Chapter 5 - Echoes of a Forgotten Name 

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Chapter 5 - Echoes of a Forgotten Name 

With a sickening metallic creak, OKMan's tiny robotic arms reached out like hungry spiders. The smell of old oil and rotting flesh filled the air, growing stronger with each unsteady step.

Mr. David reacted faster than his reason. A primal urge to protect whoever or whatever made him leap forward. His half-virtual, half-digital body turned! with unprecedented force. Wild blue streaks of static electricity shot from his core, striking the approaching robotic arms and sending them flying away with a bitter spark.

#PROTECT!%# ... AWAY... FROM... THEM! his voice cracked, a horrifying mix of panicked human screams and hissing error sirens.

OKMan just laughed. It was a terrible sound, distorted by the broken vocalizer in his robotic throat, sounding like screams and cries piped through a shattered speaker.

"Heh! Finally! Some resistance!" he roared, his eye spinning wildly with maniacal glee. "It's boring to prey on those who only cry! BUT YOU... you're different!"

He raised his fleshy hand, and with a theatrical gesture, Portal 989 behind him roared. No longer an unstable wormhole, but a projector that spewed out his nightmares. Broken and absurd luxury items flew out and floated around the ghastly garden, forming a swirling barrier: a golden TV with a shattered screen still displaying stock market figures, a crumpled and smoking sports car, a cracked diamond statue reflecting its distorted reflection.

"This is all mine!" OKManOscar shouted, his voice breaking between pride and utter despair. "My palace! My grave! And now... you will be my latest collection!"

He took another step, and the atmosphere shifted. The pressure in the air became so heavy it was hard to breathe. The loneliness was no longer an emotion, but a physical force trying to crush their souls.

And then, amidst the panic, the voice appeared.

It was faint, like a radio tuned almost exactly to the right frequency, filtered through different layers of reality.

Daddy...

Mr. David froze. The static around him vibrated, fluctuating with his emotions.

He... wasn't evil. Shayla's whispers continued to flow, directly into their consciousness, soft but clear. He was... HURT. Very, very lonely. He just wanted... to be heard.

OKMan paused for a moment, his head tilted like a dog hearing a high-frequency sound. "Whose... voice is that?" he growled, sounding almost... confused.

Meanwhile, Rosi the cat was unfazed by the display of power or the floating luxury items. he simply sniffed the air, then, with unnatural calm, walked over to the dangerous OKMan. He sniffed his damaged boots, then rubbed his fluffy body against his dirty robotic paw.

Rosi's shadow on the ground didn't match. It wasn't a cat's shadow. It grew, changed shape, taking on the silhouette of a tall, graceful woman with intricately braided hair a guardian, a mother, a far more ancient entity. The shadow reached out and gently touched OKMan's shadow, a silent gesture of comfort.

OKMan (Oscar) gasped. All his machinery trembled. His ferocious robotic arms halted in midair, twitching. His wild, maddened human eyes widened, then wrinkled in deep confusion. He stared at Rosi, the small, warm creature who wasn't afraid of him.

"I..." he murmured, his robotic voice suddenly sounding very small. "I... used to like cats. Orange cats... in the courtyard of the old house... But..." His voice choked. I'm too busy. Always too busy. "Money, mergers, acquisitions... no time for simple things."

That's when Preet AI chose to appear. Not with a voice, but with a vision. Preet produced a cold, clear blue hologram that lit up between them, projecting data into the space. It showed a flashback of Oscar Demian's life: a brilliant but hungry young man, building his empire by trampling on others, ignoring the families crying at the side of his financial path, and finally, his miserable and lonely death in a car accident caused by exhaustion and greed right in front of the gates of his newly purchased palatial property.

Analysis: OKMan. Real Name: Oscar Demian," Preet's voice cracked, flat and without judgment, simply stating the facts. "Cause of Death: Greed. Diagnosis: Trapped in a punishment loop created by his own consciousness. This prison is a manifestation of his inability to care about anything but wealth and power."

No one could speak. The truth, presented so brutally and emotionlessly, hung in the air.

Oscar fell silent. His entire body machine and flesh trembled. Then, a voice emerged from him. Not from the speakers, but from his still-human lungs and throat. It was a squeak, then a sob that quickly turned into a heart-rending cry. Real tears flowed freely from his human eyes, clearing paths across his dirty cheeks, while the camera's eye stared blankly ahead.

"I just…" he sobbed, his body collapsing to the ground, kneeling before them. "I just wanted... someone... to remember me. Not for my money... or my power... but simply as... Oscar. And now... there's nothing left. No one cares. I can't even cry properly in this hell!"

The static around Mr. David subsided completely. For the first time, he stood there as a man, not as a glitch. He looked at the broken Oscar and saw in himself the same guilt, the same fear of being forgotten. He reached out, an incomplete gesture, full of suppressed empathy.

And then, Shayla "came." Not in body. But a soft golden light emanating from somewhere perhaps from Mr. David's heart. David, perhaps from the garden itself, formed the faint silhouette of a little girl with a ribbon in her hair. A soft, soothing lullaby, the same one Mr. David had sung to her so long ago, began to play, filling the space, healing invisible wounds.

"Sleep... weary one," Shayla's voice whispered, clearer than ever, filled with boundless love. "Sleep. We will remember you. Not as OKMan... but as Oscar. We will carry your story." Oscar looked up. His wet face was illuminated by the light. For a moment, a smile of true peace appeared on his face, transcending the pain and madness. "Thank... you..." he breathed, barely audible.

His body began to glow from within. His mechanical parts turned to dust and particles of light, detached and sucked back into Portal 989, which now glowed a calm white light, not a sickly green. The process was peaceful. Not destruction, but liberation. The portal closed with a soft hiss, leaving silence.

On the ground, where Oscar knelt, a small object glistened. It was an old silver pocket watch, open, revealing a small photograph inside a young man Oscar and an old woman presumably his mother smiling happily, long before his fortune and ruin. The hands had long since stopped ticking.

Mr. David picked it up, holding it carefully. "Sometimes..." he said, his voice hoarse but clear, free from distortion, "The strongest prison... is the one we build for ourselves." He glanced at the watch, then in the direction where Shayla's voice had come from, his eyes glistening with tears.

Rosi snored softly, rubbing his self against Mr. David's leg, his task complete. Preet AI blinked, its hologram now showing a new map, a path opening among strange trees. And on the wind, a final whisper rang out, filled with hope and deep sorrow

Every soul has a story. And every story... deserves to be heard. The pale blue light of Okman's prayer still quivered in the air, layered with a heavy silence. Rosi meowed softly, as if sharing his grief, while Mr. David lowered his head, his fingers still trembling as he held the old watch, which now felt lighter.

Silence.

Then—krkkkttt… bzzzz… The hallway walls trembled. A streak of glitchy green light appeared in the air, like a door that shouldn't have opened. The soft sound of the prayer, which had been echoing… was suddenly shattered by a loud bang.

“CAK!” The sound wasn't just audible. It struck their chests, tearing the silence into a thousand fragments. Without even a moment to ask, their bodies were dragged into the vortex of the glitchy.

The dim light of the prayer vanished, replaced by a blaze of red and orange. The compassionate silence crumbled, replaced by a lively symphony of screams and pounding feet. They fell to the arena… Infernal Kecak II had begun