They don't make it three blocks before the attack.
Arden sees them first. Seven figures. Standing at the end of the street. Blocking the path.
Margaret in front. Dmitri beside her. Marcus. Four others Arden doesn't recognize. Survivors from other Games. Other support groups. Margaret's recruited.
"Split up," Arden whispers. "Find cover."
But it's too late. They're surrounded. More figures appearing from alleys. Side streets. Windows above.
Fifteen total. Maybe twenty. All survivors. All people who should be allies.
All holding weapons.
"Hello, Arden." Margaret's voice carries. Calm. Cold. "We need to talk."
"We have nothing to say." Arden positions herself between Margaret and her team. Protective. Ready.
"I disagree." Margaret walks closer. Knife in hand. Not threatening yet. Just present. "You've killed two fragments. Made the Entity angry. Put all of us at risk. That needs to stop."
"We're ending the Game. Ending the Entity. Saving everyone."
"You're killing us." Dmitri steps forward. Big. Scarred. Dangerous. "Every fragment you kill makes the Entity defensive. Aggressive. It's hunting us now. All of us. Because of you."
"It was already hunting you," Kael says. Behind Arden. Steady. "That's what it does. Hunt. Kill. Feed. We're just fighting back."
"Fighting gets you killed." Marcus. Three weeks out. Still shaking. Still broken. "I've seen what happens when you fight. My brother fought. He died. Permanently. No resurrection. Just gone."
"So your solution is submission?" Jin-Hwa's voice. Sharp. Surgical. "Live in fear? Count days until Bus 000 comes for you again? Because it will. The Entity doesn't let survivors stay free forever."
"It does if we don't provoke it." Margaret's getting closer. Ten feet now. "Fourteen years I've been free. Fourteen years of peace. Because I accepted the rules. Didn't interfere. Didn't rebel. You could have that too. All of you. Just stop. Now. Before the Entity decides we're all threats."
"We are threats." Arden meets her eyes. "That's the point. We're supposed to be threats. Supposed to fight. Supposed to win."
"You can't win." Margaret's face twists. Anger. Fear. Desperation. "The Entity is forty-seven fragments. You've killed two. Forty-five remain. You think you can kill them all? You think the Entity will just let you? It's adapting. Learning. Fighting back. You've started a war you can't finish."
"Then we die fighting." Arden doesn't back down. "Better than dying counting."
Margaret lunges.
Fast. Trained. Survivor who's lived fourteen years by being dangerous.
Knife aimed at Arden's throat.
Kael intercepts. Grabs Margaret's wrist. Twists. The knife drops.
Margaret kicks. Connects with Kael's knee. He staggers.
Dmitri charges. Tackles Jin-Hwa. They hit the ground hard.
Marcus comes at Callum. Fists swinging. Wild. Desperate. Grief-fueled.
The street erupts. Twenty survivors. Fighting. Killing. War.
Arden dodges Margaret's second attack. Rolls. Comes up with the dropped knife. Small. Sharp. Deadly.
"I don't want to kill you," Arden says.
"Then you'll die." Margaret pulls another knife. Bigger. "Because I will."
She attacks. Fast. Low. High. Combinations. Professional.
Arden blocks. Barely. Margaret's better. Trained. Experienced. Fourteen years of survival makes you sharp.
But Arden's died and come back. Killed two fragments. Beaten the Entity twice. That makes you dangerous.
She feints left. Goes right. Slashes. Catches Margaret's arm. Shallow. First blood.
Margaret doesn't slow. Just attacks harder. Angrier.
Around them chaos. Jin-Hwa fighting two attackers. Callum and Marcus grappling. Olli's backed against a wall. Three opponents advancing.
Kael's holding his own. Barely. The binding might be almost gone but he's still weakened. Still recovering.
They're outnumbered. Outmatched. Losing.
Arden sees Olli go down. Hard hit to the head. Unconscious. Not dead but vulnerable.
"STOP!" She screams. "Everyone STOP!"
No one listens. Too much rage. Too much fear. Too much momentum.
She pulls out the Codebook. Opens it. Pen appears.
Margaret sees. "Don't. You use that. You lose more memories. More pieces of yourself. Is it worth it?"
"To save them?" Arden looks at her team. At the people fighting for her. Dying for her. "Yes."
She writes.
Everyone freezes.
Simple. Direct. Absolute.
The Codebook burns. Words sinking. Reality bending.
Everyone stops. Mid-punch. Mid-kick. Mid-death.
Frozen. Statue-still. Unable to move.
Everyone except Arden. The writer. The one who gave the command.
She moves through the frozen battlefield. Checks her team. Olli's breathing. Bleeding but alive. Jin-Hwa's nose broken. Callum's ribs maybe cracked. Kael's knee swelling.
But alive. All alive.
Margaret's frozen mid-lunge. Knife raised. Face twisted with rage.
Arden stands in front of her. "I didn't want this. Didn't want us fighting each other. The Entity's the enemy. Not us. Not survivors."
Margaret can't respond. Can't move. Just stands there. Trapped.
"But you made your choice." Arden touches Margaret's knife. Takes it. "You chose the Entity. Chose submission. Chose fear. So I choose this."
She looks at her team. At the people who believed in her. Fought for her. Bled for her.
"We're leaving. You stay frozen for five minutes. Then you're free. And if you come after us again." She meets Margaret's frozen eyes. "I won't stop next time. Won't freeze. Won't hesitate. I'll kill. All of you. Understand?"
No response. Can't give one.
