The corridors had stopped shifting.
No more flickers. No more whispers.
Just the low, humming quiet of systems resetting.
Jonas and Mara moved slowly through the house, hands still locked, their shadows long and fragile in the flickering emergency lights. The air was thick with the kind of silence that felt like it was holding its breath.
"Do you hear that?" Mara asked softly.
Jonas paused.
"No… That's the point."
The house was no longer responding to him.
No more phantom doors. No more reflections in the glass.
He was alone again.
Just him.
And her.
They stopped at the central consolethe one where it had all started. Where Jonas once activated the Gate the first time, full of hope, ambition, arrogance.
The screen was dark.
No prompts. No systems online.
Mara touched it. Nothing happened.
Jonas sat down beside it, his body aching in a way that wasn't physical.
"I remember everything," he said quietly.
Mara crouched beside him. "And?"
He looked at her.
"I'm not proud of who I was."
She nodded. "Good. That means you're still human."
A long silence passed.
Then:
"What if I made the wrong choice?" he asked.
"You didn't."
"You can't know that."
"I don't need to." She looked him in the eye. "Because I'm still here."
Jonas closed his eyes.
And for a while, they just sat. Breathing in the emptiness. The aftermath.
But peace, Jonas knew, was never final.
He stood and walked to the wall behind the console. The one that used to be lined with the memory archive.
To his surprise, a panel was open.
A single drive remained. Glowing faint blue.
"Mara," he called.
She came quickly, cautious.
"What is it?"
He picked it up. It was labeled with a single word:
SELF
"Is that you?" she asked.
Jonas shook his head. "No. It's what I left behind. Before everything. My original profile."
He held it up to the light.
A complete copy of his unaltered mind untouched by trauma, guilt, or corruption.
He could restore it. Start fresh. Forget it all again.
Mara must have read his expression, because she stepped forward and closed his hand over the drive.
"Don't."
He looked at her, startled.
"You think I should remember?"
"I think you've earned the right to live with your whole self. Not just the parts that survived."
He stared at the small device for a long time.
Then slid it into his coat pocket.
"I'm not going to destroy it," he said.
Mara smiled. "I never asked you to."
They turned toward the exit.
The doors opened for them this time.
No riddles. No illusions.
Just sky.
Real.
Gray. Cold. Honest.
Jonas exhaled. The world hadn't changed.
But maybe he had.
And that… was enough.