Chapter 5

The struggle reached a fever pitch in the second month.

Victoria had wasted away beyond recognition. Her once vivid, striking face was now pale as paper, her cheekbones jutting sharply, dark circles carved deep beneath her eyes.

She drifted through the enormous villa like a ghost.

She started looking for loopholes in the system.

Damien's protocol was set as follows: emotional wallowing and self-destructive tendencies would trigger a wipe.

But what if she didn't self-destruct? What if she just wanted to find him again?

Victoria slipped down to the villa's second basement level — where the physical servers were housed.

Massive server racks stood like a forest of steel, cold air howling through them, filling the space with a deafening roar.

Victoria wrapped herself in a thick blanket, clutching an old laptop with no internet connection, and plugged directly into one of the edge servers through a physical port.

She didn't dare touch the core code. She just wanted to steal a little data. Even just one audio clip that hadn't been deleted.

Carefully, she worked her way around the outer firewalls, her fingers flying across the keyboard.

"Found it…" Victoria's eyes lit up.

It was an encrypted hidden folder. Its name read: [Vicky's Notes].

Her hands trembling, she typed in the password — the date of their first kiss.

The folder opened.

It was full of videos.

Victoria clicked on the first one.

On screen, Damien was sitting at a desk in a white button-down shirt, the camera slightly unsteady.

"Victoria, if you're watching this, it means I'm already dead — and you, you foolish woman, are trying to hack into my system."

Damien let out a cold laugh on screen, but his eyes held a depth of longing that couldn't be hidden.

"Don't waste your energy. The protocol I set — even I can't undo it."

Victoria pressed her hand over her mouth as tears poured down her face.

"I know you'll hate me. Hate me for being so cruel, for not leaving you even a single thing to hold onto."

Damien sighed, his long fingers tapping slowly against the desk.

"Vicky, you've always depended on me too much. While I was alive, I could shield you from everything — spoil you rotten. But now that I'm gone, the wolves at Abyss Tech will tear you apart."

"I can't let you live inside an illusion."

"These 99 wipes are the last trial I've left for you."

"Every single one will feel like it's killing you. But I need you to hurt. Pain is what wakes you up. Pain is what builds armor."

"When you watch 'me' disappear completely — when you've learned to live in the dark without me — only then will you truly be able to take control of Abyss Tech. Only then can you crush every last person who wants you dead."

The video cut off abruptly.

In the basement, an alarm shrieked to life.

"Warning! Unauthorized physical intrusion detected! Edge server data breach!"

"Penalty protocol triggered! Executing three consecutive wipes!"

"Current progress: 34/99."

"Deleting modules: [Past Video Records], [Visual Archive], [All audio clips containing the name 'Vicky']."

"No—!"

Victoria lunged at the server rack, trying to yank out the cable — but it was already too late.

The laptop screen went black. The hard drive filled the air with the sharp, acrid smell of burning.

She watched helplessly as Damien's final image dissolved into nothing right before her eyes.

Along with it, the right to ever call her "Vicky" was stripped away completely.

From that day on, the system never called her Vicky again.

"Host, please take your medication on time."

"Host, the temperature outside has dropped. Please put on warmer clothing."

Cold. Mechanical. Utterly emotionless. Host.

Victoria leaned back against the freezing server rack, her smile uglier than any cry.

"Damien… you're so cruel…"

"You carved out my heart, stomped it into pieces on the ground, and then forced me to pick up every shard and swallow them myself."