> [ZONE 4 ENTERED: REDRIFT DOCKS]
[WARNING: SERVER CULL ACTIVE – UNSTABLE CODE DETECTED]
[SYNC LEVEL REQUIRED TO AVOID DELETION: 65%]
The air smelled like burning salt and old code.
Kazien's boots splashed through ankle-high water slicked with oil and static. The docks stretched out in broken zigzags, old cargo cranes flickering like glitched skeletons, moaning as they turned with invisible wind.
And above it all: a red halo pulsed in the clouds, slow and patient, the system's kill light warming up for a full zone wipe.
He turned to Riven. "Well. This is romantic."
She gave him a look. "You've got brain rot."
FURY giggled. "He's trying to flirt while we're knee-deep in deletion juice. It's kinda hot."
"Illogical," SAGE muttered. "But statistically effective in trauma bonding scenarios."
Suddenly, the water shifted.
Not with waves. With shapes.
Figures rose half-rendered, twitching, made of broken gear and fragmented face files. No names. No tags.
Just warnings.
> [TARGETS: UNSYNCED HOSTILES | EXPERIMENTAL REMNANTS]
Riven stepped back. "What are these?"
Kazien raised both guns. "Code or corpses. Doesn't matter."
"Got a plan?"
"Yeah. Don't die."
The first one lunged.
Kazien moved faster.
He fired a dual burst SAGE to the leg, FURY to the chest. The shots curved, recoiling toward each other mid-air, slamming together in a chain reaction that knocked the creature back with enough force to send its torso spiraling into pixels.
> [SYNC COMPATIBILITY ACHIEVED: 66%]
[UNLOCKED: RECOIL SYNC SHOT]
"When fired together within 2 meters, bullets magnetically link, causing burst impact."
Kazien blinked. "Did we just… fuse shots?"
"Cute," FURY said, practically purring. "We're a couple now."
Riven fired from behind him clean shot through the eye of a crawler scaling a rusted crane. "Don't push it."
More shadows emerged. Dozens. Water exploding upward as corrupted NPCs and memory-junk surged in waves.
Kazien and Riven moved in rhythm.
Not perfect. But tight.
She dodged right. He filled her blindside.
He jumped back. She slashed forward.
Shots fused, curved, detonated on impact like stuttering lightning.
The dock lit up like a war rave.
Kazien exhaled, lowering FURY.
"Still don't trust me?" he asked.
Riven didn't answer.
But she didn't reload either. She just stepped closer deliberately putting them within range.
And fired.
The synced shots arced and exploded behind them like a double heartbeat.
> [RECOIL SYNC STABLE: 70%]
Then the sky blinked.
The red halo dimmed for a second.
Kazien squinted. "System hiccup?"
SAGE's voice came low.
"No. External override. Someone's watching us again."
Suddenly, Kazien's HUD flickered.
The killfeed blinked on.
But Riven's name? Gone.
Blurred. Erased. As if she wasn't even there.
Kazien stared in silence.
"Riven. Your tag. It's"
"I know," she said. "It's not your feed. It's someone else's."
> [LIVE KILLFEED: KAZIEN VALE – STATUS: SOLO ANOMALY]
Viewers: 1.2M
Trending: #BulletSyncGod
Comment: "Is he hallucinating? Talking to ghosts?"
Comment: "There's no one else in frame. He's cracked."
Kazien's jaw clenched. "They think I'm fighting alone."
"Maybe that's what SYNDRA wants."
"Or what someone else wants the world to believe."
The dock creaked again.
Riven drew closer. "You think they're coming?"
Kazien didn't answer.
But a new ping lit his radar.
A user tag.
Old. Familiar.
[USER DETECTED: Z3ROZONEX]
[DISTANCE: 180m | APPROACHING FAST]
Kazien's stomach dropped.
"That's not possible."
Riven looked at him. "Who?"
He stared toward the distant flickering horizon where a lone figure now stood at the edge of the dock, staring straight at them.
