Chapter 121 121: [Error: code005]
Verónica let out a sigh that echoed throughout the room, her sharp eyes, which had been shining with an intense light, relaxed a little. Next to her, Alices tilted her head with an almost feline movement, and her smile spread like a crack in a cursed mirror. There was fascination and a slight uneasiness in those eyes.
"Wow..." she murmured, her delicate, inaudible voice seeming to draw out a hypnotic energy. "What an interesting child." The last words fell like coins into a pool of mercury, reverberating with a playful gleam that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
The Director was completely silent, processing what he had just heard. After a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, he turned his statue-like profile towards me. "Cyan..." he said, and his tone was not as firm as when I first saw him. He seemed to be processing something before he could say anything. Our eyes met. "Answer me clearly: how far did you see?" How much of the future was revealed to you?"
A lump formed in my throat. I had a feeling this question would come up someday, but I didn't think it would be so soon. This incident had made one thing clear: I couldn't fight alone, and if I wanted his help, I had to be honest.
I took a deep breath, feeling the air cut through my lungs like ground glass, and opened my lips to let the truth out—
[Error: code005]
The message exploded in my mind like a swarm of wasps, one after another.
[Error: code005] [Error: code005]
[Error: code005] [Error: code005] [Error: code005]
.
.
.
A metallic screech echoed loudly. My body arched in pain and a sharp cry escaped my lips. Thousands of bright windows exploded on my retinas, filled with unknown symbols that danced and twisted, fragmenting my vision into pieces that I couldn't fit together.
But then a strange message appeared.
[Warning]
[The system has detected content that violates causality]
Immediately, it felt as if a hot iron had been pressed against my skull. I felt a warm liquid sliding down my chin. I brought a trembling hand to my face, with an irrational fear of finding the worst. When I looked at it, I froze: thick, black blood was dripping from my nose, spreading between my fingers with a colour so dark that it seemed to absorb the light.
My breathing quickened. I could feel something inside me writhing, like insects consuming my intestines. The floor tilted violently and I had to lean on the bed to keep from collapsing.
"Cyan!" The Director's voice sounded distant, distorted, almost swallowed up by an electric buzz.
Alices stepped forward with an alarmed expression, but an invisible force forced her to stop. I could see her lips forming words that didn't reach my ears.
And then, in the midst of the chaos, a mechanical voice echoed directly in my head, cold, devoid of any human emotion.
[Containment protocol activated. Restarting cognitive parameters.]
My vision exploded into white, then black. A deafening heartbeat thundered in my chest. I felt my consciousness being forcibly ripped away, thrown into a frozen void, unable to do anything to resist.
***
When I opened my eyes, there was nothing.
Literally nothing. A completely blank space, no sky, no defined ground, no horizon. Not even shadows. Just an endless white void stretching in all directions.
At first, I thought that by moving around the space I would find a way out, but it was useless. Then I even tried digging into the "ground" beneath my feet, but it didn't work. Every step in this place was a non-existent echo, an absolute silence that threatened to corrode my sanity. I walked aimlessly, because there were no landmarks, not even a hint of anything to tell me if I was moving forward or just going around in circles.
Over time, my sense of space began to break down. I couldn't tell if I was going forward, upward, or falling in slow motion. The very concept of direction ceased to make sense. Worse still, I couldn't calculate how much time had passed. Minutes? Hours? Days? Nothing made sense there.
The strangest thing was realising that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't feel panic. My heart beat calmly, as if this were normal. I just moved, step by step, until my legs began to fail. An inexplicable tiredness took hold of me, as if every muscle were drained. I fell to my knees, and then ended up lying on my back, breathing with difficulty.
I didn't understand why it was so hard to fill my lungs with air. Nor why I had exhausted myself so quickly, considering the magnitude of my statistics—something like this should be impossible. Even so, my mind remained curiously calm. There was no anxiety, no fear, not even curiosity. Just a void, like the one surrounding me.
"System..." I called out in a hoarse voice, breaking the absolute silence.
Nothing.
As always, the system refused to appear. No floating panel, no interface. Just the same endless emptiness.
After a while—or whatever "time" meant there—I forced myself to stand up again. My legs were shaking, but they responded. So I kept walking. And walking.
I repeated the same routine countless times. Walking, stopping, breathing that air that wasn't air, feeling the non-existent weight of the place crushing me little by little... and walking again. So much so that I completely lost count.
My consciousness remained calm as always, but an uncertainty began to grow in my chest.
"Why am I doing this?" I murmured, as if I were asking a simple casual question.
If I gave up, if I just let myself fall and closed my eyes... could I finally rest? What's the point of trying so hard?
Thousands of questions then arose, echoing in my empty head. Where was I really? Was this death? Had I failed so miserably that I didn't even deserve a dignified end?
But something—I didn't know what—prevented me from giving in. I wasn't sure if it was because of one of my abilities or pride, but a small spark, a tiny but stubborn force, refused to let me sink into that endless abyss. So, with a determination that even I didn't understand, I kept going.
Until, without warning, the white box began to crack.