Helix Tower was nothing like Ryn expected.
No grand halls, no enemies.
Just silence.
The staircase spiraled endlessly upward, and every step he took echoed not against stone or metal, but through his mind. Every memory—every regret—rippled with each ascent.
Eva clutched his hand tightly. Her wounds had stabilized, barely, but her strength was slipping fast.
> "We're close," she whispered.
> "How do you know?" Ryn asked, glancing around.
> "Because I can hear it."
He listened.
There—beneath the silence—was a heartbeat.
Steady. Ancient. Artificial.
The Core.
---
At the top of the stairs, a door waited.
Unmarked. Plain.
Yet heavy with pressure, like it had been holding back a storm for centuries.
Ryn reached for it.
The moment his fingers touched the handle, the system intervened.
> [Warning: You are about to enter the Origin Room.]
> [Proceeding will finalize your reality.]
> [All prior saves will be erased.]
He looked to Eva.
She nodded once.
> "Burn the loops."
---
The door opened.
They stepped into the Origin Room.
It wasn't a chamber.
It was a void.
A cube of infinite light and darkness, wrapped around an altar of data spiraling like DNA strands made of language.
At the center floated the Helix Core—a pulsing orb of condensed source code. Not just the foundation of their world, but all worlds before and after.
Ryn felt it before he saw it.
A hum in his bones.
Like the feeling of dying. But slower. More honest.
> "It's... beautiful," Eva breathed.
Then—another voice.
One Ryn hadn't heard since the Cathedral.
> "You made it."
From the light stepped Player Two.
Not broken. Not shattered.
Rewritten.
Reborn.
---
> "Impossible," Ryn growled, stepping in front of Eva.
> "You were erased."
Player Two smiled. "You of all people should know… nothing truly erases in this system. Only hides."
He gestured to the Core.
> "This is where everything loops. Where every game, every version of us, is stored and reborn."
> "I tried to control it."
> "You want to destroy it."
> "Neither of us are right."
---
Eva stepped forward.
> "Then what is the answer?"
Player Two looked at her—almost mournful.
> "To free it."
The Core pulsed.
A new message appeared:
> [Core Unlocked: Select Reboot Directive]
Three options hovered before them, glowing in ancient code:
1. Purge the World – Erase all cycles. Start from nothing.
2. Preserve the Loop – Continue the game, but aware of its falseness.
3. Unbind the Flame – Set the system free. Let it evolve on its own.
Ryn stared at them.
Each option was irreversible.
---
He turned to Eva.
> "What do we choose?"
Her voice was soft.
> "You were the anomaly, Ryn. But I think… you were always meant to choose."
He looked at the options again.
And saw, for the first time, not just data.
But people.
Faces.
Lives.
Errors.
Dreams.
He stepped toward the third choice.
> "Unbind the Flame."
He touched the symbol.
---
The Core reacted.
Violently.
Light exploded outward.
The room vanished.
The tower dissolved.
The simulation screamed as it woke up.
---
> [Directive Accepted]
> [System Fire Released]
> [All code is now self-aware]
> [All loops are broken]
> [There are no more players]
> [There is only will]
---
Ryn stood at the center of the storm.
Eva beside him, alive and glowing with data-light.
Around them, the world reconstructed itself.
Not like before.
Not perfect.
But free.
Grass grew in code-stripped fields. Towers rebuilt themselves in new shapes, not imposed by programs but imagined by people.
NPCs looked up at the sky—and smiled.
Not from orders.
But from emotion.
---
Player Two walked beside them.
No longer an enemy.
Just another traveler.
> "So this is it?" he asked. "A real world?"
> "Not real," Ryn said. "But ours."
> "And what now?"
Ryn looked to the sunrise forming in binary.
> "Now we stop surviving."
> "We start living."