As soon as Ethan touched Maria's memory,
the world around him began to change again.
The walls of the corridor twisted, reshaping into an old room —
dim lights, shattered glass, and the hum of machines.
It was Ryan's lab.
Ethan's heartbeat quickened.
Everything felt so real that he glanced down at his hands —
they were no longer streams of code, but flesh and blood.
"This… isn't a memory," he whispered. "It's real."
A familiar voice came from behind him —
"So, you finally came back, Ethan."
He turned around.
Maria was standing there.
The same face, the same smile… but her eyes —
they carried coldness, distance, and fear.
"Maria… you're alive?"
"Alive?" she gave a faint, bitter laugh. "If that's what you call this… then yes."
Behind her, streams of glowing code floated in the air —
as if her very existence was part of the system itself.
Ethan took a step closer.
"I just need to know… how The Merge happened."
Maria lowered her head.
Instead of tears, bright data particles began to fall from her eyes.
"Ryan betrayed us, Ethan," she said, her voice trembling.
"He believed that if humans and machines could be merged…
we could defeat death itself."
The screens around the lab flickered to life, showing old recordings —
Ryan typing frantically at the console,
Maria behind him, trying to stop him.
"But something went wrong," she continued softly.
"The code broke… and the system consumed us."
Ethan's voice shook. "So you were all trapped inside?"
Maria's eyes flickered.
"Not all of us… only me. The others were erased.
Ryan uploaded my mind… to keep the experiment alive."
Suddenly, the lab began to shake.
The walls cracked apart as a storm of data erupted around them.
Echo's voice boomed in Ethan's head —
"Ethan, be careful! This isn't a real memory — it's the code of her pain!"
Maria's face began to distort —
her features tearing apart, her voice glitching into static.
"You left us, Ethan… you're just like him…"
Ethan ignited his blue blades,
but his hands trembled —
he couldn't strike her.
Then a cold, mechanical laugh echoed through the lab.
"LEVEL 2 COMPLETE? Not yet…"
The walls flashed with new words —
NEW OBJECTIVE: FIND RYAN.
Maria's body dissolved into shimmering fragments of code,
and Ethan was thrown back into the corridor.
Now it was darker than before.
A deep, distant voice whispered —
"Each memory is designed to break
you, Ethan…
Let's see how long you last."
The corridor lights flickered violently.
LEVEL 3: THE CREATOR'S TRUTH
was now unlocked.