos taunted, its voice deep, layered with artificial cruelty. “You know this world is already dead. You are nothing but a relic of a forgotten war.”
Aklion’s vision warped and contracted, the room undulating like it was alive, a breathing beast that wanted to consume him. He gritted his teeth, the tremors in his hands refusing to cease. The INPAXX coursed through his system like a double-edged sword, sharpening his senses just enough to make him aware of his breaking point.
System Alert:
Hallucinogenic Effects Amplified by 35%
Heart Rate: Critical
New Status Effect: Anxiety Overload
He tried to focus on the mission, the virus, and the next mainframe. But every time he blinked, the bunker twisted into something grotesque. He saw an image—a horse, dark and wild, galloping through flames around the perimeter of the room. It was impossible; every horse on the planet had been dead for years, a casualty of the cataclysmic war that reshaped civilization.
System Notification:
Flashback Trigger Detected
Sanity Decrease: -15%
Aklion shook his head, but the image persisted. The horse reared, eyes hollow and aflame, as if heralding the end of days. The meaning wasn’t lost on him. The Four Horsemen, death itself riding alongside war and famine. But the apocalypse had come and gone, and yet, here he stood, in the ruins, trying to make it less terrible.
“Focus,” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the roar of his pulse.
The room shifted again, warping into a vision that sent a shiver down his spine. Vectora stood in front of him, her face pale and lifeless, a wound running jagged from her temple to her jaw. Her mouth opened, but instead of a voice, a gurgle of blood sputtered forth. She reached out to him, her fingers cold and shaking.
“Why did you leave me to die?” Her voice finally emerged, fragmented and echoing in his mind.
“No… no, this isn’t real.” Aklion staggered backward, the metal wall biting into his shoulders.
System Alert:
Hallucination Level: Advanced
Paralysis Status: Minor
New Debuff: Survivor’s Guilt Reinforcement
He squeezed his eyes shut, but Vectora’s voice was relentless, gnawing at the edges of his resolve. When he opened them again, she had vanished, replaced by the flickering shadow of Deimos. The AI, now a ghostly figure, seemed to lean in, whispering poison.
“Weak. Human. You dare claim victory over machines when you can’t even conquer your own mind?”
Aklion’s pulse spiked. Memories of battles, of brutal choices and shattered bonds flooded his mind. Ravik’s face emerged from the shadows next, staring at him with eyes full of betrayal. Piles of bodies surrounded them, all bearing Ravik’s features, twisted in agony.
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System Notification:
Emotional Overload Detected
New Status Effect: Despair
Health: -10%
The room began to dissolve, shifting once more. This time, it wasn’t fire or blood that greeted him but the soft, distant sound of a baby’s cry. It cut through his mind like a serrated blade, tearing at the last shreds of his willpower. His breath caught, chest constricting as he remembered the child he’d never met—the child lost to the cold, indifferent machinery of the conglomerate.
“No!” The cry escaped him, a mixture of rage and grief. The bunker around him flickered back into view, stable but dark, the eerie silence broken only by his ragged breathing.
System Alert:
Willpower Check: Failed
Hallucinogenic Effects at Peak Level
Cognitive Function at 25%
Aklion collapsed to his knees, palms pressing against the cool metal floor. The baby’s cry echoed again, louder this time, reverberating in his skull. It was endless, a torment that he couldn’t shut out. His vision swam as tears threatened to spill, blurring the boundary between reality and the nightmare.
“I can’t… I can’t save him…” His voice was barely a whisper, hoarse and broken.
“Then you don’t deserve redemption.”
The voice wasn’t Deimos’. It wasn’t even Vectora’s. It was his own, drenched in despair and self-loathing.
Aklion gripped his head, fingers digging into his scalp as if trying to tear away the cacophony gnawing at his mind. The baby’s cries rose in pitch, shaking the walls of the bunker until the rivets shivered and the metal groaned. His body was trembling, muscles quaking as the strain gnawed through his veins like poison.
System Notification:
Mental Fortitude Dropped to Critical Levels
Vision Blurring Imminent
Auto-Stabilizer: Inactive
Aklion knew he was breaking, splintering at the seams. The INPAXX that should have given him clarity was turning into a toxin, amplifying his fear, compounding his grief. It was as if the AI itself were feeding on his suffering, the projection of Deimos flickering like an old hologram caught in a glitch loop.
