---
The dome holds its breath. The air is heavy, laced with the quiet hum of machinery and the low murmur of an audience too afraid to speak louder than a whisper. Every eye is locked on Mikey. His body trembles on the table, his lips moving with broken, incoherent words, his face pale under the harsh fluorescent lights. He has already burned one beep—one chance gone. The thought that he only has one left hovers over Savior like a blade. They do not know what nightmare has swallowed him whole. They only see the torment written across his body.
Their faces are drawn tight, despair etched into every line. Bobo can't stand it. His fists clench as he rises from his chair, glaring up at the balcony where Isaak and his father sit, looking down like executioners.
"Stop this already! You fuckin' pieces of shit! This ain't right!" His voice booms, a raw shout that cuts through the silence.
Luce grabs his arm, tears streaming freely now. Her thumb rubs circles against his elbow, trying to soothe him. "Sit down, Bo… please," she begs, her voice cracking.
Bobo almost listens. Almost. But then Mikey jerks violently, a guttural sound tearing out of his throat.
"Ah… mmph… gah!"
The sight is unbearable—his body shuddering, his mouth twitching with half-formed words, eyes rolling under his lids. Bobo turns, and there behind him stands a soldier, watchful and ready to restrain. His hand lingers near his holstered gun. Bobo's gaze drops to it. His jaw sets.
"Fuck it."
Before anyone can react, his fist smashes into the soldier's face. The man collapses, dazed, as Bobo rips the gun from his belt and spins back around, aiming it straight at Isaak and his father above. Instantly, the gallery erupts with chaos. Soldiers stationed behind Savior unsling their weapons, barrels locking on Bobo.
Luce gasps, clinging to his arm. "What are you doing, Bo?"
He doesn't even flinch. His stance is solid, finger tight on the trigger. "Go down there with Lia," he growls. "Go talk to our boy. Calm him down. I'll be right there. I ain't watchin' these games anymore."
The soldiers hesitate, but none fire—Bobo has Isaak and his father lined dead in his sights. One wrong twitch and two big leaders of the Defectors are gone.
"Isaak!" Bobo shouts, his voice like thunder. "We're goin' down there. Ain't a damn thing you can do about it. That includes you, Gerron!"
The name leaves his lips like venom.
Isaak's father, Gerron Pope's, face twists with disgust. He raises his radio with a deliberate calmness, speaking into it. "Prepare fire."
The command ricochets instantly into the earpieces of the soldiers circling Savior. Their weapons lift higher, ready to mow them down.
"Wait! No!" Luce screams, her voice breaking.
Isaak's composure shatters. His eyes go wide as he looks at his father. "Father, please—let them go! It won't disrupt the test. It won't change the outcome. Just let them be with him." His voice trembles, but there's weight in his words. "Please. I beg you."
The shame in Isaak's face is unbearable. Gerron studies him, his jaw tight, then snatches up the radio again. "Never mind. Stand down."
Weapons lower, reluctantly, though the air remains electric, charged with the tension of nearly spilled blood. Bobo lowers his gun too, his chest heaving, but his glare never leaves the balcony.
In the same instant, Bobo, Luce, and Amelia vault the railing, landing hard on the dome floor. Tobi panics, eyes darting. "Ah—shit!" he sputters, scrambling to his feet before clumsily hopping the rail after them.
Ryosuke stays back, shielding Angelica's ears as Marlene steadies her trembling body. His hand rests gently on the girl's head for a beat before he looks at Marlene. "I will return," he promises. He lifts Angelica into her arms, then leaps effortlessly over the railing, his descent silent until his boots hit the ground beside the others.
Together, they sprint. The pounding of their feet echoes in the massive chamber. Mikey writhes on the table, his chest rising and falling in frantic bursts, sweat soaking his skin. His friends close in. Amelia reaches him first, dropping to her knees beside him, her hands trembling as she cups his face.
"Mikey… wake up… please…" Her voice is a broken melody, torn apart by sobs. Her words come like prayers more than pleas. "Mikey, listen to me. Whatever you're seeing—it isn't real. You're okay. You're gonna be okay. Just… wake up."
His jaw locks tight. His body convulses violently. A guttural scream rips out of him as his back arches, foam bubbling at the corners of his mouth.
"Ahhh!"
The monitor shrieks with spikes, his heart rate thrumming dangerously high.
"Shit, he's seizing up!"
