Darkness.
Not the kind that closes your eyes — but the kind that opens something else.
Something that shouldn't be awake.
Elara floated in it, numb, for what could've been minutes or millennia. There was no time here, only the slow decay of certainty. She couldn't even hear her own heartbeat anymore.Only the silence.
A silence that felt… alive.
The kind that watches. That waits. That remembers.
A faint sensation tickled the back of her neck — a whisper, not of sound, but of presence. The air shifted slightly. Not with wind, but awareness. Something was behind her. Breathing.
She didn't turn.
Couldn't.
Even her thoughts had begun to echo, like shouting into a cave that answers back with something else's voice.
"You left the door open."
The voice didn't sound spoken. It bloomed inside her mind, oily and thick, sliding into the folds of her brain like a parasite with teeth. It wasn't accusatory. It was… curious.
"Do you even remember building it?"
A breath grazed her ear. Not wind — breath. Wet. Hungry.
She turned.
And saw herself.
Not in a mirror. Not in memory. But standing there, naked, pale, shivering — like a corpse pulled from a lake.
But this version had no eyes.
Just deep, black holes where her vision should have lived.
And when it smiled…
Elara stumbled backward. Her spine struck a wall that hadn't been there a second ago. A wall that pulsed like flesh. Warm. Wet.
She recoiled in disgust, only for the wall to sigh — actually sigh — like it missed her touch.
"Where are you going?" her eyeless double asked.
"You built this place. Every inch. Every rule. Every lie."
Elara's mouth opened, but no words came.
She was choking on her own name.
The room snapped into sharp focus — suddenly sterile and blinding white.
But only for a second.
Then came the buzzing.
Low. Mechanical. Familiar.
The hum of a fluorescent light. The kind in interrogation rooms. Or operating theaters.
A chair emerged from the whiteness.
Steel. Bolted to the floor.
Straps. Dried blood crusted beneath them.One of them twitched.
And beside the chair…
A table.
On it: seven objects.
A scalpel, rusted.
A silver locket, open and empty.
A black-and-white photograph of a faceless child.
A cassette tape labeled "Do Not Play."
A silver syringe.
A piece of her own hair, braided tightly and tied with thread.
And a mirror — face down.
She didn't remember placing any of them there.
But her fingers itched. Like they remembered what her mind refused to.
The voice returned.
"Choose."
Elara shook her head violently.
"No. No more tricks."
But her feet moved anyway.
First toward the mirror.
She flipped it over.
Instead of her reflection, the surface showed a room she'd never seen before. Or had she?
A child's bedroom.
Wallpaper peeled from the walls in floral strips.A crib.A bloodstain beneath it.
A stuffed rabbit in the corner — its head turned completely backward.
The mirror began to pulse.Thump. Thump.A heartbeat. Hers?
A whisper crawled from its edges:
"Don't you remember what you did?"
The mirror cracked.Then again.Until it shattered silently.
Not a single sound. Just… sudden nothing.
The other items began to vibrate on the table.
She lunged for the cassette.
The tape felt cold, like it had been kept in a corpse.
With trembling hands, she fed it into the old recorder mounted on the wall. It clicked.
Then: static.
Then a voice.
Her own voice.
But younger. Softer. Terrified.
"I didn't mean to hurt him. I just wanted the screaming to stop."
Then another voice.
A child's scream.
Then a gunshot.
Elara fell backward, bile rising in her throat.
She hadn't just heard that.
She remembered it.
Something inside her cracked.
Not her mind.
Not her heart.
Something older.
Something she didn't have a name for.
The walls melted again — this time into black stone, slick with moisture.
She was underground now. A basement?
The scent of mildew and rot clawed at her lungs.
Chains hung from the ceiling. Rusted. Used.
A single bulb swung from above, casting violent shadows across a stained mattress on the floor.
Elara's breath hitched.
She knew this room.
Every inch.
She stepped forward.
The bulb flickered.
And suddenly — she was no longer alone.
A man sat on the mattress.
His back to her.
Broad shoulders. A deep scar along his spine.
Her mouth formed a name she didn't remember learning.
"Father?"
The man didn't turn.
But he laughed.
And the laugh was wrong.
Too low. Too long.
"Not quite," he rasped.
He stood. Bones cracking.
And when he turned — his face was a blur.
Not disfigured. Just not allowed.
Like something behind a veil of censorship. A person whose identity the universe itself had rejected.
But his voice was clear.
And it cut like a knife.
"You gave me shape, Elara."
"You summoned me to fill the space where your guilt should've lived."
"I'm everything you refuse to face."
She backed away, hands trembling.
"You're not real."
"I made you."
"I created this place!"
He advanced.
"And now it creates you."
"That's the rule of the mind, child."
"The architect always gets buried under the walls."
The room collapsed.
She was falling again.
But this time, not into darkness.
Into sound.
Screams.
Her own.
Looped. Distorted. Backward.
A mechanical voice layered over them:
"Subject 47-EL: Neural collapse at 83%. Core identity eroding."
"Administer protocol: ECHO_REFORMAT."
She opened her eyes — strapped again.
Not to a chair this time, but a gurney.
Above her — lights. Cameras.
Figures behind glass, watching.
Writing. Recording.
"She's stabilizing," someone said.
"For now," another replied.
"But she's resisting the merge."
Merge?
Elara fought the restraints, but her limbs wouldn't move. The straps felt tight, but when she looked — there were no straps.
Just the idea of being trapped.
A memory she couldn't shake.
The voice returned. Closer now. Inside her ear.
"They're trying to rewrite you."
"Erase the old code."
"Make you useful."
Elara whispered:
"Useful for what?"
A pause.
Then:
"To become the next prison."
She didn't understand.
But her chest burned.
Then—suddenly—
She saw it.
Through the glass.
A new subject.
Bound. Sedated.
Being wheeled into the observation chamber.
And she recognized the face.
It was her.
Another version.
Eyes closed. Lips stitched.
"They're multiplying you," the voice whispered."Copying what's left. Building a hive of you."
"You're not the only Elara anymore."
"You're the seed."
"The virus."
A screen in front of her lit up.
Lines of code scrolled rapidly.
A message blinked in red:
PROJECT: FRACTURESTATUS: REPLICATION ACTIVEINSTANCES: 31CONTROL: DEGRADEDFAILSAFE TRIGGER: ENGAGED
Elara screamed.
"STOP THIS! I'M NOT A FUCKING EXPERIMENT!"
But behind the glass, none of them moved.
They just watched.
And slowly—
They all started to smile.
THE THIRTY-SECOND
Suddenly—
All power in the chamber cut out.
Screams from behind the glass.
Emergency lights flickered on — red, violent, chaotic.
On the floor beside her, a metal tag clattered from nowhere.
She squinted at it.
Stamped into the metal:
SUBJECT 32-EL[LIVE][REDACTED][BREACHED CONTAINMENT]
A siren blared overhead.
Warning: Subject 32 has exited simulation parameters. Manual override required. Security lockdown failure.
Elara's breath hitched.
From the far end of the chamber, a door hissed open.
And out stepped…
Her.
But this version wasn't blank. Or sedated.
This one… was smiling. Wide. Unblinking.
Covered in blood.
Hands twitching like knives.
The lights flickered.
And the last thing Elara saw before the world cut to black was Subject 32 walking toward her, whispering:
"I remember everything."
"And I'm not going back in."