OFFLINE- Chapter 17
The Crying Voice in the Hallway
The crying sounded human.
Real.
Not distorted like the whispers earlier.
A young woman quietly sobbing somewhere outside the apartment door.
Kai Mercer froze immediately while the livestream chat exploded again.
NO NO NO
DONT FALL FOR THAT
THEY ALWAYS USE THE HALLWAY VOICES
The duplicate near the bathroom slowly lowered its eyes.
Almost guilty.
Then the crying voice whispered weakly through the hallway:
“Please… somebody help me…”
Kai’s chest tightened painfully.
The voice sounded terrified.
Young.
Desperate.
The older Kai on the monitor immediately spoke sharply:
“Ignore it.”
But User-0 calmly added from outside the door:
“She was a streamer too.”
Silence.
The crying continued softly beyond the apartment.
Then another voice joined faintly.
Male voice.
Crying too.
Then another.
And another.
Dozens of soft overlapping sobs spreading through the hallway outside like people trapped somewhere in darkness.
The duplicate whispered quietly:
“The failed replacements.”
Cold terror spread through Kai instantly.
Failed.
Not originals.
Not copies.
Something worse.
Then the viewers began spamming the same sentence repeatedly:
THEY DIDN’T GET CHOSEN
Kai looked toward the front door again.
The crying beyond it intensified slightly now.
Not violent.
Just hopeless.
Like people begging not to be forgotten.
User-0 finally spoke again through the door.
“Every Final Broadcast creates extra versions during synchronization.”
Kai frowned weakly.
“What happens to them?”
Several seconds passed.
Then:
“The audience only keeps one.”
The apartment suddenly felt freezing cold.
The older Kai looked furious now.
“You leave the others trapped in the archive.”
User-0 answered softly:
“There isn’t enough continuity for all of them.”
The crying outside became louder.
Kai slowly stepped toward the apartment door instinctively.
The duplicate immediately grabbed his wrist.
Its hand felt ice cold.
“Don’t.”
Kai looked at it carefully.
“Why?”
The duplicate’s expression twisted painfully.
“Because they know what happens after the stream ends.”
The timer on-screen continued counting down.
00:02:41
The livestream viewers passed 400,000 now.
The chat no longer looked excited anymore.
Only obsessed.
Watching silently.
Waiting.
Then suddenly the apartment TV turned on by itself across the room.
Static flooded the screen briefly before resolving into another livestream archive.
Different streamer.
Young woman.
Crying toward her webcam while a duplicate version smiled behind her.
The title displayed:
FINAL BROADCAST #228
The stream fast-forwarded automatically.
The crying streamer disappeared from camera.
The duplicate continued streaming afterward.
Then the footage shifted again.
Another archive.
Another streamer.
Another replacement.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Hundreds of trapped broadcasts flickered across the TV rapidly.
And in every failed stream—
Kai noticed the same thing.
Extra faces.
Blurred figures visible in reflections.
Crying voices beneath the audio.
The discarded versions.
Still trapped somewhere inside the archive after losing.
The duplicate beside Kai stared at the television with visible fear now.
Then softly whispered:
“I don’t want to stay there.”
The sentence broke something inside Kai.
Because suddenly the duplicate didn’t feel like an enemy anymore.
It felt terrified of becoming abandoned data trapped forever inside endless broadcasts.
Just like the crying voices outside.
Then User-0 calmly spoke again:
“The audience grows impatient.”
The apartment lights dimmed violently.
The timer dropped lower.
00:01:09
The older Kai suddenly shouted from the monitor:
“Kai, listen carefully.”
The stream glitched hard around him.
Like the archive itself resisted what he was trying to say.
Then the older Kai whispered urgently:
“There was never supposed to be only one survivor.”
Silence hit the apartment.
Even User-0 stopped speaking.
The older Kai continued quickly:
“The stream only works if someone accepts the replacement rules voluntarily.”
Kai’s pulse quickened instantly.
“What?”
The duplicate slowly looked toward the monitor in horror.
Realization spreading across its face too.
The older Kai stared directly into the camera.
“Nobody ever refuses the audience.”