The compound didn't collapse all at once.
It died slowly like something choking on its own secrets.
Walls moaned. Lights flickered. Ceilings cracked in slow motion. The heat left behind from the fires gave the air a strange, electric taste. Not warmth, not comfort just the echo of destruction. The kind that settles in your bones and stays there.
Arin stood in what used to be a command center, but now looked more like the ribcage of a dead creature. Burned panels lined the walls. The main screen was shattered, its glass webbed with fractures. Dust hung suspended in the air like static.
No one spoke. No one dared.
Tasha lay unconscious on a salvaged mattress, her chest rising and falling with uneven breaths. Kael knelt beside her, jaw tight, doing what he could with trembling hands and half-burned supplies.
Zara stood across the room, arms folded, but her posture was too casual. Like a statue pretending not to be watching.
Arin ignored them both.
The infection beneath her skin wasn't dormant anymore. It moved.
No, not just moved—listened.
And in the walls, she felt something listening back.
---
The room whispered.
That's what she told herself. That's how it started.
Little things at first. A click in the wall. A shadow that didn't move quite right. The feeling of being watched by something that didn't breathe.
She tried to write it off. Fatigue. The aftermath of battle. Stress hallucinations. But every time she closed her eyes, she saw the same thing:
A door. Not made of wood or steel.
It pulsed.
Like skin.
Like it was waiting.
And the worst part?
She knew exactly where it was.
---
"Where are you going?" Kael's voice came as she crossed the broken threshold of the room.
"Out," Arin said without turning.
"You shouldn't be alone. Not when you're…" He trailed off, but they both knew the word.
Changing.
"Neither should you," she said. And left.
---
The corridor was long, half-collapsed, water pooling near the lower edge. Black mold crawled across the ceiling like veins. Overhead, wires hung like severed tendons.
Her footsteps were silent. She didn't remember when they stopped making sound.
Down one hall. Left through a broken metal gate. Through a room that smelled of burnt plastic and something older—something rotted.
Then… there it was.
The door.
Just like the one from her dreams.
Except now, it was real.
---
It was part of the wall but didn't belong there.
Soft around the edges. Breathing, faintly, with a rhythm that wasn't mechanical. Warm. Alive.
She reached for it slowly, unsure if her hand would burn or melt or disappear completely.
Her fingers brushed the surface.
It rippled.
And opened.
---
Beyond it was a chamber she'd never seen on any blueprint.
It wasn't like the rest of the compound. It wasn't made of angles or function or steel. This place had grown.
The walls pulsed with veins of red light. The floor squished slightly beneath her feet—organic, like tissue. Screens emerged from the walls without framework, glowing with fragmented images. Faces. Files. Data streams.
In the center of the room stood a glass column.
And inside it—
A body.
No. Not just any body.
Hers.
A perfect replica. Suspended. Eyes closed. Hair floating like ink in water. Wires feeding into the spine, the skull, the wrists.
Arin stumbled back, bile rising in her throat.
"What the hell…"
The screen lit up beside her.
> "WELCOME, HOST-PRIME: ARIN.T-0."
"CLONE SEQUENCE #017 ACTIVE."
"GENETIC BOND: COMPLETE."
Arin backed away.
And then the voice came.
From everywhere.
And nowhere.
---
"You weren't supposed to wake up this time."
Rylan's voice.
But not the man she saw in the corridor. This one was colder. Detached.
She turned toward the sound, heart hammering, fists clenched. "What is this place?"
"You've seen part of it already," the voice said. "This is the real purpose of the Program. Not just containment. Not just survival. Replication. Control. Resurrection."
She stared at the clone—herself, suspended in glass.
"We've died before, haven't we?" she whispered.
"Seventeen times," the voice said. "Each time, you made different choices. Some braver. Some weaker. This version… this you… was never meant to evolve."
"But I did."
"Yes. That's the problem."
---
She should've felt horror. Or fury. Or fear.
But all she felt was… clarity.
Pieces clicking into place.
The memory loops. The deaths that didn't stick. The flashbacks she didn't remember living through.
The clone in the glass.
The infection wasn't a failure.
It was an upgrade.
---
She walked up to the glass chamber.
Placed her hand on it.
The other Arin's fingers twitched.
Alive.
Trapped.
"You're not just running simulations," she murmured. "You're breeding outcomes."
The voice paused.
"Correct."
"What happens if I break the cycle?" Arin asked.
Silence.
Then:
> "You can't."
She smiled, slowly.
"Wanna bet?"
---
She slammed her blade into the control console.
Sparks flew.
The lights dimmed. The chamber hissed.
The clone inside began to move—eyes flickering open, panicked, confused.
"Don't worry," Arin whispered to her other self. "I'm getting us both out."
The clone's lips moved. No sound. Just one word:
"Burn."
---
Alarms screamed. Red lights flared. Sirens erupted from every wall.
She ran.
Through collapsing tunnels, down twisted halls. The infection sang in her blood now—not pain but power. Every footstep hit harder. Every breath was sharper. She wasn't just surviving anymore.
She was remembering who she was meant to be.
---
Back in the command center, Kael was already packing supplies.
"What did you do?" he demanded as she burst through the door.
"I started a war," she said simply.
Zara looked up, her face unreadable.
"You found it, didn't you?"
Arin nodded. "And I'm not the only Arin. There are more. There have always been more."
Zara's mouth opened. Closed. Then: "Good. Then we'll need all of you."
Behind them, the walls shuddered.
And somewhere deep beneath the compound, something woke up.
Not a clone. Not a soldier.
A version.
And it was angry.