"…Ghostrun," Kazien whispered. "He was in Ghostrun."
LOCATION: Somewhere in the Midlayers.
A low-lit serverbar buzzed with off-grid energy. Neon cables ran across the floor like exposed nerves. Screens lined the walls most flickering with killfeeds, others playing old Ghostrun tournament footage.
A man sat in the back booth, hood pulled low, hand gripping a cracked energy drink like a trigger.
One screen showed Kazien.
Alone. Guns raised. Talking to… no one.
> "He's broken," someone said behind the bar.
The man didn't answer.
> "You think it's fake?"
"Maybe he glitched himself out. Some people say he's talking to a dead girl."
"That Riven chick?"
The man stood.
The barkeep froze. "Waityou're not actually?"
The man turned slightly, and the glow from the screen lit half his face.
Scarred. Familiar.
His tag lit the local feed for just a second:
[PLAYER: Z3ROZONEX]
[Status: Re-Entry Authorized | Ghostrun Clearance: Overridden]
He spoke only once.
"Turn off the stream. I'm going in."
BACK IN REDRIFT
Riven's breath came short as she sprinted beside Kazien through the rotting maze of collapsed shipping containers and glitching data walls.
"Who is he?" she asked.
Kazien didn't look back. "Zer0zoneX. Real name: Jax Kellen."
She frowned. "He was Ghostrun?"
"He was Ghostrun. My flank. My backup. The only person I ever trusted with my blind side."
"What happened?"
"He got eliminated. Right after your brother."
Riven stopped.
"That's not possible. Kellen was on the post-match logs."
Kazien turned. "Exactly. He shouldn't have survived."
> [KILLFEED LIVE // CAM 3 – KAZIEN VALE: "ALONE IN REDRIFT"]
Viewer comments scroll: "He's talking to ghosts again."
"Is this a horror ARG or real gameplay?"
"WHERE IS RIVEN?!"
"He lost it. Put him down."
"Killstreak glitchgod incoming."
The system voice pinged:
> [INCOMING DROP – PLAYER CLASS: GHOSTRUN VETERAN]
[ZONE ENTRY – 7 SECONDS]
Kazien drew both guns.
Riven moved beside him without a word.
This time, they stood closer. Within sync range.
"Thought you said you trusted him," she muttered.
"I did."
"And now?"
Kazien's eyes didn't blink. "Now I trust no one."
CRASH.
A beam of shattered red light slammed into the ground in front of them. The container walls blew outward in a blast of static and steam.
And there he stood.
Zer0zoneX. Jax Kellen.
He wore an old Ghostrun patch on one shoulder. His eyes glowed with retinal HUD tracking. His hand was already on his gun, a modded handcannon Kazien had only ever seen in killcams.
He looked at Kazien.
Then at Riven.
Then back to Kazien.
And said, "You picked her?"
"Jax."
Kazien said the name like it was a sin.
Zer0zoneX Jax cracked his neck, finger tapping the side of his custom .49 Handmod like it was an old friend itching to speak.
"You were dead," Kazien said, voice low.
"Yeah." Jax smiled thin. "So were you."
He started walking.
Boots sloshing through glitchwater. Eyes locked on Kazien. But the gun?
It was aimed at Riven.
Riven didn't flinch.
Kazien stepped forward, arm out. "Put it down."
Jax raised an eyebrow. "You're gonna protect her? After what she did?"
"She didn't"
"Oh she did." His tone snapped like a whip. "She was working with the devs before Ghostrun even started. You think they picked her for your squad randomly?"
Riven's jaw tightened.
Kazien looked at her.
She said nothing.
SAGE:
"He's bluffing. Partial truth overlay. Likely 38% fabricated."
FURY:
"Still hot though. Dangerous. Damaged. 8/10."
Kazien tuned them out.
"You're not here for a reunion."
"No." Jax's smile faded. "I'm here to delete an error."
