When I was done talking no one laughed. And that's when I knew it really landed.
I explained it. Tommy, of all people, sat with his arms crossed and his jaw tight the whole time. Most conversations were opportunities for a bit. Sana had gone very still, the kind of still that came from someone doing math they didn't like the answer to. Alex kept saying "wait, wait, hold on" every thirty seconds not because he needed me to repeat anything but because his brain clearly needed the extra beats to catch up to what I was telling him."There's a real person," Alex said, when I finally shut up, "in a real hospital, because of the exact tournament we all signed up for."That is what Mira said to me. I haven't looked at it beyond what Dario's cousin heard from another person."And you still want to do it?"I never said that. I said I don't think backing out solves anything already started. I've been in this class for weeks." Whatever it connects to, it connects to if I show up to the Gauntlet or not.
Sana spoke at last, so quietly it cut through the noise better than if she had raised her voice. "Then we need real information before we do anything. No hearsay. Not secondhand cousin gossip, no offense, Dario."None taken, it's true." "If this Mira guy has something real, logs, screenshots, anything, we look at it together. If it is nothing. If it is some conspiracy theory that got attached to a genuinely sad medical thing we register and we go win fifty thousand dollars like normal people. I'm not voting on feelings.
It was the smartest thing anyone had said, annoying as it was, since I'd taken a seat. I messaged Mira right there in party chat for everyone to see, so nothing felt like it was going on behind anyone's back any more. She answered within a minute, as if she'd been waiting for me.
**"Ding! Mira has sent a file: brother_logs_partial.txt
We read it together, four heads and a floating text window none of us could actually all see at once, so I read it aloud. Chat logs. Old ones, before deletion, apparently pulled from a cached forum backup that Mira had scraped before the original posts were taken down. Months ago, during a late-stage Trial run in a guild server, her brother talking about "hearing something". No lag. This is not a bug report . Something he first described, half-jokingly, as *"the system talking back like it meant it."*
The last log message, dated the nite before his account went dark, was just four words.
**"guys I think it's alive"**
Nobody said anything for a long time after that.'Okay,' Tommy said finally, and his voice was smaller than I'd ever heard it. "I'm not saying I believe all of it. But I believe enough of it that I don't feel comfortable letting Ken walk into that stage without the rest of us right next to him.""Same," Sana replied without hesitation."Same obviously," Alex added. You think I'm gonna let you go be the mysteriously missing hero of this story by yourself? No no, no way. That's a team project. 'We're all being judged on this.
Dario didn't say anything, just gave a little nod, like it had been decided when he walked me back to the fountain that morning.So that's what we're doing," I said. 'All of us. Eyes open, no longer pretending this is just a normal tournament.
Party Vote: Is it OK to sign up for Astia Trials?
kenistoocoolforu69: Yep
"Dario: YEAH"
**RyuuMaster_Alex: YA"**
**"xX_Sana_Xx: YES
**Big_Tommy_420:** YES
Yes, five. Unanimous and somewhat heavier for it, as if the game itself had felt the weight of the decision and noted it down accordingly.
Thirteen days to the Gauntlet stage. We were walking in together, whatever waited for us on the other side of it, and that felt like the only version of "prepared" that really mattered.
*To be continued...