Lahat ng Kabanata ng Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by the Beast : Kabanata 71 - Kabanata 80

  The sky was raining plastic. It wasn't the soft, fluttering descent of snow or the rhythmic beat of rain. It was the heavy, whistling sound of thousands of small, aerodynamic canisters. As the red parachutes caught the wind, the night air filled with a metallic, chemical smell—the scent of a factory being born in the clouds. "Sam, look out!" I screamed from the edge of his hoodie pocket. A canister smashed into the windshield of a parked car nearby, spider-webbing the glass. The lid didn't just open; it **vaporized**. Out stepped a **Blank Slate**. It was the same size as Rowan and me, but it had no clothes, no hair, and no face. Its body was a smooth, matte-grey polymer that seemed to drink the light from the streetlamps. It didn't have joints or seams. It moved like liquid, its limbs stretching and contracting with a horrifying, silent fluidity

  The silver pen didn't draw blood when it pierced Sam’s skin. It drew **light**. A blinding, electric gold surged from the nib, traveling up Sam’s arm and into his chest. He gasped, his eyes rolling back as the "Origin" code—the collective weight of a billion stories—poured into a nervous system that was actually made of cells and synapses. "Kaima, what are you doing?" Rowan screamed. He was fading fast; I could see the marble floor through his torso. He looked like a reflection in a window that was about to be washed clean. "If they watch us, we are just a show!" I yelled over the roar of the vanishing reality. "If we want to stay, we have to become **History**, not 'Content'! Sam has to be the one who carries the memory!" "The stream!" Sam choked out, his body convulsing as the pen’s power took hold. "It’s... it's at ten thousand... fiv

  The floor was a sheet of ice. Every breath I took felt like I was swallowing needles. My muscles, which had spent years—perhaps a lifetime—floating in the suspension gel, were useless strings. I lay on the concrete, gasping, my skin steaming as the warehouse’s cold air hit the warm slime covering my body. Above me, the hum of the warehouse was deafening. It wasn't the rhythmic heartbeat of a story; it was the sound of a **Machine**. The sound of thousands of cooling fans preventing the human brains in these vats from overheating as they dreamed for the Aethel-Corp. "Subject 01 is on the floor! Area 4! Move!" The voices were closer now. Heavy boots thudded against the concrete, echoing like gunshots. I looked at the vat next to me. Rowan’s face was serene, his eyes darting beneath his lids in REM sleep. He was still in the "Integ

  The air in the wasteland didn't just carry the scent of pine and decay; it carried the scent of power. Malphas, the Beast of the South, stood before us like a king in a graveyard. His white linen suit was a sharp, cruel contrast to the mud and blood covering Rowan and me. He looked at us not with anger, but with the terrifying patience of a collector looking at a rare butterfly. "Get... away from her," Rowan rasped. He tried to push himself up from the dirt. The violet veins on his skin pulsed with a dim, dying light. Every time he moved, a wet, hacking cough tore through his chest. He was a god who had burned out his own sun just to get us over a wall. "You speak of ownership, little wolf?" Malphas chuckled. The sound was like glass clinking in a silk bag. "The Alpha of the North rejected her as 'tainted.' He saw a girl who had been touched by a donor. But I? I see a girl

The small room inside the Iron Tower smelled of cedar and old paper, a jarring contrast to the scent of ozone and burning wings outside.The Author held the eraser over the sketchbook like a guillotine. His hand was steady—the hand of a man who had ended a thousand worlds before breakfast."One stroke, Alice," the Author whispered. "The 'Corruption'—the Beast, the violet fire, the pain—it all vanishes. You wake up in a small house. There is a garden. There is a sun that doesn't pulse with data. You will have a mother who remembers your name. You will have a life that isn't a 'Product.'"**CRASH.**Rowan’s massive bronze claw dug deeper into the tower’s wall, stones falling like rain. His dragon-eye, as large as the desk, was a swirling nebula of amethyst and gold.**"ALICE... NO..."** The voice didn't come from his throat; it vibrated through my very teeth. It was the sound of a billion voices screaming in a dying server."Look at him," the Author said, pointing a finger at the giant e