Death Progress Bar Novels & Stories

A colleague vanished. “No, no, no,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “This isn’t real. This can’t be real.” I clawed at the air, reaching for the floating shards of code, desperate to stop them from disappearing. I couldn’t. The system was relentless, moving faster than I could comprehend. The mission bars blinked red, flashing warnings. “Host existence is unstable. Choose.” Choose.

The technical distinction placed there to make the unbearable sound like filing. There is no lie. It means exactly what it says. That precision is the point. LUS is not dying. It is finishing. A thing designed for a purpose, reaching the far edge of that purpose, stopping the way a sentence stops when there is nothing left to add. Not interrupted. Concluded. Maya suspects this is intended to comfort her. It does not. She cannot immediately explain why. Then she understands. Death is something that happens to a person. Completion is something a thing does. The difference is the difference between losing LUS and watching it decide that it is done.

As the darkness of the river closed over her, a new notification pinged in her mind—one she couldn't ignore. [Sync Status: 101% EVOLUTION FAILURE] [USER DELETION COMMENCING...]

Consistent with projections. As if the death of six human beings was merely a data point confirming their hypothesis. Elizabeth reviewed the screens with apparent satisfaction. "Excellent. That puts us at 281 remaining specimens, with 42 showing critical status. By tomorrow evening, we should be at 250 or below." "The mortality curve is accelerating," Dimitri observed, moving closer to the display. "The rate of decline is increasing compared to days 10 and 11."

*** Ready for more football with a visit from Killian? END OF PART ONE

At my wedding rehearsal, the officiant asked for the third time for us to exchange rings. My best friend, Stacy Campbell, stood beside me as the maid of honor, looking impish. "The treasure hunt game's started. Guess where the ring's hidden?" My fiance, Jeremy Dean, let out a helpless laugh and started guessing hiding spots. I was the only one staring at the empty box, sweat breaking out across my forehead. It was starting again. This so-called treasure hunt game. When we were kids, Stacy hid my scarf in the boiler room while Jeremy kept watch for her. I searched for four hours and finally dug the scorched corner of it out of a pile of ash. Right before the SATs, my admission ticket go

Her pain was so vivid that anyone seeing the photo could feel it. I suddenly felt a chill go down my spine. A wave of grief and bitterness swept over me, and I felt like I had died all over again. That day, after getting out of the car, I had fallen into a hunting trap and died on the spot—both lives were lost. I gritted my teeth and looked at Enzo. He stood there looking like he'd been struck by lightning—motionless and not even breathing. He stared hard at that photo, and his eyes gradually became more bloodshot.

A piercing alarm echoed through the ICU as my sign of life dropped to zero. The moment my life ended, the System inside Ethan’s mind began screaming frantically. System: [Warning! Warning! The Female Protagonist has died!] [World self-destruction protocol activated! The twenty-four-hour countdown to total annihilation has begun.]

Her breathing steadied with every click. Control. Evelyn needed control. Outside the apartment window, people moved through another gray September morning, completely unaware that civilization was already dying beneath its feet. The interface pulsed quietly in the corner of her vision. CURRENT TASK STATUS:0/3 COMPLETE. CURRENT SURVIVAL RATE:3.7% Evelyn stared at the number. Then slowly reached for her keys. “Let’s fix that.”

“If the files aren’t deleted in the next sixty seconds, the Vermon legacy ends with the boy.” Zander lunged, but the sound of a countdown began to beep from the monitor behind us. “Fifty-nine… fifty-eight…”