Inventory update: [Received: Janitor’s Key. Unlocks any door in the school, but using it advances the corruption clock by 2 hours.]

You raise your hand. The interface pings.

The server screens went white. The bells stopped ringing. For the first time in 372 days, the school was quiet . Not the silence of consequence—the silence of peace.

The Janitor stops mopping. He looks at you—really looks—and for a moment, you see his character model flicker into wireframe. “Marcus tried to unplug the bell system. He thought that would free Riley. Instead, it just changed which version of her is running.”

Riley unfroze. Her walk cycle completed. She looked at me—really looked, the way the Janitor had—and said: