Moments later,

Chloe

I stood frozen by the dais, my fingers digging so hard into the velvet edge of the bench beside me that my nails tore right through the fabric, and I didn’t even feel it.

Every breath I took felt like swallowing shards of glass. The world around me - the great hall, the crimson sky, the hundreds of people watching - seemed to blur and warp, like a painting someone had splashed water over. And in my head, the alarms were screaming so loud it drowned out every other sound.

[SYSTEM ALERT: NARRATIVE TRAJECTORY CORRUPTED. INTEGRITY AT 41% AND FALLING.]

[MALE LEAD SYNCHRONIZATION: FAILING.]

[CURRENT SYNC RATE:...