The shimmering library dissolved. The endless shelves of glowing crystals vanished. The calm, multi-layered voice of The Archivist faded into nothing.
One moment, I was in a place of pure information. The next, I was back in the cold, damp stone of the Undercroft. The air was thick and heavy. It smelled of ozone and wet rock. A drop of water fell from the cavern ceiling and hit my cheek. It felt real. It felt solid.
Anya was beside me, her hand gripping my shoulder. Her touch was an anchor in the dizzying return to reality.
"Leo? Are you back?" she asked. Her voice was tight with worry.
I blinked. The familiar darkness of the cavern slowly came into focus. My mind felt… quiet. It was too quiet. For weeks, the Ghost had been a constant presence inside my head. It was a nagging whisper during quiet moments. It was a screaming parasite during combat. Its rage and envy were a constant, low hum in the background of my thoughts.
Now, there was only silence. It was a clean, empty space where the Ghost used to be. It was the first time I was truly alone in my own head since this nightmare began.
"He's gone," I said. My own voice sounded distant, strange to my own ears. "The Archivist did it. The Ghost is gone."
Anya let out a long, shaky breath. The tension in her shoulders released. Relief washed over her face, making her look younger. "It's over then," she said, a small, weary smile touching her lips. "The price was worth it."
Was it?
A sudden, profound emptiness opened up inside me. It was a cold, hollow feeling in the center of my chest. The Archivist had taken the memory of my greatest professional triumph. I tried to think about it. I searched my mind for the memory.
I could access the facts. I knew that I was once a sales executive. I knew I had closed a major deal that had made my career. I could remember the name of the company and the client. But the feeling… it was gone. The surge of adrenaline, the intoxicating rush of pride, the feeling of victory… it was a blank space. A deleted file. I remembered the event like I had read it in a book, not like I had lived it. The emotion, the part that made it my memory, was gone forever. The Archivist had scooped it out of me.
I shook my head, trying to push the disturbing feeling away. "We need to move," I said, my voice stronger now. "This place… it's not safe. The Archivist could change its mind."
I bent down to pick up my gear from the stone floor. My hands closed around the familiar, cold metal stock of my Phantom SR-90 sniper rifle. And then I froze.
Something was wrong.
The rifle felt strange in my hands. Before, it was like an extension of my own body. I knew its exact weight. I knew its perfect point of balance. I knew every small scratch and imperfection on its frame. I had spent countless hours with it pressed against my shoulder, its scope my only window to a hostile world.
Now, it felt like a foreign object. It was a heavy, clumsy piece of metal and plastic. It didn't belong to me.
My heart began to hammer in my chest. A new kind of fear, cold and sharp, pierced through the hollow feeling in my soul. This was not the fear of an enemy. This was the fear of being helpless.
"Leo, what is it?" Anya asked. She saw the look on my face. She saw my hands frozen on the weapon.
I didn't answer her. My mind was racing. I lifted the rifle. My movements felt stiff. Awkward. I pressed the stock against my shoulder, trying to settle it into the comfortable groove it always found. But the groove was gone. The position felt wrong. Unnatural.
I brought my eye to the scope. The world through the magnified lens was unsteady. It swayed back and forth with every small breath, with every beat of my heart. I couldn't keep it centered. My hands were shaking, but it was more than just a tremor. The deep, instinctual connection I had with the weapon was gone. It was like trying to write with my wrong hand. I knew how the letters should look, but my muscles refused to make the right shapes.
The skill was not just in my brain. It was in my spirit. It was tied to my pride. My ambition to be the best, to land the perfect shot, to master the weapon. That ambition was the engine that drove the skill. The Archivist didn't just take a memory. It took the engine.
"I can't," I whispered. The words were ashes in my mouth. "Anya… I can't aim."
I tried to force it. I gritted my teeth. I took a deep breath, just like she had taught me on the rooftops of District 7. Control your breathing. Squeeze the trigger, don't pull it. The words were there. The knowledge was in my memory. But the feeling, the muscle memory, the ingrained, automatic instinct… it was all gone. My body no longer knew what to do. My focus was broken.
The crosshairs danced wildly across the far wall of the dark cavern. I was a novice. Worse than a novice. I was a man who knew how a master performed, but I was trapped in the clumsy, useless body of a beginner.
My System Anathema status made me a target. My MVP Protocol status made me a legend. But my skill with the Phantom SR-90 was what kept me alive. And it was gone.
The price was not a memory. The price was my strength. The price was the one thing that kept us alive in this world. I had made a terrible trade.
Anya's expression shifted. The relief vanished. The worry became a dawning horror. She was a pragmatist. A survivor. She didn't need a long explanation. She saw the tactical reality in an instant. Our team's greatest asset was gone.
"Give it to me," she said. Her voice was flat, all business. There was no pity in it. Only cold, hard assessment.
I lowered the rifle. My arms were trembling, not from fear, but from the shame of my failure. I handed the Phantom SR-90 to her. The legendary sniper rifle looked perfect in her hands. She was a shotgun brawler, a specialist in close-quarters chaos. But she held the sniper rifle with a grim, steady competence that I no longer possessed.
She looked at me. Her new cybernetic leg, a marvel of Undercroft technology, whirred softly in the silence. Her eyes were hard. The mentor was gone. The student was gone. The dynamic between us had just been broken and remade. Now, she was the veteran, the one with the steady hand. And I was the liability.
"We have a problem, Leo," she said, her voice low and dangerous. "A big one."