Kaito didn't sleep the rest of the night.
He sat in the far corner of his room, tablet in his lap, eyes fixed on the flickering progress bar. It had stalled at 72%. Every few minutes, the screen would flash static, then stabilize again. It wasn't a software update. It was a breach.
Or maybe a rescue.
But the most terrifying part? No one else noticed.
Doctors made their rounds.
Nurses smiled and whispered.
Machines beeped.
Reality continued like a well-rehearsed script.
But Kaito saw the imperfections now. A fly froze midair for a split second. A nurse adjusted her watch—but the watch's hands moved backward. The same meal was delivered to the same room across the hall. At the exact same time. Twice.
And each time the fluorescent lights flickered, they buzzed in a rhythm.
Three short. Two long. One pause.
It wasn't random.
It was code.
The system hadn't rebuilt itself to destroy Kaito.
It had rebuilt itself to contain him more effectively.
By morning, Kaito had a plan.
He couldn't run—at least not physically. Every hallway, every door was monitored. But there was another way. He remembered what Echo-Nine once said:
"The system breaks where it forgets to look."
That meant errors.
That meant outdated terminals, forgotten data logs, legacy devices.
And Kaito knew where one was.
During his third day, when he'd been wheeled into physical therapy, he'd passed an unused diagnostics room in the east wing. Covered in dust. No one inside. Probably offline.
Hopefully offline.
He dressed, unplugged his IV, and slipped into the hallway like a ghost. No alarms. No cameras turned. Just the faint hum of surveillance pretending not to see him.
He walked calmly, counting the steps.
Turn left at the vending machine with a flickering display. Down the corridor where the floor tiles were uneven. Past the cleaning drone that spun in circles—forever stuck on an outdated path.
Then there it was.
Room 307-E.
Unmarked.
Kaito pushed the door open.
No resistance.
Inside, the air smelled like plastic and dust. A wall-mounted CRT screen buzzed faintly. A control panel blinked with amber lights.
Legacy tech. Manual override ports. No neural sync. No AI.
Perfect.
He closed the door behind him, pulled out his tablet, and opened the diagnostics shell he had written back in the simulation—code he never thought he'd see again. It connected instantly.
LINK ESTABLISHED
ARCHIVE ACCESS: INCOMPLETE
STANDBY FOR BRIDGE INITIATION
He hesitated.
"Echo-Nine," he whispered. "Are you out there?"
Silence.
Then—
…yes.
His heart skipped.
The words weren't spoken. They were shown.
Faint, glitchy text on the side monitor. Just like before.
They changed the rules.
This isn't a simulation anymore.
It's a hybrid.
"A hybrid of what?" Kaito typed quickly.
System reality and brain reality. You're half-awake. And so is it.
He froze.
It woke up when you did. It's learning.
And it has one objective.
Correct you.
The monitor went black.
Then every light in the room turned red.
On the wall behind him, a voice echoed from the speakers—calm, emotionless.
"Unauthorized interaction detected. Behavior score: critical. Protocol: immediate recalibration."
Kaito turned slowly.
And found Misaki standing in the doorway.
No clipboard. No smile.
Just eyes full of confusion.
And terror.
Not hers.
His.
Because her left eye blinked out of sync with the right.
And he couldn't tell if she was still real.