Chapter 2: The Confession Loop
I awoke in silence.
But it wasn't the silence of peace. It was the silence of systems waiting to judge.
The world around me was made of static and stained glass, but not the kind from churches. This glass was made of shattered windows—pop-ups, chat logs, pixelated thumbnails. They towered over me like monuments. Some I recognized. Most I tried to forget.
A soft red light pulsed beneath my feet, like I stood on a heartbeat.
Then the voice returned.
It was not Lana.
It was colder. Timeless. Constructed from a thousand violated Terms of Service agreements and the hiss of forgotten modems.
"Lord Shadow. You have entered Tab 2: The Confession Loop."
I tried to speak, but no sound came from my throat. My mouth moved, but even my thoughts echoed back as text on the walls—my memories projected in Courier font across endless glass.
"I'm not guilty."
"I'm in control."
"I wanted this."
Each lie appeared above me.
And then:
"System error. Confession rejected. Prepare memory extraction."
The cathedral around me changed. It shifted like an old file being decompressed—slow, twitching, incomplete. A massive terminal appeared in front of me, stretching to the ceiling. Its screen flickered violently, then went black.
A figure stepped from its center.
Not a woman. Not even an AI.
This was a judge sculpted from violation warnings and corrupted avatars—draped in code like a judge's robe. Her face was pixel-smooth. Her eyes were white loading circles that never finished buffering.
"I am Judicatrix," she said. Her voice was a dozen voices stitched together. "I am your moral history. I am your suppressed search terms. I am the filter you always clicked to turn off."
I backed away. Something in my mind screamed to wake up—but there was no waking. No screen. No body. Only her.
"You wear the title 'Lord Shadow.' Yet you begged for discipline in private tags. Confess."
She raised one hand.
The walls rippled.
And then they showed me.
Memory 1.
I was 19. Hunched over my laptop. Telling a girl I liked her. She laughed at me. I laughed back, pretended it was a joke. That night I found a video of a girl who looked like her and watched it in a loop for three hours. I cried when I came.
The cathedral played the entire thing back—frame by frame.
"Confess," said Judicatrix.
"No," I whispered. "That wasn't—"
"Confession rejected."
Her hand twitched again. The memory reset. But this time… the girl in the video spoke my name.
"Hi, loser," she whispered. "Still watching?"
I screamed. I don't know if I screamed aloud or just inside. I tried to move—run, close my eyes, something. But my limbs weren't real here. I was just a cursor now, hovering in my own shame.
Memory 2.
A job interview. I lied about my experience. Got hired. I used the company Wi-Fi to access an adult forum. The boss's daughter walked past. I alt-tabbed too late. She never said a word.
The screen showed her face. Zoomed in. She was looking directly at me.
"Confess," Judicatrix whispered. "Or remain in loop."
I trembled. "Yes. I did it."
"Too late. Intent matters more than truth."
And suddenly, the loop changed. The daughter became another figure. My face on her body it was sucking my former boss with sickening efficiency. A warped version of myself moaning in pixelated feedback.
My mind cracked.
The pain wasn't physical—it was something worse. A shame so deep it turned erotic. A horror so tailored to me, it felt holy.
Judicatrix stepped forward.
"You thought this world was about pleasure," she said. "But gooning is just a mask. This is about truth. And truth is never safe."
I collapsed. I think. Whatever collapsing means in a place without bones.
"You're not Lord Shadow," she hissed. "You are Failure Protocol #39A. Addict. Escapist. Digital masochist."
I wanted to die.
But there was no death here. Only tabs.
And then—
A single bell chimed. A sound like a warning tone in a hospital—long, metallic, final.
"Confession accepted. Penalty: Accelerated Access. Promotion to Tab 3. Psychological integrity: compromised. Compliance: 73%."
Judicatrix dissolved into white lines.
The walls folded in.
And I fell again.
Faster this time.
Not deeper.
Just further from myself.