Time stopped behaving like time.
That was the first sign.
Minutes stretched until they felt identical to hours. Commands blurred together, voices overlapping, reality reduced to motion and pain.
Hell Week tightened its grip.
They hadn't slept in over seventy hours.
Not real sleep.
Micro-blackouts stole seconds at a time—heads snapping up mid-step, eyes unfocused, bodies continuing on momentum alone.
Li Chen experienced them too.
He noted each lapse.
Corrected for it.
[System Alert: Neurological fatigue escalating]
[Recommendation: Minimal cognitive stabilization]
"Not yet," he thought.
The System complied.
But its response time lagged.
By milliseconds.
Li Chen noticed.
They were sent into the hills before dawn.
Navigation drills.
No GPS. No light. Just maps, compasses, and broken minds.
Pairs moved off into darkness.
Li Chen was paired with a recruit named Morales.
Shorter. Lean. Eyes bloodshot but sharp.
"You don't look wrecked," Morales muttered as they jogged.
"I am," Li Chen replied.
Morales laughed weakly. "Bullshit."
Li Chen didn't respond.
He adjusted their heading two degrees west.
They reached the checkpoint first.
Morales stared at him.
"How?"
Li Chen shrugged. "Terrain memory."
That wasn't a lie.
It just wasn't the whole truth.
The collapse happened during carries.
It always did.
Another log. Another beach run. Another impossible demand stacked onto a broken body.
Recruit Patterson went down hard.
Leg folded wrong.
The sound was wet.
He screamed.
The instructors didn't move.
Rules were rules.
The team froze.
Li Chen stepped forward.
"Continue," Grant ordered.
The log shifted.
Li Chen absorbed the imbalance instantly, redistributing weight across his shoulders and spine.
His muscles screamed—not from load, but restraint.
He could end this.
He didn't.
They finished the evolution.
Patterson was evacuated.
Three more recruits rang the bell afterward.
Night returned without rest.
They were ordered into the surf again.
This time, longer.
Colder.
Waves slammed into bodies already shaking uncontrollably.
One recruit began to sob.
Another whispered to himself.
Li Chen felt it then.
The edge.
Not fear.
Anger.
At inefficiency.
At waste.
[System Warning: Emotional variance detected]
[Stability protocols recommended]
"Stay quiet," Li Chen thought.
The System paused.
Its pause stretched.
Grant noticed.
Not the anger.
The stillness.
Walker wasn't just enduring anymore.
He was… separating.
Like something stepping back to observe the damage instead of feeling it.
That was dangerous.
The breaking moment came just before dawn.
A puzzle.
Cold hands. Shaking minds. Timed failure.
Teams argued.
Yelled.
One man swung at another.
Li Chen watched the pieces.
Saw the solution instantly.
Didn't speak.
They failed.
Punishment followed.
More surf.
More cold.
Morales collapsed beside him.
"I can't," Morales whispered. "I can't think."
Li Chen looked at him.
"You can," he said quietly. "You're just tired."
Morales laughed bitterly. "Easy for you."
Li Chen didn't answer.
That was when it happened.
A flicker behind his eyes.
Not the System.
Something else.
The world sharpened.
Pain dimmed.
Thought accelerated.
[CRITICAL NOTICE]
[User cognitive output exceeding System synchronization]
The System froze.
For less than a second.
But it froze.
Li Chen felt it.
His breath hitched.
Grant's head snapped up.
"Walker!" Grant barked.
Li Chen turned.
Golden eyes caught the floodlights.
For a heartbeat, something ancient looked back.
Then it vanished.
"Yes, Chief."
Grant stared.
He didn't know what he'd seen.
Only that Hell Week had finally done what it was designed to do.
It had revealed a fracture.
Not in Walker.
But in the limits meant to contain him.
The sun rose.
Hell Week continued.
And the System began rewriting itself—
—because it could no longer afford to fall behind