The world had turned sterile.
White walls. Humming machines. The faint antiseptic sting of cleansing chemicals that clung to the back of Dominic's throat. He sat alone in the secured lab beneath the monastery, a place few knew existed—once abandoned, now reactivated by a single purpose. His fingers moved across the digital interface with surgical precision. Line after line of code pulsed across the screen in red, then blue.
PROJECT HEARTGLASS.
The words blinked at him like a warning.
Or an invitation.
Amelia was slipping. He had seen it in her eyes—how they glazed, how she flinched at mirrors, how Echo now lingered longer in her gaze than she did. She wasn't just haunted. She was breaking. No… being replaced.
And Kestrel? That reckless bastard was still orbiting her like a shadow, too emotionally entangled to see the fault lines forming. If Dominic didn't act now, they'd all lose her.
So he made a choice.
No clearance. No approval. No team. Just him, the protocol, and the woman he couldn't let go.
He inserted the needle into the encrypted interface connected to Amelia's neural link—something he'd kept hidden, a final fail-safe.
The system hesitated before accepting the command. A pulse of light raced through the chamber as the algorithm initiated.
Begin cerebral separation.
Target: Echo.
Subject: Amelia Voss.
He swallowed hard. Please forgive me.
Upstairs, Amelia clutched the edge of a sink in the monastery's washroom, sweat pooling along her spine. Her breathing was shallow, uneven. She hadn't slept in days. Echo was whispering even now.
Why are you afraid of me, Amelia? I'm only trying to help.
"No," she whispered, pressing her palms to her ears. "You're trying to replace me."
I am you.
Her reflection in the mirror smiled. Not her. Echo. Her eyes were too bright, too hungry. Her expression coiled with secrets Amelia didn't understand.
Kestrel burst into the room, face flushed, hair windblown, as if he'd been running.
"I felt it," he said, moving to her side.
"Something's wrong. Your vitals are spiking. Your pulse—"
Amelia turned to him, eyes wide with terror. "It's Dominic. He's doing something. I can feel it. She's screaming in my head."
"She?" Kestrel repeated, voice tight. "You mean Echo?"
Amelia nodded, gripping the side of her head. "She's fighting."
Suddenly, her legs gave out. Kestrel caught her before she hit the ground, cradling her against him as her body began to convulse.
From deep below, the monastery vibrated—an unnatural hum rising through the stone floors.
Inside Amelia's mind, the world was on fire.
A corridor of memory twisted around her, lined with burning photographs. Her childhood home. A hand on her back at a research facility. Her first kiss. Her mother's fabricated voice. All of it melting.
Amelia stood barefoot on scorched tiles, dressed in the same white shift she'd seen in early childhood records. But she wasn't alone.
Echo stood at the far end of the hall, wearing her face. Her hair was longer, wild. Her expression flickered between fury and longing.
"You don't belong here," Amelia hissed.
Echo tilted her head. "Neither do you."
Flames licked the edges of the corridor, but neither moved.
"You're not trying to kill me," Amelia said slowly, realization dawning. "You're trying to merge."
Echo's expression softened. "I was always meant to be part of you. They split us. Broke us. I'm your survival instinct. I'm your edge. Your pain. Your heat. I'm everything you've suppressed."
"No." Amelia shook her head. "You're a parasite."
"I'm you, Amelia. The version you won't admit you need."
The fire surged higher. Amelia's mind trembled. Echo stepped forward.
"Let me in," she whispered.
"I'd rather burn," Amelia growled.
The flames exploded. The corridor shattered.
Back in the monastery, Dominic's screen flatlined.
"Subject neural instability: Critical. Connection disrupted."
"No, no, no—dammit!" He slammed a fist onto the desk. She wasn't supposed to fight this hard. He had calculated for resistance, but not full rejection.
Then the monitor flickered.
Recalibrating neural identity.
Unknown outcome.
Subject reboot in progress…
He stared, unblinking, as the lines of code twisted into something he didn't recognize.
Something alive.
Amelia gasped awake.
Kestrel flinched as her body jolted against him. Her pupils dilated unnaturally, her breath ragged. For a long moment, she just stared ahead.
"Amelia?" he whispered.
She didn't respond.
Her gaze slid to him, slow and deliberate. Her irises shimmered faintly—metallic, ethereal.
"Amelia," Kestrel repeated, gently cupping her face. "Are you… you?"
She blinked once. Twice. Then her lips parted—but no words came. Just breath. Just silence.
Behind her eyes, something had shifted. A presence. A merge. A compromise.
Dominic stood in the doorway, his face pale, guilt written in every hard line of his body.
"What have you done?" Kestrel growled.
Dominic didn't answer.
Because the truth was—he didn't know.
Amelia stood up, slowly. She moved like herself. Looked like herself. But the air around her was wrong. Heavier. Tense.
And then she looked at them both.
Her voice was barely a whisper, but it echoed like a thunderclap:
"Everything's different now."
As the monastery's emergency systems light up red, a hidden transmission pings across the network. From somewhere deep within Mirror Node 2, a voice speaks:
"Amelia. You're awake. You've passed the first trial. Now come finish what we started."