Gunfire shattered the quad.
Students scattered like birds startled mid-flight, flashlights dropping, voices cracking from shock into raw fear.
The power grid was still down.
No lights. No cameras.
But they came anyway.
Because the Crown doesn't need surveillance to punish rebellion.
They need guns.
Killian pulled me behind the west sculpture wall as another burst tore through the dark. I saw a student fall. A scream. Another running. Then nothing.
"Private security," he hissed, breath ragged. "Not campus police. They're hunting."
"For us?"
He met my eyes.
"No. For everyone who believed you."
My hands were shaking, but not from fear.
From rage.
They wanted to scare us back into silence.
But I'd lived through silence.
My sister died in silence.
And now?
I had a voice sharpened by grief.
And a target drawn in blood.
We crept through the shadows toward the library ruins — the eastern wall partially under renovation, scaffolding still intact.
"Up," I said.
Killian didn't hesitate.
We climbed three levels, out of range of the floodlights now sweeping the campus from hastily deployed vans.
I pulled my phone from my coat.
Battery: 6%
Just enough.
I opened the live feed from the Crownless Project.
The blackout had pushed traffic through the mobile mirror site. Comments flooded the screen — students from other universities, reporters, strangers.
I typed:
They brought guns.
Blackmere is burning.
We are not backing down.
I hit send.
Then one more message:
I need eyes. Who's still out there?
Ping. Ping. Ping.
Responses flooded in.
"Med tent forming behind the gym."
"North stairwell secured. No guards seen."
"Camera footage recorded. Uploading soon."
"They're jamming the fire exits."
"Tell Zara to keep going."
I blinked.
Then scrolled back.
The last message wasn't from a student.
It was from Jules.
She was online.
She was watching.
"We still have people," I whispered.
Killian exhaled. "Then we still have a shot."
We used the scaffolding to cross into the History Annex — quiet, abandoned.
In the archives room, Halvers waited.
He'd barricaded the door with chairs and metal poles.
His laptop ran on a hidden battery bank.
"You're alive," he muttered.
"They shot at kids," I said.
"I know."
He turned the screen toward me.
Footage from a dorm hallway — a student tackled, pinned, dragged out by two men in black.
"Alecta's trying to create chaos," he said. "So they can call it a riot."
"Then we control the story."
He raised a brow. "How?"
"By finishing what we started."
I handed him Lila's notebook.
We opened to the second-to-last page.
"If they bring force — bring fire. Truth is stronger than bullets when it's everywhere."
Below it: another code.
ALC-ROOT: 99Z13R3
Killian's jaw clenched.
"That's a command string."
"Alecta's server?"
He nodded. "If we can find where that string activates..."
"We end them."
Halvers pointed to the security schematic on his screen.
"This building connects to the data tunnels under the psych labs."
"Where Marrin worked," I said.
He nodded.
"And where Soren was stationed before being 'removed.'"
I turned to Killian.
"We finish it there."
We ran.
Past locked doors and silent stairwells. Past the mural Lila once painted — still half-covered in scaffolding. Past the room where Jules handed me her last gift.
Now, we were the ones giving it back.
The psych lab basement was half-lit by emergency lights.
The server room sat at the far end, sealed behind steel doors.
"Not this again," Killian muttered.
He produced a crowbar.
"Brute force?"
I nodded.
He wedged the bar into the lock. One loud crack later, we were in.
Inside: racks of hardware, fans buzzing. A single master console.
He plugged in the drive.
Typed the root code.
ALC-ROOT: 99Z13R3
A prompt blinked.
"Activate emergency protocol: Data Exposure Sequence?"
Killian looked at me.
I hit YES.
Screens lit up across the campus.
Not just ours.
All of them.
Every room. Every hallway. Every dorm. Every cafeteria.
Footage.
Images.
Audio.
Every secret Alecta had ever recorded — now playing in real-time.
Students froze mid-run.
Guards stopped shouting.
And on one screen — blown up twenty feet high near the performing arts building — a face appeared:
Cassandra Vale.
In a private meeting.
"The experiment must escalate. If the girl becomes a problem, remove her. Just like her sister."
"No loose ends."
Someone screamed.
Someone else cheered.
And the system fell.
We heard it — a loud boom in the distance.
Not an explosion.
A generator shutting down.
The fallback failed.
Blackmere went black.
But the world?
It was watching.
Killian grabbed my arm.
"We have to go."
But I couldn't move.
I watched one last clip — Lila, in a conference room, cornered.
Cassandra standing over her.
Telling her: "You were never a person. Just a pattern."
Lila spitting back: "Then I hope your crown shatters."
Then the clip ended.
We ran.
Not away.
Through.
Out of the basement.
Into the dark.
Toward the quad.
And what we saw stopped us cold.
Hundreds of students.
Standing.
Silent.
Holding their phones high.
Lit screens above their heads like stars.
On each one?
Lila's face.
Smiling.
Alive.
Projected from the final file.
Her last message.
"I wasn't erased. I was made invisible. You made me seen."
We stepped forward.
Killian on one side.
Halvers behind us.
Jules appeared from the crowd — bruised, limping, eyes full of fire.
And the chant began.
Soft. Then louder.
Then unstoppable.
"Crownless. Crownless. Crownless."
[Creator's Note – SOBBING. SCREAMING. SHAKING. 😭👑🔥]
This chapter was everything.
The gunfire. The blackout. The upload. The QUAD. THE CROWNLESS.
And LILA'S VOICE AT THE END?? I'm a pile of emotional debris 😭
Cassandra has been exposed. The servers are dead.
Zara started a revolution and now it has a name.
One more twist is coming.
And Chapter 19 is it.
Because a throne is still standing — and Level Zero has one more card to play. 👑
xoxo
–Smith_10