Tobi cries out, his hands hovering, desperate but helpless. His analytical eyes dart between the monitor and Mikey's trembling form. Luce grabs Mikey's hand, squeezing tight, grounding him with her touch. Her voice cracks as she looks at Bobo.
"Bo! Do something!"
Bobo stares, wild-eyed, then back at the screen. He looks at Mikey, thrashing, his breaths jagged and shallow.
"Luce—what the hell am I supposed to do?!" His voice breaks with panic. He leans close, shaking him gently, pleading. "Kid, wake up! You hear me? Wake up!"
Bobo looks to Tobi, since he seems to have some understanding of what's going on. "What is he seeing in there Tobs?"
Tobi looks at Mikey, thinking of what could be happening, he stammers, "W-Well, as I said Diluted Linnium is a hallucinogen, he's trapped his mind essentially. W-With this much it's trauma probably, or self h-hatred, whatever it is i-it becomes personified. He might be seeing people, or just c-caricatures of who his mind sees them as. W-Who would that be though? I don't know him well enough..."
Luce's eyes widen as she hears this explanation, "Payne... He's seeing Payne, probably..."
Ryosuke stands back a step, his fists tight, his eyes burning with a storm he cannot release. Regret drags his shoulders down, heavy with the knowledge that he should have ended this test before it began. He lowers his head, ashamed.
Around them, the audience gasps, a sea of murmurs rising like static, the entire dome trembling with the sound of collective empathy.
---
Back in Mikey's head the world narrows to a single surgical focus: Payne's face. He swings and the punch lands clean, knuckles biting into jaw meat and bone. Payne's head snaps back, his grin cracking wider as if Mikey's hit is the punchline to some private joke. For a breath, Payne looks stunned—then he laughs, wide and wrong, like something pleased at a terrible trick.
Payne grabs Mikey's sleeve with iron fingers and yanks, pulling him down. Mikey slams face-first onto the table; the wood stings through his cheek, teeth chattering against splinters. Payne doesn't let go. With a second hand he finds Mikey's waist and heaves, flinging him into the wall. The impact resounds in Mikey's ribs and knees; he hits hard and slides down, lungs burning, the taste of smoke and ash in his mouth.
Coughing, he pulls himself up on shaking hands. Anger is a white-hot core in his chest, the fire around them making everything sharper—the heat, the smell of singed cloth, the crazed sparkle in Payne's eyes. Payne paces slow, savoring it, words rattling out like knives. He laughs cruelly, that cruel laugh.
"You… are a terrible son. I mean, your father just gave you that whole speech about not choosing hatred and you did it anyway! You're garbage. Couldn't even save him in a dream. Ha! It's pathetic, Michael." He circles, each step deliberate, a predator enjoying the hunt. "You want to know something about killing your parents, killing Elliot, all that jazz?"
Mikey stares at him, fury braided with grief, the memory of red and broken things flashing in his skull. Payne doesn't stop; he leans into the cruelty.
"I—" Payne rubs his face with his palm like a madman and then wipes his hands away as if to reveal something obscene beneath. Tears streak his cheeks but it's not sorrow—it's glee. "I fuckin' loved it." His smile is a slit of bright teeth. "I loved all of it. It made me so damn happy, Michael. And to kill them again, in this dream of yours, in this test—thank you. Thank you for being so damn weak." He laughs, and the sound is a shard.
Mikey's stomach drops and then lifts into something like steel. The words scrape him raw; they bite, but they don't turn him into the thing Payne wants. They don't snap him in two. He pushes himself to his feet, legs trembling, blood and smoke in his mouth. He looks at Payne, at the softening madness of that face, and something cold and contained snaps into place.
"I'll kill you. I swear," he spits.
Payne's face goes blank for a second, then quick as a snake he answers, voice low and almost playful. "All the people I killed, Michael… they begged. Now I wonder—are you a beggar?" He steps forward, the space between them closing like a noose.
Mikey's hand slides to his thigh where the daggers live, the familiar weight of their sheaths grounding him. He pulls both of them free; the leather squeals, metal cool and honest in his grip. The world compresses—noise dulls to a thudding rush of blood in his ears—until everything else is background and the only thing that matters is the distance between him and the man who set his world on fire.
He roars, not thinking about the beep or the rules or Isaak's face up on the balcony, not thinking about tests or the way the dome watches like a jury. Nothing matters except the choice sliding into focus like a blade. He sprints, the daggers singing through the smoke, the floor pounding under his boots. Every step is a promise and a curse.
'I don't care if I fail anymore… he's fucking dead.'