Damien Hargrove stared down at the twisted corpse of the agent sprawled across the snow.
He didn't flinch.
"Emotions are a waste of reaction time," his partner muttered, handing him a classified dossier. "You hesitate, you die. The boy didn't understand that."
Damien took the file, flipping it open. Inside: a series of photos from a destroyed safehouse, and a name circled in red.
Project Hydra
Codename: SEER
The seed of everything he would become.
He turned his back on the body and muttered, "They want control through chaos. I'll give them something better."
Present Day – Kai
Kai had never been good at staying still. But after Dominic's message, he couldn't ignore the itch in his chest — that quiet sense that something wasn't done.
Ezra had fallen asleep on the couch again, curled around a pillow too small to be comforting.
Kai grabbed his coat and slipped out into the night, walking the familiar path toward campus. Toward the Literature building.
The one no one ever questioned.
Inside, he took the west stairwell up to the fourth floor, then the emergency door that should've been locked.
It wasn't.
At the end of the hall was an unmarked room, once used for postgrad seminars. Now, it was humming with faint fluorescent light.
He stepped in.
And found Professor Damien Hargrove standing at a whiteboard, scribbling diagrams that looked more like neurological pathways than lesson plans.
Hargrove didn't turn. "Curiosity is the first sign of rebellion," he said.
Kai stiffened.
"You knew I'd come?"
"Of course." Hargrove finally looked over his shoulder. "You were my best runner. I always knew you'd circle back."
Kai's mouth went dry.
"I didn't run because I was scared," he said. "I ran because you started hurting people."
"You say that like it wasn't the point," Hargrove said calmly.
"You dared a sixteen-year-old to blackmail his father into suicide."
"And he did. Which means he was capable of it. Which means he deserved to know that part of himself."
Kai felt the bile rise in his throat.
"You're insane."
"No," Hargrove corrected, turning fully now. "I'm just not delusional. Every student who entered the System made a choice. I didn't coerce anyone. I simply asked the right questions."
"You programmed them."
"I unlocked them."
There was a long silence.
Then Kai whispered, "You started Hydra."
Hargrove smiled faintly. "No. I just helped it evolve."
Ezra – Dream Sequence
Ezra stood in a white corridor. No windows. No doors.
Only flickering lights above, and dozens of post-it notes plastered on the walls.
Each one had a dare.
"Confess your love to the one who killed your friend."
"Cut off your lifeline."
"Erase the truth before it spreads."
He walked forward. Each step echoed louder.
At the end of the hallway stood Theo.
But Theo's face was wrong — stitched at the edges, smiling too wide.
"You think it's over?" the stitched Theo asked.
Ezra took a step back.
Theo's body convulsed — twitching.
"You're already in the next round."
Ezra screamed.
And woke up.
His phone buzzed in his hand.
New voice message from Unknown: "Ready to play again?"
Dominic – The First Strike
Dominic set up his microphone carefully. This wasn't going to be a typical podcast.
This was war.
"I'm recording this on August 7th," he began. "I have evidence that the Dare System was not created by a student. It was a continuation of something older — something called Hydra."
He uploaded redacted files to an anonymous link. Sent copies to international journalists. Even scheduled a deadman's switch for backup.
He didn't care about followers anymore.
He cared about survival.
At 1:07 a.m., someone knocked at his door.
When he checked the peephole, there was no one there.
Only a red envelope.
Inside:
"You speak, you lose your voice."
"You share, we silence everyone who listens."
"Next time, the dare won't be written."
– H
Dominic sat down.
And hit record again.
Mina – The Last Memory
Mina sat in the same tea shop, watching the clock.
Jun was late.
She wasn't sure if she trusted him. But she knew he was the only one who had access to the original logs from Theo's psychological evaluations.
She opened her sketchbook — not to draw, but to hide the drive she'd stolen years ago.
One no one else knew existed.
Inside it? The blueprint of the SEER interface — the original software Hargrove had worked on before Hydra had even taken shape.
What scared her most?
Theo's name was embedded in the code.
Not as a user.
As a variable.
She whispered aloud, "You were more than the game, weren't you, Theo?"
A bell rang.
Jun stepped in, looking pale.
"They're onto us."
Mina stood. "Then we stop being watchers."
He nodded. "We become players."
Kai – Final Scene
Kai returned home just before dawn.
Ezra was awake, clutching his phone, shaking.
"I had a dream."
Kai knelt. "You're okay now. Just breathe."
Ezra shook his head. "No. I think it was a warning."
He showed him the message.
Kai read it twice.
Then stood.
"We're not going to let them restart it."
Ezra's voice was barely a whisper. "How?"
Kai's eyes narrowed.
"We hunt Hydra. We burn it down. For real this time."