Station Two appears without warning.
One second they're in Terminal Zero. Marble floors. Gothic arches.
Next second they're in a garden.
Not beautiful. Wrong.
Everything green. Too green. Grass. Trees. Hedges. Roses. All the same shade. Toxic. Unnatural.
The air smells like chlorophyll and copper.
"Where are we?" Obi asks.
The man from Lagos. Forty-something. Kind eyes. Wedding ring glinting.
He joined them in Terminal Zero. After Lady Crimson. After three other players died in the Castle and didn't resurrect yet.
"The Neon Asylum," Arden says. Reading the sign. Rusted metal. Half-buried in grass. "But it's. It's not asylum. It's garden."
"The Entity changes things," Kael says. "Adapts. Twists. Makes your horror worse by making it wrong."
They walk deeper. Into the garden maze. Hedges rising overhead. Closing in.
Arden wrote this Station. Knows she wrote this. But the memory's slippery. Vague. Like trying to remember a dream.
Neon Asylum. Book two. About a psychiatric hospital where patients became the walls. Became the building. Trapped in architecture forever.
But this isn't that. This is garden. This is green. This is wrong.
"Arden." Obi's voice. Quiet. Scared.
She turns.
The hedges. They're not just plants. They're people. Faces in the leaves. Hands reaching through branches. Bodies twisted into green.
"Oh god." Arden backs away. "They're the patients. The ones who. Who got absorbed. They're here. All of them."
A face in the nearest hedge opens its mouth. Screams. Silent scream. No sound.
Just. Suffering.
"We need to move." Kael pulls them forward. "Standing still in a Station is suicide."
They run through the maze. Turning left. Right. Left. Every path looks the same. Every hedge screams silently.
Then they find the center.
A fountain. Not water. Chlorophyll. Green liquid bubbling up. Smelling like cut grass and rot.
And standing beside it. A woman. Nurse uniform. White. Spotless. Too clean.
Her face is wrong. Too smooth. Plastic. Mannequin.
"Welcome," she says. Voice like rustling leaves. "I'm Nurse Hollow. I take care of patients. Make them comfortable. Make them part of the garden."
She moves closer. Walking wrong. Joints bending the wrong direction.
"You look tired. Stressed. Let me help. Let me make you comfortable."
Her hand reaches for Obi. He dodges. But she's fast. Too fast.
Grabs his wrist. Squeezes.
Green spreads from her touch. Like infection. Like poison. Crawling up Obi's arm. Turning his skin. His flesh. His bone.
Into plant matter.
"No!" He pulls. Can't break free. "Get it off! GET IT OFF!"
Kael attacks. Knife to Nurse Hollow's throat. The blade passes through. No resistance. No damage.
"You can't hurt me," Nurse Hollow says. Pleasant. Calm. "I'm not flesh. I'm process. I'm transformation. I'm the garden itself."
The green reaches Obi's shoulder. Spreading faster. He screams.
Arden watches. Frozen. Counting. One. Two. Three.
No. Not again. Not this time.
She moves. Runs to the fountain. Plunges her hands into the chlorophyll.
Burns. Immediately. Acid. Pain. But she grabs anyway. Scoops the liquid. Throws it at Nurse Hollow.
The nurse screams. Real scream. Loud.
The chlorophyll burns her. Melts her plastic face. Eats through her uniform.
"That's. That's not. You can't use the garden against me. I AM the garden!"
"Then burn with it." Arden throws more. More. More.
Nurse Hollow dissolves. Screaming. Melting. Gone.
The green on Obi stops spreading. Doesn't reverse. But stops.
He collapses. Half his body transformed. Arm. Shoulder. Part of his chest. All green. All plant.
"I'm. I'm dying." His voice. Weak. Fading.
"No. You're resurrecting. In Terminal Zero. You'll be okay." Arden kneels beside him. Lies. Kind lies.
"My brother." Obi looks at her. Eyes glazing. "I killed my brother. Drunk driving. Lagos. Three years ago. I counted. After the crash. Counted how long before I called police. Forty-seven seconds. Forty-seven seconds I debated running away."
"Obi—"
"Tell him. If you see him. Tell him I'm sorry."
"He's not here. Your brother's not—"
"Just. Just tell him."
Then he dies. Green overtaking. Body going still.
For three seconds nothing happens.
Then light. Bright. Blinding.
Obi's body vanishes. Taken. Resurrecting somewhere else.
Arden stands. Hands burned. Hurting. Shaking.
"He'll be okay," Kael says. Not quite believing.
"Will he?"
"He'll resurrect. In Terminal Zero. Lose a memory. Come back."
"That's not okay. That's trauma. That's damage. That's—"
"That's the Game." Kael touches her shoulder. Gentle. "And we have to keep playing."
An exit appears. Door carved into a hedge. Glowing.
They walk toward it.
Then Arden feels it. In her pocket. Something that wasn't there before.
She reaches in. Pulls it out.
A book. Small. Leather bound. Pages blank.
Opens it. Sees writing appear. Her handwriting. But she didn't write it.
THE CODEBOOK
Write what you need. Pay the cost. Every word has a price.
She stares at it. Closes it. Opens again. Still there. Still real.
"What is that?" Kael asks.
"I don't know." She puts it back in her pocket. "But I think. I think the Entity gave it to me."
"Why?"
"Because it wants me to use it. Wants me to pay the price. Whatever that means."
They step through the exit.
Back to Terminal Zero.
Obi's there. Sitting on the marble floor. Breathing. Alive.
But his eyes. Empty. Lost.
"Obi?" Arden kneels beside him. "Are you okay?"
He looks at her. Doesn't recognize her. Doesn't recognize anything.
"My name." His voice cracks. "What's my name?"
"Obi. Your name is Obi."
"Obi." He repeats it. Testing. "Okay. Okay. Obi. I'm Obi."
But he doesn't believe it. Can't remember it. Just knows because she told him.
The cost. The resurrection cost.
He forgot his own name.
Arden's chest tightens. This is the Game. This is the price. This is what winning looks like.
And they've only completed two Stations.
Five more to go.
Miranda appears. Clapping. Delighted.
"Marvelous! Absolutely marvelous! First resurrection of Game 247! Let's give our player a round of applause!"
The other players. The ones who survived Castle and Garden. They don't clap. Just stare. Horrified.
"Station Three opens in one hour," Miranda announces. "Rest. Recover. Prepare. The horror only gets worse from here."
She vanishes.
Arden sits beside Obi. The man who forgot his name. The man who sacrificed himself. The man who paid the price.
And she knows. Deep in her bones. Knows with certainty.
She's going to die too. Many times. And every death will take something. Every resurrection will cost.
By the end. If she survives. If she wins.
Will there be anything left of Arden Vale?
Or just. Empty.
She pulls out the Codebook. Stares at blank pages.
Write what you need. Pay the cost.
She puts it away. Not yet. Not until she has to.
But soon. The Entity wants her to use it. Wants her to write. Wants her to pay.
And eventually. She will.
Because that's what survivors do.
They pay. And pay. And pay.
Until there's nothing left to give.