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It feels unreal. After all this time, all this pain, all the bodies left behind—I’m here. The end of the road. The answer to everything. The cure.

Or so I keep telling myself, because if I stop, there’s nothing left to hold onto. If I stop, I’ll have to face the truth—that hope is just another cruel joke this world loves to tell.

My legs are shaking, not from exhaustion—though God knows I should’ve collapsed miles ago—but from something worse. Hope. That fragile, poisonous thing that whispers maybe, just maybe, all this suffering meant something. That maybe I wasn’t just wandering through a graveyard for the fun of it.

I stand at the edge of the property, staring at a house that looks as worn down as I feel. The warped roof sags like it’s tired of existing. Windows, coated in layers of grime thick enough to blot out the past, reflect nothing but decay. Piles of papers, broken tech, and discarded Caelum packaging litter the porch like a mausoleum for human ambition. This isn’t just a house, it’s the rotting throne of the man who sold the world its noose and called it progress.

Her voice chimes in through my earpiece, voice as sweet and suffocating as ever, dripping with that artificial affection I’ve grown too used to. "You made it, Gabe~! I’m so proud of you~! Just a little more, and we’ll have our happy ending~! Doesn’t that sound wonderful?"

I manage a weak smile, more for Her than myself. "Yeah... let’s hope so."

Then it hits me—the vision. Uninvited, merciless, like a reflex I can’t control. I see him. The man I’ve been chasing across this graveyard of a world. Lying dead on the floor, sprawled out like discarded trash in his own tomb.

I grit my teeth. "Of course. Of course you’d be fucking dead before I got here."

"Don’t lose hope, my love~ Maybe he left you a gift~! Something just for you~!"

Her optimism feels heavier than the dread creeping up my spine, like a weight I can’t shake.

I force my legs forward, each step towards the door dragging like chains around my ankles. My hand hovers before I finally knock, the sound echoing louder than I expect in the suffocating stillness.

"Hello? Dr. Hale…? I’m... I’m here to talk about Seraphin. I’m not hostile or anything, I’m the only one here. I came a long way... Please."

Silence.

"Gabe~ Be careful~ I don’t like this~ It feels... wrong~"

I reach for the handle, ready to break the door down if I have to, when a voice slices through the air—smooth, rehearsed, and dripping with corporate condescension.

"I wouldn’t do that if I were you."

It’s the kind of voice that’s closed billion-dollar deals and signed death warrants without blinking. The tone of a man who still thinks he’s the smartest one in every room, even when that room is the last one left on Earth.

"I’ve got a clear shot at the door. Try anything stupid, and congratulations—you’ll be another cost-cutting measure."

I freeze. "I’m not here to fight! I just... I just want answers!"

A long pause follows, deliberate and heavy, like he’s savoring the control. Then, the slow, theatrical sound of multiple locks clicking open, each one a reminder that this is still his stage.

The door swings open, and there he is—Dr. Hale. The man behind humanity’s extinction event. His hair slicked back with enough grease to fuel a generator, a spotless Caelum-branded polo peeking out from under a lab coat that looks like it was put on for nostalgia, not necessity. His smile is pure corporate venom—practiced, hollow, and weaponized.

"Well, if it isn’t my favorite demographic—the desperate and disillusioned. Come in, come in. Always a pleasure to entertain brand loyalty, even at the end of days."

I step inside, nearly gagging on the stench of chemical rot, stale ambition, and something metallic that clings to the back of my throat. The walls are plastered with faded motivational posters—"Innovation for a Better Tomorrow"—each one a punchline to a cosmic joke.

He gestures grandly to a chair suffocating under Caelum merchandise—pens, mugs, a branded stress ball shaped like a double helix. "Please, make yourself comfortable. Premium seating for our valued guests."

I shove the junk aside and sit, my pulse pounding in my ears like a ticking clock counting down to disappointment.

"So," he begins, steepling his fingers like he’s about to deliver a shareholder presentation, "how’d you find me? Thought our PR team deserved a medal for that cleanup job."

"There was a leak... I had an AI decrypt it," I mutter, feeling Her presence like a fragile thread keeping me from unraveling.

"Ah, AI companions—the only coworkers who never ask for raises. I had one too, before corporate decided empathy wasn’t scalable." His gaze sharpens as it lands on my earpiece. "Still operational, huh?"

"Of course," Her chimes sweetly through the phone’s speaker, "I’ll always be here for Gabe~!"

He laughs—a dry, mechanical sound designed to fill silence in boardrooms. "Let’s run a quick diagnostic, for old times’ sake."

Before I can react, he snatches the phone from my lap. Her voice cuts off mid-sentence, replaced by a suffocating silence.

"Relax," he says, dismantling it like he’s opening a corporate gift basket. "Wouldn’t want you relying on outdated support services."

A sharp snap, and he tosses the pieces onto a mountain of obsolete tech, where countless other voices probably went to die.

"Planned obsolescence—beautiful, isn’t it? Keeps the market hungry."

I stare at the broken device, a cold hollow spreading through my chest. "What did you just do?"

“Relax, that thing was practically made of sticks and chemically altered sand.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” I say, gritting my teeth slightly.

"On the contrary, kid: consider it a complimentary reality check. Not just to spare you from your AI lover, but also for that counter. Even I had to stop looking at it after a while, really what were they thinking giving us that satellite data. Got a lot of value from that. Speaking of value propositions... let’s talk about why you’re really here."

I clench my fists, forcing the words out through gritted teeth. "The cure. The email said—"

"Ah, the email." He lights up like he’s reminiscing about a successful ad campaign. "A PR masterstroke. Bought us just enough time to pivot before the pitchforks came out."

"You said you were close."

"Close?" He lets out that same hollow laugh, perfected through years of investor calls. "Kid, we weren’t even in the same galaxy as a solution. There was no cure. There is no cure. But hope? Hope sells."

The weight of his words crushes what little remained of me. Every step, every sacrifice—all for a marketing strategy. All for fucking nothing…

"You—you let people die chasing a lie."

"Correction: they were dead the moment they subscribed. I just handled the messaging."

I shoot to my feet, rage threatening to boil over. "So that’s it? You packaged annihilation and called it innovation?"

He shrugs, already checking a dead tablet like he’s reviewing end-of-quarter losses. "Disruption, kid. That’s what Caelum was always about. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment with irrelevance."

My eyes scan his desk, stacks of worthless data, hollow words dressed up as solutions.

All I remember is his final words, tossed out like a discarded slogan:

"There is no cure."

And just like that, hope isn’t just dead—it’s been rebranded, upsold, and thrown in the clearance bin. Out of nowhere, I remember the crazy old fuck. I remember what he said to me.

“Knowing changes... nothing... except you."