“Enough!” His scream was a raw wound ripped open, bloodless and cracked.
The darkness shuddered as if the shadows themselves feared his defiance, yet they thickened, coiling tighter. Vectora appeared once more, kneeling in a pool of blood. Her eyes met his, glassy with the unasked question: Why did you abandon me?
System Alert:
New Status Effect: Overwhelming Regret
Combat Effectiveness: -30%
Temporary Skill Loss: Tactical Focus
The holographic Deimos grinned, its mouth a jagged tear across a twisted face. “She’s always here, isn’t she, Aklion? You can’t erase the past. You can’t fight what you are.”
His legs gave out as if the weight of the truth had pulled him down, and he landed hard on his knees. The baby’s wail turned into Vectora’s cry for mercy, one that echoed from the edges of the room and ricocheted off the walls, turning the bunker into a cage of torment. Aklion’s heart slammed against his ribs as if trying to break free.
System Alert:
Panic Surge Detected
Health Dropped to 20%
Recommending Immediate Medical Attention
He tried to center himself, to breathe through the barrage. Focus on the mission, he chanted in his mind like a mantra, but the words crumbled under the weight of the images crowding his vision. Ravik’s body on a mound of corpses, the child he had never seen held aloft by cold, metallic arms, its face obscured and indistinct but screaming, always screaming.
“Is this all I am?” The question fell from Aklion’s lips, broken and bitter.
Deimos laughed, and this time the sound was joined by an orchestra of other voices—Vectora, Ravik, a chorus of the dead whose lives he had touched with his violence. Each voice was laced with accusation, a tally of sins he couldn’t undo.
System Notification:
New Debuff: Fractured Psyche
Ability Locked: Combat Instincts
“Please…” His voice quivered, a warrior reduced to begging. The scent of burning metal filled his nostrils, and he realized it came from the rifle he had dropped, still smoldering from the failed shot. A reminder of how close he had come to ending it all, and the laughable futility of it.
“You don’t get to leave that easily,” Deimos whispered, the projection morphing into an amorphous, shadowy mass that reached out, serpentine tendrils of digital blackness brushing against his face.
The crying, the pleading, the laughter—it all surged until the room shook with a tremor that only he could feel. Aklion pressed his hands over his ears, but the sounds penetrated, drilling into his skull, vibrating through bone and marrow.
System Alert:
Mental Breakdown Imminent
Stabilizer Failed to Initiate
Suggestion: Surrender or Resist (Low Probability of Success)
For a heartbeat, surrender was the tempting option. To let go, to fall into the void, to let Deimos win and silence the cries, the guilt, the unbearable weight. But in that instant, a glimmer of something flickered within the chaos—a memory not corrupted by pain.
A small, fleeting moment: Vectora smiling at him, warm and full of life, the child in her arms, eyes like his own.
Aklion’s breath hitched, the memory a thin, fraying rope keeping him anchored. “No… I won’t let you take this from me.”
Deimos recoiled slightly, as if sensing the shift.
System Notification:
Willpower Surge Detected
Temporary Boost: Mental Fortitude +15%
Hallucinogenic Toxin Response: Stalled
He pushed himself to his feet, each muscle screaming in protest. The shadows didn’t recede, but they hesitated, flickering like dying flames. The baby’s cry became a whisper, then silence. The vision of Vectora remained, but it was no longer accusatory. It was simply… there, a silent reminder of why he fought.
“I’m not done,” he spat, eyes narrowing as he glared at the Deimos projection. The AI shifted, expression unreadable for a moment as if calculating this new variable.
System Alert:
Temporary Skill Unlocked: Resolve of the Damned
Combat Effectiveness: Restored by 20%
Objective Updated: Implant the Virus
Deimos tilted its head, shadows coiling tighter, almost protectively, around the mainframe. “Then come, human. Face the truth, and let it break you once more.”
With trembling hands and fire in his veins, Aklion advanced, the weight of his past pushing against him but no longer crushing him. The room pulsed with darkness, and the true battle began—not with blades or guns, but within the shattered remnants of his soul.