The tunnel was an endless throat of obsidian and shadow. I ran until my lungs felt like they were filled with crushed glass, the fire extinguisher heavy in my hand. Every time I slowed down, the scritch-scratch of the Tunnel Scrapers echoed from the ceiling, a reminder that the darkness was alive and hungry.
But as I pushed further away from the subway car, the pulsing red alert of the "Solidarity Tax" finally faded. I was alone. For the first time in my life, being completely isolated in the bowels of the earth was a relief.
[NOTIFICATION: PROXIMITY RADIUS CLEARED]
[SOLIDARITY TAX: DEACTIVATED]
[CURRENT STATUS: SOLO SURVIVOR]
I finally stopped in a small maintenance alcove near what used to be the Iéna station. The walls here were still half-concrete, resisting the organic mutation of the System. A heavy steel door, marked with a faded RATP logo, stood slightly ajar. I slipped inside and slammed it shut, bracing my back against the cold metal.
I was gasping for air, the adrenaline receding and leaving a hollow, shaking exhaustion in its wake. I looked at my palm. 0.025 Essence. It felt like a death sentence. How was I supposed to survive 14 days with the equivalent of a few pennies?
Then, the room reacted to my presence.
A terminal on the wall, ancient and rusted, flickered to life. But it didn't display maintenance logs. The screen turned a deep, royal blue, and a holographic interface projected into the center of the room.
[WELCOME TO THE ASCENSION SHOP – TERMINAL #402]
[LOI N°4: ALL POWER HAS A PRICE.]
"A shop?" I whispered, moving closer.
The interface was divided into categories: Attributes, Skills, Equipment, and Consumables. I swiped through the Equipment tab, my eyes widening at the prices. A Viking Iron Sword was 500 Essence. A Runed Leather Vest was 1,200. Even a simple Healing Ointment cost 100 Essence.
I had 25. I was a beggar in a world of gods.
"Is there anything for someone with nothing?" I asked the empty room.
The terminal beeped, and a special category appeared: [BARGAIN BIN – CORRUPTED ITEMS].
I scrolled through the list. Most were junk—broken daggers, cursed rings that drained health, or maps of realms that didn't exist anymore. But one item at the very bottom caught my eye.
[ITEM: THE DRAUGR'S COLD HEART (COMMON)]
[COST: 25 ESSENCE]
[DESCRIPTION: A fossilized fragment of a Draugr's heart. It still carries the chill of the grave.]
[EFFECTS: REDUCES HUNGER AND THIRST BY 80%. REDUCES FATIGUE. THE USER'S BODY TEMPERATURE DROPS TO 10°C.]
[WARNING: THE USER WILL SLOWLY LOSE THE ABILITY TO FEEL JOY OR WARMTH. HUMANITY WILL DECREASE.]
I stared at the screen. Hunger and thirst were already starting to gnaw at me. The stress was exhausting my body. If I didn't eat or sleep, I would be dead within 48 hours, long before the 14-day timer ran out. This "Cold Heart" wasn't a weapon, but it was a survival kit.
But "Humanity will decrease"? I looked at the steel door. Outside, people were killing each other for a few points of blue vapor. How much humanity was actually left to lose?
— "I'll take it," I said, my voice cracking.
[PURCHASE CONFIRMED. REMAINING BALANCE: 0.000 ESSENCE.]
A small, shriveled object—grey and stone-like—materialized on the terminal's tray. It looked like a piece of charcoal, but when I picked it up, it was so cold it felt like it was burning my skin.
[INSTALLATION IN PROGRESS...]
Before I could react, the object dissolved into a grey mist and seeped through the pores of my chest. I fell to my knees, a scream trapped in my throat. It felt like an icicle was being driven directly into my heart. My blood slowed down. My breathing became shallow, infrequent. The frantic thumping of my heart died down into a slow, heavy thud. Thump... pause... Thump.
The shaking in my hands stopped. The hunger in my stomach vanished, replaced by a strange, hollow numbness. I stood up, and for the first time since the world ended, I didn't feel afraid. I didn't feel much of anything.
Suddenly, the door I had braced shut was kicked violently. The steel groaned.
— "I know there's a terminal in there!" a voice barked from the other side. "Open up, or I'll peel you out of that room!"
I recognized the voice. It was Jacques, a man from my wagon. He had been a construction worker, a mountain of a man with a short temper. He must have followed me into the dark.
I looked at the terminal. It was glowing. Jacques didn't want the room; he wanted the Essence I had just spent.
He kicked the door again, and this time, the hinges buckled. He stepped in, holding a heavy iron pipe. His eyes were bloodshot, roaming the room until they landed on me. He looked at my hand, then at the terminal.
— "You spent it, didn't you? You little rat! You found Essence and you spent it all!"
He lunged at me, swinging the pipe. A few minutes ago, I would have panicked. I would have begged. But the Cold Heart was pulsing in my chest. I watched the pipe move in slow motion. My mind was clinical, cold, calculating.
I stepped inside his guard, slamming the fire extinguisher into his ribs. The sound of breaking bone was loud in the small room. Jacques gasped, collapsing to one knee.
— "Wait! Elias! It's me, Jacques! We worked together on that site three years ago! Don't..."
I looked down at him. I remembered him. He had a wife and two daughters. He used to show me pictures of his garden. But the Cold Heart didn't care about memories. It only saw a threat to its survival.
I raised the extinguisher.
— "Solidarity is a tax, Jacques," I said. My voice sounded different—hollow, like wind blowing through a cave. "And I can't afford to pay it anymore."
I didn't kill him. Not because of mercy, but because it would be a waste of energy. I grabbed his iron pipe—a better weapon than the extinguisher—and kicked him out of the room into the dark corridor.
I closed the broken door as best I could. I sat in the corner, clutching the iron pipe. I didn't feel guilty. I didn't feel sad. I just sat there, waiting for the timer to tick down.
13 DAYS : 22 HOURS : 10 MINUTES.
I was no longer just Elias. I was something colder. Something designed to endure.