"Good." Arden helps Olli stand. Still frozen but she can move him. Drag him. "Everyone grab someone. We move. Now."
They gather their wounded. Start walking. Away from the ambush. Away from the war.
Behind them twenty frozen survivors. Standing. Trapped. Waiting for the Codebook's effect to end.
Three blocks away. Four. Five.
Then Arden feels it. The cost. The price.
Memory draining. Sliding away. Something important. Something she needs.
She tries to hold it. Tries to remember. Can't.
It's gone.
"What did you lose?" Kael asks. Limping but moving.
Arden thinks. Searches. "I don't know. Something. But I can't remember what."
"That's how it works." He supports her. "You never know until it's too late."
They reach the community center. Safe. Temporary.
Inside they collapse. Sit. Check wounds. No one dead. No one dying. But everyone hurt.
"That was close," Callum says. Holding his ribs. "Too close."
"Margaret's serious," Jin-Hwa dabs blood from her nose. "She's really going to kill us. Her and her faction. They see us as the threat. Not the Entity."
"Then we avoid them." Arden stands. Moves to the whiteboard. Still marked from before.
FRAGMENTS KILLED: 2
She erases. Writes.
FRAGMENTS KILLED: 2
FRAGMENTS REMAINING: 45
MARGARET'S FACTION: 20+ survivors
CONDUCTORS: Unknown number
TIME UNTIL ENTITY FULLY ADAPTS: Unknown
"We have multiple threats now," she continues. "Margaret. The Conductor. The Entity itself. We can't fight all of them. Can't win all those wars."
"So what do we do?" Olli. Awake now. Head bandaged. Concussed but functional.
"We accelerate." Arden points to the fragment count. "We've been taking our time. Planning. Being careful. That's over. We go aggressive. Kill fragments fast. Before the Entity adapts completely. Before Margaret organizes a bigger attack. Before the Conductor finds us."
"How fast?"
"One fragment per day. Maybe more." She looks at them. Exhausted team. Wounded warriors. "I know you're hurt. I know you're tired. But we can't stop. Can't slow down. We have momentum. We use it. Or we lose."
"One per day." Jin-Hwa calculates. "Forty-five days to kill them all. Six weeks. Can we survive six weeks of this?"
"We have to."
"Which fragment next?" Callum asks.
Good question. Arden thinks. Miranda dead. Revel dead. Which one's weakest now?
"Station One." Kael's voice. Certain. "The Castle. Lady Crimson. She's territorial. Isolated. Doesn't coordinate with other fragments. And Game 248 players are probably there now. We can enter. Help them. Kill her."
"Lady Crimson nearly killed me in my Game," Arden says. Remembers. The castle. The blood. The portraits. "She's strong. Vicious. Cruel."
"But she's alone." Kael stands. Tests his knee. Painful but working. "That makes her vulnerable. We enter as a team. Six of us. We overpower her. Fast. Brutal. No games. No psychology. Just violence."
"When?"
"Tonight." He looks at the group. "We rest. Heal. Then we go. Midnight. While the Entity's distracted. While Margaret's regrouping. While the Conductor's hunting. We slip in. Kill the fragment. Slip out."
"That's aggressive."
"That's necessary." He looks at Arden. "You said it yourself. Accelerate or die. I vote accelerate."
Silence. Processing. Deciding.
Then Jin-Hwa stands. "I'm in."
Callum. "Me too."
Olli. Concussed. Bleeding. Barely standing. "Three."
They all look at Arden. Leader. Strategist. God-killer.
She thinks about the Codebook. About the memory she just lost. About the cost that keeps climbing.
Thinks about Margaret's faction. About twenty survivors who want her dead. About civil war among victims.
Thinks about the Entity. About forty-five fragments still alive. Still coordinating. Still feeding.
Thinks about Kael. About his binding almost broken. About one or two more fragments until he's free.
"Okay." She nods. "Tonight. Midnight. Station One. Lady Crimson. We end her."
"Three fragments in three days." Callum laughs. Broken sound. "We're either geniuses or suicidal."
"Both," Jin-Hwa says. "Definitely both."
They rest. Eat. Bandage wounds. Prepare.
Six hours until midnight. Six hours until they enter the Game again. Six hours until they kill another piece of God.
Arden sits alone. Codebook open. Staring at the blank pages.
How many uses left before she forgets everything? Before she becomes Empty? Before there's nothing left to remember?
She doesn't know. Can't calculate. Just knows the cost keeps rising. The price keeps climbing.
But she's not stopping. Can't stop. Won't stop.
Because forty-five fragments remain. Because the Entity feeds. Because players die every forty-seven days. Because the cycle continues unless someone breaks it.
So she'll pay. Whatever it costs. Whatever it takes.
Memory. Identity. Self.
All of it. For this.
Her phone buzzes. Text. Kael.
You okay?
She types back. Define okay.
Alive. Present. Still you.
Then yes. For now.
Good. Rest. Tonight's going to be hard.
They're all hard.
I know. But we're doing it anyway.
We're doing it anyway.
She puts the phone down. Closes the Codebook. Closes her eyes.
Six hours. Then war. Then death. Then hopefully victory.
The cycle continues. The fight goes on. The fragments fall.
Two down. Forty-five to go.
And Arden Vale isn't counting seconds anymore.
She's counting hours until midnight.
Six. Five. Four.
Time keeps moving. War keeps coming. Gods keep dying.
And she keeps fighting.
Because that's what survivors do.
They survive. They fight. They win.
Or they die trying.