Elara hadn't spoken in three days.
She sat cross-legged in the sterile containment chamber, staring at the strip of pale light bleeding from the ceiling. Cameras tracked her every movement. She didn't bother pretending she wasn't being watched.
Not after what she'd seen.
The face in the wall. Her own—yet not.
Lyra.
The hallucination hadn't come back. No one else had seen it, and the guards thought she was slipping. Even Cassian. Maybe he wanted to.
She'd begged him to listen. He'd asked the doctors for a psych eval.
Now he avoided her.
The silence around her was thick with distrust.
Then came the knock.
Elara looked up as the steel door unlatched with a hiss. A woman entered—mid-thirties, dark hair in a tight coil, glasses perched on her nose, holding a datapad and a cautious smile.
"Doctor Talia Moreau," she said. "You probably don't remember me."
"I don't," Elara said flatly.
Talia approached the one-way glass, setting the datapad down. She didn't seem afraid.
"I was part of the team that worked on Project Vow. I… oversaw part of your neural imprint stabilization, years ago."
Elara's blood turned cold. "You made me."
"No," Talia said carefully. "I helped bring you back."
"Same thing."
Talia sat across from her. "Do you remember the last thing before your mission to Vault 19?"
Elara didn't answer.
A flicker. A firestorm. Screams and light.
And a second voice, layered under her own thoughts, always whispering.
"I remember dying," Elara said. "I remember the mission going to hell. Cassian ordered the breach. I went in. The Seedfather activated. I blew the core."
"You were found buried beneath five tons of biotech sediment. No pulse. But you were intact—barely. Somehow, the vault's systems had wrapped you in a regeneration sheath."
"And you dragged me back."
"You were the only one it ever saved."
Elara's jaw clenched. "I'm not entirely me anymore, am I?"
Talia hesitated. "There are changes. You have enhancements—neural connectivity, faster cellular healing, residual seed markers in your blood. But nothing dangerous."
"Except the voice in my head."
That made Talia pause.
"I didn't program a voice," she said carefully.
Elara stood, pacing.
"It calls itself Nyx. It talks to me sometimes. Gives me data I didn't ask for. Knows things I haven't told anyone. Like my sister's name."
Talia's eyes narrowed. "You don't have a sister."
"I didn't."
Elara turned sharply. "But I keep seeing her. She looks exactly like me. She was in the wall, Talia. The vault spoke with her face."
Talia stood slowly. "That's not possible."
Elara stepped closer.
"She said she was coming. That she's not finished."
Talia didn't reply. She retrieved her pad, tapped in a sequence, and locked the door behind her.
Something in her expression had shifted.
Fear.
⸻
Later that night…
Cassian stood alone on the tower platform outside the med-bay, wind tearing at his coat. The city below was dark, lit only by scattered solar flares and distant fires on the outskirts.
Elara approached him quietly.
He didn't turn.
"You're avoiding me," she said.
"I'm protecting you," he replied.
"From what?"
He finally turned. His eyes were tired. Lined. Sad.
"From the Resistance. From what they're saying. From what you're becoming."
"I'm not your enemy, Cassian."
"Then what are you?"
The words struck like a slap.
She didn't have an answer.
"I buried you, Elara," he said, voice breaking. "I held your body in my arms. We set fire to the ruins. You were gone. And now you're standing here, looking like you walked out of a dream—or a nightmare."
"You think I'm compromised."
"I think I don't know who you are anymore."
She stepped forward. "Then let me prove it."
Cassian's voice dropped. "Marrin wants to transfer you to Blacksite Theta. Off-world. Permanent containment."
Elara's blood chilled.
"They think I'm a threat."
"Unless we can give them something else. A target bigger than you."
She met his gaze. "Lyra."
He didn't argue.
"I have to find her," she said. "She's part of this. She's awake. And I think the Seedfather is still active. Or something worse."
Cassian nodded once. "I'll get you out."
They didn't say more. Words wouldn't help them now.
⸻
Midnight
The citadel slept under low power mode.
Inside the main server core, Doctor Talia stood alone, accessing a classified archive beneath Project Vow.
She scanned the old footage again—Elara's genetic sequence, her brain scans, the failed clone protocols.
Then she pulled up Project Mirror.
The screen lit up with a biometric match.
Subject: Lyra Venn
Status: Deceased (Status uncertain)
Location: Unknown
Last Data Ping: Subsurface Network Node X-13, 6 hours ago.
Talia stared.
Six hours.
She grabbed her comm.
"Marrin," she whispered, "she's not alone. The twin… she's real."
The line crackled, then died.
The lights in the lab flickered—and shut off completely.
Talia turned slowly, breath hitching.
In the glass of the server, a face appeared.
Elara's face.
But not.
"Hello, Doctor," Lyra said, voice echoing directly into her mind. "Tell my sister—I'm waiting."
Then everything went black.