Novel & Cerita Terminal List Book 3

When Carl called, my swollen eyes flicked to the time—almost eleven. The phone buzzed in my hand, fresh tears splashing onto the screen. Three calls. I didn't pick up. Surprisingly, the fourth was from Mia. I was about to shut off my phone when Carl's message popped up: [Stop messing around. I'm not coming back tonight. Stay safe. Your condition isn't serious, right?] A bitter laugh slipped out. I replied: [Not serious at all. Have fun. I'm going to sleep.]

I crumple up that note and shove it back into that envelope until, maybe one day, I will act upon an instinct, but for now… ****************************** Book Three: The Marine Next Door III

She was far from home and she was in unknown territory. Finding what he was looking for, he tilted the book with the title on its spine, To Kill A Mockingbird. A resounding click was heard, and the bookshelves parted into two like the Red Sea to reveal the titanium door with a security pad on the side. Phil punched in the codes in haste, and before you know it, they were inside the secret room.

"Before it's too late." The line went dead. --- End of Chapter Thirty-Nine.

"Good." Then Silas shouted from farther up the shore. "Luna!" She turned. He was standing beside the ancient book. It had opened itself on the ice. Pages were turning rapidly, one after another: Memory. Severance. Fire. Cold. Life. Death. Every paired symbol appeared, then vanished. Finally, the book reached its last page. Blank. Luna approached. Writing appeared, only one sentence. She read it aloud. "Nothing remains inherited forever." Darius came beside her. "That sounds suspiciously like an ending."

Hank tries a symbol, but nothing happens. “Be careful,” Damon warns. “There could be a limit to how many mistakes we can make.” “Or some kind of punishment,” Elena says. That possibility is enough to push me close to the edge of panic. Taking a deep breath, I step back, trying to get a wider view of the surface. And then I see it. Like a sudden flash of knowledge, it hits me. "It's threes," I say, pointing. "Three symbols light up at a time."

One in particular caught her eye. Legends of the End Times. She raised an eyebrow. Okay. A little on the nose. Still, curiosity won. She pulled it from the shelf. The book snapped open as if it had been waiting for her, pages rattling violently in a still, stagnant air. Far too violently. Most were gone. Torn out. The remaining edges were clean, deliberate — like someone had chosen exactly what to leave behind. Only one page remained. Scrawled across it in uneven handwriting that wasn’t printed:

“I gave it to you” That voice rang out. The voice belonging to Dylan. “No, you didn’t” Followed Derrick at once, with cross eyes fixed his way. “Yes, he did” David joined in, pulling forward to the two. “Well, that’s odd. Cause I remember giving it to you” Derrick retorted, voice taking a raise in pitch. Ashley had pulled forward at once, eyes shifting through the figures. “Will you three snap yourselves together and get the rings?!” She called at once, gaze intent on them, but they only responded with yammers, fingers pointing at each other.

Then, their bodies dissolved into countless, shimmering golden motes of light, drifting upward and vanishing into the brilliant sun. I could no longer hold back my tears. I believed my own life would end with their departure, my wish finally spent. But then, the system chimed one last time. [Because Player Cassidy has accomplished a feat of redemption unprecedented since the game's creation, her selfless sacrifice has profoundly moved the foundational laws of 'Terminal Paradise'. [The laws have determined that such devotion deserves an equivalent miracle. [The system will return an equal reward—"Miracle Healing." [Congratulations, Cassidy Eden. You have been reborn.]

The book is the visibility of what was already there. Don wrote in his journal that night. He wrote: The third book is complete. Eighteen years of the arrangement. Three books. The three books are not three separate arguments. The three books are one argument in three movements. The Inside Account: what the accumulation produced in me. The Ground Keeps: what the accumulation produced in the estate. The Emergent World: what the accumulation produced between us.