The Tower quieted after the Coordinator’s plea, but the silence wasn’t peaceful.
It felt like standing inside a lung that refused to exhale.
Light slowed.
The glowing structures stilled.
Even the pulse beneath the floor softened, waiting.
Waiting for me.
Kira stood close, her hand tight around mine, grounding me in a place where everything else felt like a dream trying to write itself into reality.
“Whatever you choose,” she said, “you don’t do it alone.”
Maybe that should’ve comforted me.
Instead it twisted deeper into my chest, because the decision ahead wasn’t just about me—
It was about what humanity was going to become.
---
We approached the flickering sphere—the unstable template the Coordinator had tried to build in my image. The thing glowed like a sun trapped inside a
