Chapter 4: The Wedding Stream & Final Sync

Year 2275 | Three Weeks Before the Wedding

The café hummed with activity, but its heart was quiet.

Arthur sat on the upper floor balcony overlooking the gaming lounge, a cup of coffee in one hand, the other wrapped around Alice's fingers. Her head rested gently on his shoulder, her dark hair falling across his chest. The neon glow from the shop sign outside traced soft lines across their skin.

It had been nearly seven years since Arthur's first hesitant steps back into gaming. Since then, he had risen from an anonymous ex-soldier to the undisputed number-one player in Astral Genesis. Zenith, the mysterious strategist with no facecam, no public identity, and inhuman precision, had dominated the game for nearly a decade—and beside him, always, was Alice.

Together, they'd built a gaming empire. The café had expanded twice, a new floor added, new staff hired. Reservations were full months in advance—not just for the pods, but for the hope of seeing Alice and Zenith in person.

But they had kept their personal lives quiet. Private.

Until tonight.

"You remember," Alice murmured, "when I said this café was all I had?"

Arthur nodded, silent.

"I didn't know it could become more than that. A home. A future."

He gently laced his fingers tighter with hers.

"I do," he said softly. "And I remember what you said then—'Don't worry about the past. Focus on now.' That's what I've been doing. And now…"

She lifted her face, eyes shining with warmth.

"…now, in three weeks, I get to marry my co-op partner," she teased.

Arthur laughed—really laughed, for once.

"Yeah," he said. "Top player in Astral Genesis, number one streamer on every platform… and I still can't beat you in making coffee."

She elbowed him lightly.

"Let's go," he said, standing. "One last stream. Let's tell them."

Before the Stream

Although Alice had appeared on camera many times during their dual streams—often the bright, smiling presence beside a silent black screen—today was different.

For the first time since the legend of Zenith began, Arthur had agreed to reveal his face.

"I want them to know who I am," he told Alice that morning. "If I'm going to share our future, I want to do it fully. No more shadows."

The Stream That Shook the Net

The stream launched to over 19 million live viewers across six major platforms. The waiting room alone had tens of thousands of fanart submissions, theories about Zenith's identity, and rumors that tonight's stream would be "historic."

And when the camera flickered on and settled, viewers saw them together for the first time: Alice glowing in her maroon jacket, and Arthur beside her, calm and quietly strong, a rare smile playing at the corner of his lips.

Then Alice and Zenith turned to the mic and said:

"Hey guys I'm Zenith" he said simply.

"And I'm Alice" she said with a smile

"We have an announcement."

The chat exploded.

Arthur spoke next. Calm. Steady.

"We're getting married. In three weeks."

The stream froze for a moment—not the feed, but the world watching.

Then, a flood of reactions:

"ZENITH FACE REVEALED—OMG"

"ZENITH AND Alice MARRIED??"

"NO WAY THAT'S REAL"

"Alice CONFIRMED QUEEN"

"WE LOVE YOU GUYS"

"I'M CRYING—OMG"

Clips of the announcement flooded every platform within minutes.

Their follower count spiked by another two million before they even entered the game.

The Battle Begins

Tonight's stream was an elite-level mission: Endless Nightfall, an apocalyptic wave defense in Astral Genesis where thousands of monsters surged through multidimensional cracks for hours. Very few players could handle them for more than thirty minutes.

Zenith and Alice planned to clear it.

The terrain was dark, glitching, storm-wracked. Their avatars—Alice in luminous light-armor and Zenith in his iconic black tactical coat—moved like fire through the chaos.

Viewers watched in awe as Arthur laid down kill zones, deployed decoys, launched orbital relics and soulbound artillery. Alice coordinated buffs and target prioritization with seamless rhythm.

Their synergy was mesmerizing.

The Final Sync

Two hours into the stream, something changed.

Arthur's reactions—already superhuman—became otherworldly. Dodging with subatomic precision. Predicting enemy spawns. Executing combos with frame-perfect timing.

Alice noticed it first.

"Arthur… your pod's output is rising. You okay?"

"Yeah," he said, not missing a beat. "Just… focused."

But behind the scenes, the system was flagging anomalies.

[ALERT: SYNC RATE EXCEEDED 97.2%]

[WARNING: Cognitive Feedback Loop Detected]

[SYSTEM STABILITY CRITICAL]

[SYNC RATE: 98.3% … 99.0% … 99.8%]

Alice's face turned pale in her pod. Her monitor was linked to his diagnostics.

"Arthur. Stop."

But he didn't. Couldn't.

He was too far in—fused with the interface, lost in the zone.

To him, the game wasn't a simulation anymore. It was war. Like the ones he had fought in military. He wasn't Zenith anymore. He was became the battlefield itself.

Then the power surged.

[ERROR: Pod Overload]

[EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN FAILED]

The pod hissed. A spark. Then a flame.

Alice screamed. "ARTHUR—!"

Her pod, linked to his for co-op sync, caught the residual surge. The heat cascaded. Foam seals failed. The fire spread.

Customers scrambled. Staff ran. But the fire was fed by synthetic polymer, fast and suffocating.

The emergency release didn't trigger.

Inside the pod, Arthur was still conscious, trapped in the flames.

He turned toward Alice's pod—just visible through the smoked glass.

She was reaching for him.

He mouthed her name.

Then the screen went black.

Across the World

The stream feed cut suddenly. No warning. No outro. No fade.

Just silence.

For one moment, millions of people stared at empty screens.

Then news broke.

BREAKING NEWS: Fire at AstraPods Café. Two confirmed dead. No survivors. Suspected VR pod overload.

Names: Arthur Marlowe (known globally as Zenith) and Alice Verna.

Within minutes, #Zenith, #Alice, and #FinalStream began trending across every network.

Clips of their wedding announcement went viral. Their final co-op gameplay—the perfect synergy, the laughter, the brief moment when Arthur smiled on camera—became a memorial watched and replayed across the world.

Streamers cried on their feeds. Fans made tribute videos. Artists flooded the net with paintings, digital sculptures, animated remembrances.

"We never knew their faces until today. And now we'll never forget them."

Arthur Marlowe and Alice Verna died with the memories of each other etched into their final thoughts—every smile, every silence, every shared breath.

And now somewhere, in a distant galaxy, across the fabric of space and time… a new journey was about to begin.