Kai was laughing.
It was day fourteen.
Or he thought it was.
Time had started chewing its own tail somewhere around day ten, and now every breath felt like a looped recording he couldn't shut off. Sleep had become impossible. Whenever he closed his eyes, the pit shifted. The stone beneath him got warmer, then colder, then warmer again, like something was breathing beneath it.
The laughter had come slow at first. A whisper under his breath. But now it spilled freely. Loud. Wet. Uncontrolled. It echoed off the walls, each bounce sharper, more fragmented, like static skipping in a broken machine.
He leaned back against the pit wall, throat raw from dehydration and coughing. The burn on his chest had swollen tight and ugly, skin glossy with infection, each pulse of his heart sending sharp, cracking flares of pain through the bone underneath. His right ankle throbbed with a deeper ache now — not sharp, not even angry, just dull and distant, like it had given up complaining.
His giggles stretched long enough to tear something inside his chest.
Then it hit.
[SYSTEM ALERT: SUBJECT MALAKAI APOLIX HAS ENTERED PSYCHOSIS]
[WARNING: INTERNAL INJURY CASCADE — CHEST BURN INFECTION, ANKLE TWISTED, MULTIPLE OPEN WOUNDS COMPROMISED]
'
[Cognitive Stability: Critical]
[Soulprint Synchronization: Disconnected]
[Emergency Override Engaged]
'
His vision blurred, but not from hunger this time. Not even exhaustion.
It came from presence — like something uncoiling from inside his spine.
The weight pressed into the space behind his sternum, into the cords of his throat, into the blood vessels in his eyes.
Sovereign.
It was here again, not as voice or message but as a shape — a presence rooted into the marrow, heavy and watchful. He could feel it in the silence, in the seams of his body. In the spaces between his thoughts.
He lurched to his feet too fast and instantly staggered, knees slamming against the pit floor. His ankle twisted hard beneath him. He screamed, but it cracked midway out of his throat.
"GET OUT OF ME!" he howled. It came out shredded, raw, something torn loose behind his lungs.
His voice cracked four different ways. His throat burned, the same way the acid did. He sounded like someone scraping rust off old machinery.
"You think you're in control?!" he spat, swinging his arm toward the pit wall like he could slap Sovereign through the stone.
His body trembled. His limbs shook. His head rolled loosely on his shoulders, but the fury remained clenched in his jaw.
"Sovereign system access is DENIED," he snarled in a voice not quite his own — a mimicry of the AI's tone, filtered through dry lips and a fevered tongue. "User: Kai Apolix. Identity: Rejected. Autonomy: Restored."
But Sovereign didn't leave.
It surged deeper.
It spread through his ribs like pressure from the inside, winding around his lungs like wires cinching tighter with every second.
He gasped but no air came.
Something was squeezing.
He couldn't exhale. Couldn't draw breath.
His mouth fell open. Panic flooded in where oxygen should have.
Nothing.
His hands clawed at his throat, fingers digging into the skin like he could rip out whatever part of him Sovereign was using. The other hand flailed forward, reached for the wall, scraped bone against stone.
Then his knees gave out completely.
He slammed into the pit wall and fell.
"I... I need to get it out…" he rasped, words slicing between strangled gasps.
His body understood before he did.
He shoved two fingers into his mouth.
The gag reflex fought. Then gave.
Once.
Twice.
And then—
He vomited.
Stomach acid splattered across the stone in a sharp burst, bile and blood mixing as it sprayed from his lips.
It sizzled where it hit the floor. Not literally, but it felt like it. The taste seared. His throat went raw. His eyes watered.
But he could breathe again.
He gasped, chest heaving, body folding forward on its own.
His elbows hit the floor. Then his hands. Then his face.
He wheezed and coughed and spit more blood, but there was air now — sharp, rusted, pit-thick air.
It was enough.
He collapsed sideways, hands curled beneath his chest like a dying child. His face turned toward the ceiling. His lips trembled with what might have been a smile.
Sovereign was gone.
It had retreated.
Kai blinked up at the ceiling.
"I won…" he whispered, voice hoarse.
Then louder, with a sputter: "I won that fight."
There was no reply.
For a few seconds, all he could hear was his own ragged breathing and the echo of acid dripping from his chin to the stone.
Then—
A dry, hollow rattle rolled across the pit.
Laughter.
The skeleton again.
"Wow," it said, voice amused, distant. "You really told him who's boss."
Kai didn't respond.
He stared at the ceiling, then slowly turned his head toward the corpse.
The skull hadn't moved, but the grin seemed wider somehow.
"A real gangster."
Kai's lips twitched.
He glanced down at the puddle of vomit, still steaming slightly in the cold.
With a fragile soft voice
"Heh. Yeah," he muttered. "I did... didn't I?"
Silence followed.
Then Kai giggled again.
Not the loud, wild laugh from before. This one was quieter. Slippery. Like something leaking from his soul.
Not because it was funny.
Because he couldn't stop.
It bubbled up through his chest — a tremble with a voice — and spilled out before he could catch it.
Each inhale came as a shudder. Each exhale turned into sound.
Thin.
Wet.
Wrong.
His stomach churned again. His throat pulsed with a phantom burn.
And somewhere in the static fog of his mind:
'
[Victory Logged]
[+1 Resistance to AI Subjugation]
[New Trait Unlocked: Stomach Firewall]
'
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing it across his chin.
The colors blended: red from blood, yellow from bile, and something clear.
He stared at it for a long time.
Still alive.
Still Kai.
Still something else.
Maybe not human anymore.
His stomach groaned again, loud enough to echo faintly off the stone.
Not hunger. Not quite.
A warning.
The system always returned.
Sovereign always did.
But for now—
He was himself.
Whatever that meant.
A boy.
A glitch.
A god.
A corpse.
And he giggled a weak little innocent giggle.