Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 121 - Chapitre 130

I stared at the thing sitting next to me. It had Bryan’s face. It had his smile. It even had the way he tilted his head when he was thinking. But the blue circles in its eyes were dead. They did not blink. They did not show warmth. They just looked at me like a camera looking at a scene.My heart felt heavy in my chest. I wanted to reach out and hold his hand, but I stopped myself. If I touched him, would I feel skin, or would I feel the cold, hard surface of a machine? I did not want to know. I looked down at my hands. The purple ink was still there. It was creeping up my wrists, forming words that I could not read yet. The "Writer" was inside me, and she was watching everything I did."Why are you looking at me like that, Hazel?" the thing said. Its voice was smooth. Too smooth. It sounded like a recording played through a speaker. "We are safe now. The city is gone. The Publisher is gone. We can finally start our life."I bit my lip to keep from shaking. "Who made you?" I asked. My

I fell through the void. It was not a long drop, but it felt like I was falling through years of wasted time. My stomach turned, and the air around me felt like thick, hot oil. Then, I hit solid ground. I landed on my knees in a long, dark hallway. My breath came out in short, sharp gasps. My body ached, but I did not stop. I forced myself to stand.The walls here were not made of marble or gold. They were made of plain, grey concrete. It looked like the basement of a very old building. This place did not belong to the high-tech world of the Architect. This felt like the real world. I looked at the floor and saw dust. I touched it. It was real dust. I was back in the physical plane.I remembered the screen. The woman with the knife. Bryan was in one of these rooms, and I had to find him before that woman did. I ran down the hall, my feet slapping against the ha

The black ships hung in the air like heavy stones. Blue beams of light hit the streets of Lagos, turning buildings into dust and smoke. People below ran in every direction, but there was nowhere to go. The ships were everywhere, covering the sky like a lid on a pot.I looked at my right arm. The purple ink was moving fast, stretching across my skin like veins. It was forming a map of the city. Every time a ship prepared to fire, a red light pulsed on my arm. It was a warning system. The "Writer" was still part of me, even if I was in the real world now. She was feeding me data from the enemy’s network."They are moving fast," Bryan said. His face was tight with focus. He watched the ships with eyes that had seen too much. "We need to get to the tunnels under the city. The foundation there is thick. It might hold against those beams."

The blast was blinding. I didn't wait to see if the ground held. I threw my body backward, away from the yawning pit, and rolled into the dirt. The force of the shot tore through the concrete. Debris flew like shrapnel, cutting my arms and face. Everything went dark. For a second, there was only the sound of high-pitched ringing in my ears.When I opened my eyes, the world was shaking. The Bryan-thing was gone. The explosion had sent him flying toward the edge of the pit. I scrambled to my feet, my legs burning with pain. I looked down into the swirling blue energy of the core. He was hanging on by one hand, his fingers digging into the cracked earth. The blue light in his eyes was blinking, erratic and weak."Help me," he said.His voice was small. It wasn't the cold, machine-like tone he had used before. It was th

The Publisher stood there, looking calm and well-fed. He did not know that I had already burned down his office, his city, and his life. He did not know I had seen the back door of his universe. To him, I was just a girl who was about to be part of his new experiment."You look lost, Hazel," the Publisher said. He walked around his big wooden desk and sat down. He didn't offer me a chair. "I suppose you are confused about where you are. Let me guess. You remember some fight, maybe a city in the sky? It’s a common glitch in the early stages of the draft."I looked at the desk. There was a gold pen sitting there. It was the same one. I wanted to reach out and snap it in two, but I stayed still. I had to be smart. If I attacked him now, I would just trigger another reset. The Editor was watching from somewhere, waiting for me to lose control.