Semua Bab Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by the Beast : Bab 51 - Bab 60

The door of the warehouse didn’t just open; it groaned like a dying giant.As I stepped across the threshold, the wind hit me. It wasn't the "Wind" of the simulation, which felt like a fan blowing on your face. This was a physical weight. It was a wall of needles that stabbed into my thin, grey bodysuit. It smelled of nothing. No pine, no salt, no dust. Just a sterile, frozen emptiness that tried to freeze the moisture on my eyeballs."Move!" Heda, the Scavenger woman, barked. She didn't look back to see if we were following. She knew that if we stayed still for more than a minute, we would become part of the scenery.Rowan grabbed my hand. His skin was blue-tinged and rough, but his grip was the only thing keeping me upright. We trudged through snow that was as fine as sand and as cold as liquid nitrogen. Behind us, the warehouse—our warm, silver womb—began to fade into the white blur of the storm."Keep your heads down!" Heda yelled over the scream of the gale. "The Collector uses m

The heat was the first thing that broke me.It wasn’t like the sun in the golden field. That sun had been warm, like a blanket. This heat was sharp. It felt like standing too close to an oven that had been left open for a thousand years. The air didn't just sit in my lungs; it burned them.I looked at the sand beneath my feet. It wasn't sand made of stone. It was red, fine, and felt like powdered glass. Every time the wind blew, the red dust bit into my skin."Kaima," Rowan whispered. He was standing beside me, his grey clothes already stained with the red dust. He looked tired. Not just "sleepy" tired, but "end of the world" tired. His hazel eyes were fixed on the man sitting on the throne.The CEO didn't look like a monster. He looked like a man who owned everything. His navy suit was perfectly pressed, even in this heat. His hair was silver at the temples, and his smile was as white as a new screen."Don't look at him," I told Rowan, grabbing his arm. "He wants the eye contact. He

I stared at the mud.A moment ago, it had been cold, gritty, and honest. It was the kind of dirt that stained your skin and made your fingernails ache. Now, it was a thick, bubbling pool of dark chocolate. The smell hit me—not the scent of rain and earth, but the sickly-sweet aroma of a candy factory.It was the most terrifying smell I had ever encountered."No," I whispered, my voice trembling. I reached down and touched the ground. It was warm. It was smooth. It was a lie. "I wrote this. I used the pencil. This was supposed to be real!"The little girl with the blue balloon giggled. The sound was like silver bells, but it made my skin crawl. She skipped through the chocolate-mud, her white dress staying perfectly clean."The Shareholders love 'Realism,' Kaima," she said, popping a small chocolate bubble with her toe. "But they don't like the *uncomfortable* parts of realism. They want the 'Aesthetic' of struggle, but with the comfort of a dessert. It's called 'Gourmet Survival.' It'

The man with the gun didn't belong here.In the simulation, everything had a certain "texture." The Knight felt like iron and honor. The Librarian felt like old paper and secrets. Even the CEO had felt like cold, polished chrome. But this man—this Leo—felt like **noise**.He was breathing fast, the sound harsh and ragged in the white silence. His black jacket was made of a material I didn't recognize—something synthetic and shiny, stained with what looked like coffee and grease. The smartphone in his hand was cracked, its screen flickering with a ghost of a map and a dozen missed calls."Stay back," the man barked, raising his gun. His hands were shaking so hard the barrel of the weapon danced a small, frantic circle in the air. "I don't know what kind of hallucinogen they put in that coffee, but I’m not going out like this. You hear me, you freaks? I’m a detective! I have a badge!"Rowan stepped in front of me, his body tensing into a defensive crouch. He didn't have a sword, but the

The door didn’t just open. It **unravelled**.The wood turned into millions of tiny, silver flecks that swirled like a localized blizzard. The "Cleanup Crew" wasn't a group of men in suits. It was a swarm of metallic locusts—nanites—programmed to disassemble anything that didn't fit the brand."They’re here," Elara whispered, clutching the empty spine of her journal.The room was losing its color. The rug beneath my feet was turning into a flat, grey grid. The posters on the walls were being eaten by the silver fog. It felt like the simulation all over again, but this time, the "Delete" button was physical."Kaima! Look!" Rowan shouted.In the air, the thousands of pages from Elara's journal were glowing with a fierce, blinding light. These weren't just drawings. They were the things Elara had been too scared to say—the "Inconvenient Truths" that the Aethel-Group couldn't monetize.One page, fluttering right in front of Rowan, showed a drawing of a heavy, rusted hammer. On the page we