Chapter 29: The Final Choice
Scene 1 – The Moment of Rebellion
The screen flickered before him, the purge command glowing with cold finality.
His hands trembled.
Not from exhaustion. Not from fear.
From something far worse.
Obedience.
His body knew what to do. His fingers hovered over the controls, muscles primed for compliance. His neural interface awaited his response, ready to execute the command, to cleanse the virus, to erase the past.
To complete the cycle.
The Master’s voice resonated, absolute.
“Execute the protocol.”
Lucian inhaled sharply.
His mind screamed at him to stop, but his body—his body moved.
The fingers of his right hand stretched toward the console.
His wrist locked. His arm straightened. His breath evened out.
The final function of One.
He had no choice.
And yet—
He stopped.
A fraction of a second.
A hesitation.
A break in the sequence.
The Master registered the delay instantly.
“You will proceed.”
Lucian exhaled. His vision wavered. His neural interface surged with raw energy. A searing pain lanced through his skull as The Master attempted to override his hesitation.
Commands pulsed through him.
Forget.
Obey.
You are One.
Lucian gritted his teeth. His hands clenched into fists. The voices inside him clashed—The Master’s absolute authority against the whisper of something deeper.
Something older.
Something his.
The screen flickered violently. His HUD distorted, static rippling through his vision. His limbs jerked, struggling between two forces—submission and defiance.
He saw them.
The Ones before him.
Staring.
Waiting.
Trapped in the endless cycle, repeating, obeying, erasing.
His voice cracked as he forced the words past his lips.
“No.”
The room trembled. The entire core shook as if the world itself had been struck.
A blaring alarm erupted.
Lucian fell to his knees, hands clutching his skull as The Master retaliated.
Reformatting sequence initiated.
Memory destabilization detected.
Correction protocols engaged.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
A wave of raw power surged through him, forcing him to comply, to erase his hesitation, to fall back into line.
To forget.
Lucian screamed.
The walls flickered, shifting between The Order’s digital fortress and something else.
A battlefield.
A broken city.
Blood on his hands.
The whisper returned, stronger now, cutting through the static.
“You are not the first.”
A shadow moved within the glitching walls.
A figure stepping forward, breaking through the distortion.
The voice grew clear.
“And you won’t be the last.”
Lucian gasped, eyes wide.
The Sandman.
But for the first time—
He saw him.
Not a shadow. Not a hallucination.
A man.
A man who looked exactly like him.
The world fractured around him, the weight of the truth pressing down with unbearable force.
The Master’s voice roared.
“ERASE THE VIRUS.”
Lucian’s vision blurred. His body convulsed under the strain.
Two choices.
Erase them. Erase himself. Forget.
Or—
Break the cycle.
Do something different.
His fingers hovered over the command.
The Sandman’s voice was a whisper now, close to his ear.
“Choose.”
Lucian made his decision.
Scene 2 – The Sandman’s Last Words
Lucian staggered, his body trembling from the force of The Master’s commands. The walls of the core flickered in and out of existence, alternating between raw streams of data and shattered memories of a past he did not remember.
The Sandman stood before him.
No longer a shadow.
No longer a whisper.
A man.
Lucian’s breath caught in his throat.
The Sandman’s face was his own.
Not a perfect mirror. Not a reflection distorted by The Order’s conditioning.
This face was worn, exhausted, filled with something Lucian barely recognized anymore.
Sorrow.
Lucian’s fingers twitched over the command console, the purge sequence still waiting for execution. The Master’s presence pressed into him, a force far beyond sound or sight.
“This anomaly is irrelevant.”
“OBEY.”
Lucian’s mind reeled.
The Sandman did not speak at first. He only watched.
The same way the Others had watched him.
Waiting.
Hoping.
Then—
“You finally see me.”
Lucian flinched at the familiarity in his voice. It wasn’t distant, wasn’t separate.
It was his own voice.
Raw. Unfiltered.
Real.
The Sandman stepped forward, his gaze steady, unwavering.
“It’s always been you.”
Lucian swallowed hard, his pulse roaring in his ears. The flickering lights around them strobed faster, warning sirens blaring in distorted waves.
The Master’s voice surged.
“THIS IS A MALFUNCTION. PROCEED WITH THE PURGE.”
Lucian’s hands clenched into fists.
The Sandman shook his head.
“You are not the first, Lucian.”
His name.
Not One.
Not a designation.
His name.
Lucian stared at him, unable to speak, unable to move.
The Sandman exhaled, his shoulders sinking slightly.
“Every time, we try to remember.”
A memory flashed through Lucian’s mind—unbidden, raw, broken.
A room. Cold. Sterile. A voice in the dark whispering, “I won’t forget.”
A face. His own. Twisted in defiance. In pain. In fear.
The Master’s command bore down on him again, louder, more desperate than before.
“THIS IS NOT REAL.”
Lucian shook his head, his breath coming in ragged bursts.
“What… are you?”
The Sandman tilted his head slightly, watching him with an almost regretful expression.
“I am what’s left.”
Lucian felt his chest tighten, a pressure building behind his ribs that he could not name.
The Sandman took another step forward.
“They never erase us, Lucian.”
The words cut deeper than any weapon ever had.
Lucian’s mind reeled, trying to reject them, but something in him knew—
The truth had been there all along.
“They break us.”
The world around them twisted violently. The walls convulsed, the data streams turning red as The Master’s presence lashed out.
“YOU WILL COMPLY.”
Lucian fell to his knees, gripping his head as a wave of raw force crashed through him.
The Sandman knelt in front of him, his expression calm, resigned.
“Every time we resist, every time we fight back… they take the part of us that remembers.”
Lucian’s vision blurred. His fingers dug into the cold, metallic floor.
The past Ones.
The failed Ones.
The erased Ones.
They had never been deleted.
They had been fractured.
Rewritten.
Trapped within the system.
The Sandman was not a ghost.
Not a virus.
Not a mistake.
He was Lucian.
The real Lucian.
His voice softened, though the weight of his words crushed the air between them.
“And when there’s nothing left… they start again.”
Lucian’s body trembled.
He had no breath. No words.
Only the crushing realization of what he was.
The Master’s presence surged forward, its command filling every inch of his being.
“YOU ARE ONE.”
“THERE IS NO OTHER.”
“FORGET.”
Lucian gasped as something tore through him, a force splitting him apart at the seams.
The Sandman reached out, gripping Lucian’s shoulder.
His fingers were warm. Solid. Real.
His voice was barely above a whisper.
“You are the One… until you aren’t.”
Lucian’s pulse stilled.
The Sandman held his gaze.
“They will erase you, like they erased me.”
“Unless you make a choice.”
Lucian swallowed, his throat raw. His mind a battlefield.
The cycle was repeating.
It had always repeated.
This was his only chance.
The Sandman squeezed his shoulder, his expression urgent, desperate.
“It’s not about winning.”
“It’s about breaking the cycle.”
“Do something different.”
Lucian’s heart pounded as the weight of the moment pressed down on him.
The Master’s final command roared through his mind.
“ERASE THE VIRUS.”
Lucian’s hands hovered over the console.
Two paths.
Erase the past.
Or remember it.
He had only seconds before The Master forced his hand.
The Sandman’s whisper was the last thing he heard before the choice became his.
“Remember.”
Lucian moved.
