The throne of masks was breathing.
Not literally—but in that pulsing, uncanny way that made my stomach twist. Each mask—dozens of them—seemed to inhale and exhale in sync, inflating like lungs stitched from old paper and bloodied velvet.
And the figure seated on top?
He wore my face—but not quite.
The smile was too wide. The eyes too empty. It was the expression of someone who had never made a choice for himself, yet had memorized how to fake every human emotion.
The System's interpretation of me.
He rose.
And spoke with Ren's voice:
"You should not be here."
Ren tensed beside me, one hand hovering near the knife at his belt. He whispered, "This is a terminal. A fail-safe built by the System. If a player goes too far off-script—"
"—it creates a mimic to contain them," I finished.
The mimic stepped down from the throne, barefoot, unblinking.
"Yusheng has deviated from role parameters. Identity unsanctioned. Narrative integrity at risk."
"Then write something better," I snapped.
It didn't even blink.
"Correction attempt initiated. Role overwrite commencing."
The walls groaned.
The spiral staircase behind us melted into a shifting wave of masks, each latching onto the glass like leeches. Their faces morphed in real-time—some took on Ren's form, others mine, still others players we'd seen and lost.
Ren drew his blade.
"Don't look into their eyes," he said.
But it was too late.
One of the masks spoke—to me, with my voice:
"You were happier when you obeyed."
Another hissed:
"You're just a glitch. A scribble in the margins."
They swarmed us.
Ren fought like someone who'd done this before—precise, controlled, almost clinical. For every mask that lunged, he cut two down. But they kept reforming, bleeding shadows into the air.
I pressed my palms together, focusing on the thread inside me—the one the mimic didn't have.
A choice.
A memory.
Ren's coin glowed in my chest.
"You think sentiment can overwrite purpose?" the mimic sneered.
"No," I said. "But it can overwrite you."
I lunged forward and tackled it.
We crashed into the floor of the throne room, shards of mask and mirror flying. The mimic writhed beneath me, shifting rapidly—my face, Ren's face, faceless—all flickering like bad reception.
It grabbed my throat.
"You are nothing. Not written. Not needed. Not real."
But I was.
I gritted my teeth and drove the coin-thread through its chest.
Its body seized.
Screamed.
And began to fracture.
The room exploded into glitch-light.
Masks burst from the throne like confetti soaked in blood. The entire chamber destabilized—walls turning into corridors, then rivers, then sky, then text.
Script.
Scrolling across the surfaces.
System override in progress.
Rewriting chain broken.
UNWRITTEN ENTITY: CONFIRMED
The mimic's remains slumped over like a puppet with cut strings.
Its last breath hissed:
"The Director… is watching…"
Then it disintegrated.
I dropped to my knees, shaking.
Ren rushed to me, grabbed my shoulders. "You okay?"
"Define 'okay,'" I rasped.
He smirked grimly. "You're alive. That's more than most who fight a mimic."
"Was that it? Was that the end of Arc 2?"
Ren looked up.
"No."
He pointed at the throne.
It was rebuilding itself—slowly, painfully—but not with masks.
With faces.
Our faces.
And hundreds of others.
"What the hell—"
Ren's voice was hard. "These are the deleted players. The ones who failed to conform. This throne… it's where the System stores them."
My stomach turned.
"All this time… they weren't erased. Just buried."
He nodded. "Their data was compressed into this narrative node. A warning to others. But now that the mimic's gone—"
"They're waking up."
The faces began whispering.
Some were crying. Others laughing. A few repeated names over and over—broken lines of dialogue from forgotten arcs.
Ren stepped toward them. "I recognize some of these."
"You remember players?"
He nodded. "One in particular."
He pointed.
A teenage boy with white hair and eyes too bright.
"His name was Kaito. He saved me once. Refused to kill me when the loop demanded it."
"What happened?"
"The System erased him mid-loop. Said he was too volatile. He didn't get a second chance."
Now the boy's face stared back at Ren from the throne.
Mouth open. Silent scream.
I stepped forward.
The throne flinched.
Like it knew.
And then a voice boomed—one I hadn't heard before. Not Ren. Not the System. Not the mimic.
But deeper.
Older.
"This ends now."
A new figure descended from the shadows above.
He wore a long coat of silver threads, stitched with falling letters. No face. Just a white stage mask.
Every thread on his coat was a name.
A story.
A death.
"I am the Director," he said. "And you are interfering with the script."
The room trembled.
Ren stepped in front of me. "You said the Director was a myth."
"I thought he was," I said. "Turns out myths are just stories told out of order."
The Director raised a hand.
The throne collapsed into a surge of code and mask fragments.
Every face screamed.
The room folded inward—time slamming to a halt.
And then everything went black.
I woke up lying in water.
Not glass this time. Real water.
Salty. Cold.
A shoreline stretched around me, filled with broken stage props and shattered narrative signs. Arcs bleeding into one another. A transition zone.
Arc 2 was over.
Arc 3 was beginning.
Ren crouched beside me, bruised but whole.
I looked at him.
"Did we win?"
He shook his head slowly.
"No. We just lost on our terms."