He fired.
Kazien moved in front of her, but the bullet curved arced high and came down in a controlled bounce.
It wasn't aimed at Kazien.
It hit a Syncborn sniper in the container above them.
The corpse flopped down like a dropped puppet.
Jax holstered his weapon.
"One shot. That's your warning," he said. "Next one's for one of you."
Riven's blade was already out. Her expression? Ice. "Try it."
"Oh, I will," Jax said. "But first"
The ground shook.
A shockwave of data ripped through REDRIFT as a pulse from the red sky above lashed down. Lightning made of raw system code. Static rain.
> [ZONE COLLAPSE: 6:23]
[EMOTIONAL SYNC: 76%]
Kazien staggered into Riven. Caught her elbow. Their hands brushed.
Too close.
Riven looked up, eyes not angry now, just… afraid.
"What do we do?" she whispered.
Kazien met her eyes.
"We fight together. Or we die apart."
SYNC TRIGGER: RECOIL CHAINSHOT – UNLOCKED
[NEXT SHOT: Linked Target Transfer Enabled]
Jax raised his gun again.
Kazien stepped forward.
Riven stood beside him.
Both guns glowing.
Bullets charged with guilt, betrayal, and something they couldn't say out loud yet but felt like a heartbeat syncing through barrels.
Jax's finger tightened on the trigger.
FURY whispered:
"This is going to break something."
THREE GUNSHOTS FIRED.
One from Kazien.
One from Riven.
One from Jax.
The screen cracked.
The three shots echoed in perfect sync.
Then
Silence.
Weightless, airless silence. Like the system itself held its breath.
Someone hit the ground.
It wasn't Kazien.
It wasn't Jax.
Riven stumbled backward, a burst of corrupted light blooming from her shoulder.
She caught herself against a rusted support beam, gritting her teeth as blood static-laced, corrupted blood pulsed between her fingers.
Kazien was already at her side.
"Riven"
"It's fine," she hissed. "It's a graze."
FURY buzzed erratically.
"No, no it's not. Something's in the bullet. She's glitching."
SAGE's voice clipped. "Foreign code embedded. Memory destabilizing."
Kazien turned on Jax.
"You shot her?"
Jax didn't lower his gun.
"She's the leak," he said. "I didn't kill her. I exposed her."
Riven's eyes flared. "You don't know anything."
"Don't I?" Jax growled. "You think it was random your brother died in Ghostrun? That you ended up on Kazien's flank? I saw the logs. The system rerouted the evac timer. From your console."
She froze.
Kazien stared at her. "Is that true?"
"I" Riven stepped back. "I don't remember that."
"Because you're remembering what SYNDRA wants you to remember," Jax snapped.
Suddenly
The static in the zone spoke.
> "Riven…"
Her knees buckled.
The voice wasn't system-filtered.
It wasn't AI-simulated.
It was him.
Her brother's voice.
> "Why did you lock me in?"
Riven dropped to the floor, shaking. "No…"
Kazien knelt beside her.
"Riven. Look at me."
The zone pulsed red.
SYNDRA appeared only for Kazien a faint smile flickering behind the chaos.
> "Now you know," she whispered. "It was never just you."
> [SYNC BREAK DETECTED]
[EMOTIONAL DISTORTION: ACTIVE]
[REDRIFT ZONE COLLAPSE: 2:00]
Kazien stood up. He looked at Jax.
Gun lowered. Eyes raw. "We're leaving."
"I'm not done."
"You are," Kazien said. "If you wanted her dead, you would've aimed for the heart."
He pulled Riven to her feet.
She didn't resist.
But she didn't look at him either.
They limped toward the zone exit, a collapsing rift of white light blinking in and out of reality.
Behind them, Jax didn't follow.
But he didn't leave either.
Just as they crossed into the rift, SYNDRA's voice purred into Kazien's mind.
> "You sync so beautifully… when you bleed."