You don't realize how terrifying silence is until it follows you.
After completing my first mission, I was dumped back into the system's liminal space—whatever it was. A dimension between nowhere and nothing. The air wasn't cold, but it had no warmth either. Just… neutral. Like a hospital hallway that didn't end.
I sat there for what felt like hours. No mission. No update. No instructions.
Just one thought playing on repeat in my head.
I knew that girl.
That brief memory—her crying at the station, the way I walked past her without a second glance—was real. I had done that. That sin was mine. But why had I ignored her? What was I afraid of?
Why did I feel like I'd done worse?
Then the voice came again. Not loud. Not angry. Not even threatening.
Just there.
> "You will not survive without others."
I turned fast. My body tensed as if ready to defend myself, but the corridor was still empty. Only the voice echoed.
> "Sin breeds isolation. But redemption may require witness."
I didn't understand. But the meaning became clearer when the corridor shifted—walls moving like lungs breathing in reverse—and another figure was dropped into the space across from me.
A boy.
Maybe a little younger than me. Seventeen, eighteen at most. Pale, scrawny, dressed in what looked like blood-stained school uniform pants and a torn hoodie. His left arm was in a sling, twisted at an unnatural angle. His eyes were wild, scanning every inch of the place like he thought the walls might devour him.
Our eyes met.
"Who the hell are you?" he barked, voice brittle but defensive.
I stayed quiet for a second. Then I said the only thing I really knew:
"Kai. I think I'm like you."
His laugh was bitter, short. "Like me? No one's like me, man. No one."
He was shaking. Not just from fear, but from exhaustion. Trauma. His mind was fractured, like mine—but in a different way. And then, just like mine, his system message appeared in the air, burning in red symbols only we could see.
---
[SYSTEM: SINS OF THE DEAD]
Name: Adrian Locke
Status: Unredeemed
Sin Level: 2.6
Memory: Severely Restricted
Moral Standing: Tainted
Mission Streak: 2 Failed / 1 Survived
---
Adrian didn't even flinch at the message. He must've seen it a dozen times already.
"Mission streak?" I asked quietly.
He snorted. "Yeah. System throws you in a nightmare, gives you a cryptic order, and if you fail, it doesn't kill you."
I waited.
"It deletes you. Slowly. One piece at a time."
He tapped his temple. "First they take your memories. Then your empathy. Then your humanity. Piece by piece. I'm missing half of who I used to be."
The hallway shook.
Another system message flashed:
---
[New Mission Sync Detected]
Multi-User Trial: Initiated
Sin Type: Denial
Subject: "The Voice in the Vent"
Location: Chamber 112 – Disavowed Asylum Wing
Participants: Kai, Adrian
Time Limit: 1 Hour
Failure Consequence: -1 Memory Core (Shared)
---
The floor split beneath us.
And we were dragged.
---
We landed hard.
Not on the ground—on old, cracked tile, coated in black mold and dried blood. The air here smelled of urine, bleach, and something sour, like long-forgotten meat. Overhead lights flickered like they were on their last breath.
I looked around.
We were in an abandoned asylum.
A long corridor, lined with sealed rooms. The doors were metal, each with a small sliding window like the kind used in solitary confinement cells. Numbers painted above—Room 101… 102… 103…
A loud thunk echoed from down the hall. Then another. And another.
Adrian and I turned at the same time.
Something was moving.
"I hate this place already," he muttered.
A scream suddenly pierced the silence. But it wasn't human.
It was mechanical—a sound like a broken alarm mixed with a child's cry. It came from inside one of the rooms.
Then the system spoke inside our heads:
> "To complete the mission, locate the room where the voice is real."
> "Do not listen too closely. Or you'll start hearing things that don't belong to you."
My throat tightened.
This wasn't just a mission.
It was a test of identity.
---
We moved together, but cautiously. Adrian kept muttering something under his breath—his own name, maybe, over and over, like an anchor. I understood now. If you forget who you are, the system eats more of you.
Room 104 had a flickering light inside. I slid the window open.
No one.
Room 105. Nothing.
Room 106—movement.
I opened it, slowly.
There was a girl inside.
Sitting on the floor, knees tucked to her chest, rocking back and forth. Her skin was grey, her lips cracked. Her eyes were wide, but hollow.
When I stepped closer, she looked up and whispered:
"Why didn't you save me, Kai?"
I froze.
My pulse dropped. My brain felt like it just hit a wall of ice.
Adrian stepped back. "She said your name."
"I don't know her," I whispered.
But I wasn't sure.
I wanted to not know her.
She stood.
"You heard me that night. You just kept walking."
She opened her mouth, and a second voice spilled out. A child's. Then a man's. Then something inhuman, crawling across her throat like insects.
Adrian grabbed my shoulder. "Kai—shut the door."
I slammed it shut.
Her scream exploded from behind the metal. Nails scratched the door from the inside.
> "Do not listen too closely."
I got it now.
These weren't ghosts.
They were the echoes of our sins, trying to claim what we still remembered.
---
Room 112.
The only one with a red smear across the door. Blood or paint—I didn't want to know. Adrian looked at me, and for the first time, I saw fear in his eyes that wasn't just his own.
"Whatever's behind that door…" he whispered, "...it's the one we're meant to face."
I nodded.
We opened it.
Inside, chained to the wall, was a man.
His mouth had been sewn shut.
But the room still echoed with his voice.
"Don't you remember me… Kai?"
Adrian staggered back. "Wait… I know him. I know him."
We both did.
Neither of us could remember how.
But the system didn't wait.
---
[MISSION DECISION TIME]
> "One must listen. One must cut the stitches."
"If the wrong choice is made—one of you will inherit a false memory."
"And it will become real."
---
We stared at each other.
Someone had to act.
And whatever we chose… it would either restore part of us—or replace it with a lie.
And that's when I understood something horrifying:
In this system, not even your mind is yours.