He doesn't count days. He counts corpses.
---
6:00 P.M.
Naomi's Hideout — Beneath a Collapsed Embassy in Prague
Smoke fills the air.
Internet is fragmented.
Governments are in hiding.
Naomi stitches a wound on her leg by candlelight.
Her mind is on ten cities.
On the screams.
On the silence.
Then—
A voice crackles through a stolen radio.
> "Naomi. It's her. She's alive."
Naomi jolts upright.
> "Who?"
> "Yuzu. We just saw her on a feed out of Seoul. She's… she's speaking. In front of crowds."
Naomi grabs the laptop. Opens the encrypted feed.
And there she is.
Yuzu.
Same face. Same voice.
Even the scar on her chin.
> "We must embrace Hollow," the girl says to a cheering crowd.
"Silas gave us purpose. Naomi gave us only ruin."
Naomi's eyes widen.
> "No. No. That's not her. That's not Yuzu."
> "Then who is it?" someone asks.
> "A ghost wearing her skin."
---
6:22 P.M.
Elsewhere — Silas's War Chamber
Dark room. Endless screens.
Each one displays a city. A face. A name.
Silas sits cross-legged in the center.
He speaks into a recorder.
> "I was six when I killed my first."
"A man. Beaten until he begged."
He presses a button.
A massive counter appears on the wall:
> DEAD: 6,327,091
GOAL: 10,000,000
REMAINING: 3,672,909
> "Each death meant something. Each taught me more about the lie of empathy."
He leans forward.
Eyes gold. Calm. Focused.
> "When I reach ten million, I will transcend this world."
"Because it's not about destruction. It's about evolution."
He looks to the side.
> "Project Yuzu's Echo is working. They're calling her the truth now."
---
6:50 P.M.
Resistance Network — Confirmation
Taye analyzes the Seoul broadcast.
> "That's not Yuzu. It's a deepfake with surgical mapping. Synthetic voice from her old interviews. Military-grade realism."
Naomi clenches her jaw.
> "He didn't just steal her image.
He revived her to erase the real one."
She turns to the team.
> "We bury this copy.
Or the world forgets what Yuzu actually stood for."
---
7:10 P.M.
Silas Uploads a Global Message
No visuals.
Just his voice.
Smooth. Steady.
> "Truth Twenty: People don't want salvation.
They want a face they recognize while they drown."
> "So I gave them one."
A still image of Yuzu smiling appears.
The message ends with text:
> "The Hollow God has spoken. Accept your peace or die in noise."
---
8:00 P.M.
Naomi Holds a Funeral — In the Ruins
She lights a single candle.
No speeches.
Just silence.
Then she pulls out a data drive.
> "I recorded the real Yuzu," she whispers.
> "Before this all began."
She plugs it in. Plays the clip.
Yuzu's real voice crackles:
> "If they use my image to silence truth, burn me. Burn every lie."
---
Final Scene
Silas walks through a graveyard made of collapsed buildings.
He carves a new number into the stone with a knife.
6,327,092.
He looks to the stars.
> "Each soul is a brick.
Each lie — a layer of mortar."
> "And when it's built, I'll sit on a throne of ten million bones."
He turns back toward the camera.
> "Naomi, you're running out of time."
---
Final Line:
> "I didn't bring back Yuzu," Silas whispers,
"I made her matter more than you ever did."
---