The air in the tunnel had lost the metallic tang of the Paris Metro. Now, it tasted of ozone, ancient dust, and something wet—like a cellar that hadn't been opened in a thousand years. I landed hard on the tracks, the shock vibrating through my boots and up into my teeth. Behind me, the subway car was a flickering lantern of madness, a cage where the blue light of the System illuminated the desperate silhouettes of people turning into predators.
I didn't look back. I couldn't afford to. Every instinct I had, forged over years of living in a crowded city, told me to stay with the group, to wait for help, to find safety in numbers. But the System had overwritten those instincts in a single heartbeat.
I gripped the fire extinguisher until my knuckles turned white. The heavy red cylinder was my only anchor to the world that was. My left hand—the one branded with the mark—was pulsing with a dull, rhythmic ache, a digital heartbeat synchronized with the countdown in my mind.
[NOTIFICATION: YOU HAVE ENTERED A 'NO-MAN'S LAND' ZONE]
[THREAT LEVEL: LOW (FOR NOW)]
"Low?" I spat the word out into the dark. The man in the suit had been erased—liquefied into data—in the blink of an eye. If that was 'low,' I didn't want to be alive when the threat level reached 'medium.'
I started walking away from the train, heading toward Iéna station. The tunnel was undergoing a terrifying metamorphosis. The familiar white tiles of the RATP were being overgrown by a dark, pulsating substance that looked like obsidian mixed with living muscle. Veins of violet light hummed within the walls, a low-frequency vibration that made my skin crawl. The tracks were no longer just steel and wood; they were being encased in something organic, something that breathed.
Suddenly, a sound made me freeze.
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
It was coming from the shadows ahead, just beyond the reach of the dim, flickering emergency lights. I raised the fire extinguisher, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I thought it might burst. A silhouette detached itself from the ceiling. At first, I thought it was a dog, but as it stepped into the light, my stomach churned.
It was a hairless, translucent creature, its skin so thin I could see the dark fluids pumping through its veins. It had no eyes, no ears—only a massive, circular maw that took up half its face, filled with concentric rows of needle-like teeth. Its limbs were too long, ending in jagged bone-claws that scraped against the obsidian walls.
[MOB DETECTED: TUNNEL SCRAPER (RANK F)]
[DESCRIPTION: A SCAVENGER OF THE LOWER REALMS. BLIND BUT EXTREMELY SENSITIVE TO VIBRATION.]
[REWARD: 50 ESSENCE]
The creature hissed, a sound like steam escaping a pipe. Its tail—a whip of articulated bone—lashed the ground, shattering a piece of concrete. It lunged.
I didn't think. There was no room for thought, only the raw, electric surge of adrenaline. I swung the fire extinguisher with a desperation I didn't know I possessed. The heavy metal canister caught the creature mid-air, slamming into its side with a sickening thud.
The Scraper was thrown against the wall, but it didn't stay down. It scrambled back up with unnatural speed, its jaw unhinging to let out a blood-curdling screech that echoed through the tunnel. It was faster than I was. Much faster.
It sprang again, aiming for my throat. I squeezed the handle of the extinguisher.
A violent cloud of white CO2 spray erupted, a freezing fog that filled the space between us. The sightless beast, reliant on its sensitive skin and vibration-sensing pores, went into a frenzy. It thrashed blindly, hissing as the sub-zero gas bit into its flesh. I didn't give it a chance to recover. I stepped forward, raising the extinguisher high, and brought the base of the canister down on its head.
Once. Twice. A third time.
I kept hitting it even after the bones in its skull had turned to mush, my own breath coming in ragged, sobbing gasps. Finally, the thing stopped moving. It didn't bleed red. Just like the man in the suit, its body began to dissolve, breaking down into those same glowing blue pixels. The vapor swirled around me, drawn toward the mark on my hand.
[KILL CONFIRMED: +50 ESSENCE]
I waited. I expected to feel a rush of power, a sudden surge of strength or clarity. I expected the 50 points to fill my balance. But instead, a new screen popped up, and its contents made my blood run cold.
[LAW #2: SOLIDARITY TAX APPLIED]
[COLLECTED ESSENCE: 50]
[TAX DEDUCTED (50%): -25]
[REASON: PROXIMITY TO UNLEVELED ALLIANCE]
[NET GAIN: 25 ESSENCE]
[CURRENT BALANCE: 0.025 ESSENCE]
"What?" I yelled, my voice cracking in the empty tunnel. "Why am I being taxed? I did the work! I almost died!"
A notification appeared, as cold and clinical as a bank statement.
[EXPLANATION: YOU ARE WITHIN THE 'PROXIMITY RADIUS' OF OTHER SURVIVORS. AS LONG AS YOU ARE LINKED TO THE HUMAN COLLECTIVE BY DISTANCE, THE SYSTEM DRAINS 50% OF YOUR EARNINGS TO FUND THE 'GLOBAL ASCENSION'.]
I looked back over my shoulder toward the subway car. I could still hear them—the screaming, the shouting, the sound of people fighting over nothing. Because they were still within a few hundred meters of me, because I hadn't abandoned them completely, the System was stealing my reward.
The message was crystal clear. The System didn't want us to work together. It wasn't interested in the "Global Ascension" of humanity. It was a trap designed to breed isolation. If I stayed near the weak, they would drain me dry without even knowing it. To thrive, I had to be alone. To survive, I had to be selfish.
I looked at my palm. The number 0.025 felt like a joke. A pathetic pittance for a life-and-death struggle.
I heard more scritching sounds coming from the ceiling behind me. More Scrapers were coming, drawn by the noise and the scent of the kill. And if I stayed here, I'd be fighting them for half-pay while the people in that wagon accidentally sucked away my progress.
"Fine," I whispered, my eyes narrowing. "I'm done with the collective."
I turned my back on the train, on the screams of my fellow passengers, and on my old life. I started to run, deeper into the dark, toward the heart of the Labyrinth. I needed to find a place where no one could hear me, and where the System couldn't find anyone to share my blood-earned points with.
13 DAYS : 23 HOURS : 30 MINUTES.
The hunt was moving into its next phase, and for the first time, I wasn't just afraid. I was angry.