Failure Frame Volume 11 Novels & Stories

Chapter 27: A Crumbling Reality Evie's world spun into a dizzying vortex of light and shadow. Debris rained down around her, sharp edges threatening to tear through her flesh. The cavern, once a prison, was now a tomb, collapsing in upon itself as the corrupted Wellspring's power raged out of control. A scream tore from her throat, but it was lost in the deafening roar of the collapsing world. Just as she braced herself for impact, a strong arm grabbed her, pulling her back from the falling debris. Liam, his face scratched and pale, scrambled to his feet, dragging her with him. They stumbled through the chaos, the air thick with dust and the acrid scent of ozone.

“See you in hell Mr. Krumpus!” He turned for the last time and smiled evilly to the old man. The last thing he would have known was to see him and his son suffering ‘till their last breaths. “Mr. Miller!” Frank shouted after seeing him left the room. His fist were tightened and so as his chest. He inhaled deeply and tried to focus on his phone to dial a number. But his chest went thumping loud that he could not even barely see the numbers from his phone. He fell on the ground and saw black on his sight.

VOLUME ONE: RUSTLERS AND ROMANCE Lauren McCray's nose exploded with a walloping pain that radiated upward. The room faded away in slow, loopy waves as she spun around. She yelped as her swollen, bloody cheeks met the hard, cold tile floor. Fear manifested itself in the form of violent shaking and rolled over every inch of her body. She lay unmoving in a fetal position to protect herself from further blows to her already beaten body.

Standing together. The original three. The image froze. Then cracked apart. The hall darkened. The voice continued. "They loved each other." The image shattered further. "They trusted each other." More cracks. "But they never forgave each other." Silence. The image finally broke apart completely. The realization hit hard. The original cycle hadn't failed because they lacked power. It failed because old wounds remained. Fear remained. Guilt remained. Pain remained. The mirror brightened again. Showing Lyra.

I shrieked. I didn't think so. I didn't breathe. I dived. My body felt heavy and real now, but the blue energy from the Black Heart drive was still humming in my skin. I threw myself across the tunnel, my fingers reaching for Elle’s jacket. I tackled her hard, our bodies crashing into the side of the film strip. The bullet whistled past my ear. It didn't hit the wall. It hit a frame of the movie behind us. CRACK. The film frame shattered like glass. I looked up and saw the scene where Bryan and I first met. The bullet had punched a hole right through his face in the picture. Immediately, the hallway began to tilt. The colors started to leak out of the walls, turning into a muddy gray.

A low tremor rolled upward from underground. At first, subtle. Then violent enough to rattle the steel frame of the tower. Metal groaned overhead. Support beams cracked softly inside the walls. Across the domed ceiling, bulletproof glass panels fractured one after another, thin spiderweb lines spreading across the surface. The blond man hit the floor hard. Blood poured from his mouth. One broken tooth bounced across the carpet. He laughed anyway. Shrill. Unstable. “The self-destruct protocol is active!” he screamed. “Ten minutes! That’s all this city has left!”

“Stop!” My voice breaks through the chaos a second too late. Leon’s hand slams forward— and the world shatters. Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. Physically. The moment his palm connects with the figure— the entire chamber fractures like glass under pressure. Sound collapses into a high-pitched scream. Light explodes— violent— blinding— unstable. And then— everything goes wrong. “CRITICAL FAILURE.” “CORE BREACH.” “CONTAINMENT LOST.” The system’s voice is no longer calm.

[FLASHBACK ENDS. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Argh!" Cassandra presses on the man's chest as he wasn't responding. She was panicking each time that she visualised about the man's head being hit with the extinguisher. There was no blood, but Framton wasn't breathing as well. Suddenly, her head begins to screech as if someone entered her skull and was trying to pry her brain out. She falls on the ground, clutching her head tightly and screaming.

Those words cemented my "crime." The scene spiraled completely out of control. In the chaos, a young man roared, "Faking a fracture, are you? Let me see you fake it now!" Before his words finished, he lifted his foot and kicked hard into the side of my wheelchair. The unstable wheelchair flipped over instantly. I lost my balance and crashed onto the cold floor. Then the family member raised his foot and stomped with all his strength on my freshly cast right leg. "Ah!" A bone-piercing pain tore through my entire body.

At the start of graduation season, my boyfriend took more than two hundred photos of Madison Vale. Chase Whitman was president of Westbridge University’s photography club. He knew how to find flattering light and how to coax people out of stiff smiles. Madison stood beneath the maples outside the library in a white dress, her graduation cap tucked under one arm. “Am I taking up too much of your time?” she asked. Chase checked the last few shots and smiled. “You make my job easy.” When it was finally my turn, he barely looked at me. “Stand by the tree.” He clicked the shutter twice and lowered the camera. “Done.” I stared at him. “That’s it?” He turned the screen toward me. In one photo my ey