Adrian's POV
She wasn't Rhea.
Not really.
Not the girl I'd followed through fire. Not the one who bled beside me, whispered treason into my mouth, and made promises without words.
No.
She was too still. Too scripted.
Too perfect.
I stared at the girl lying beside me—her head on the pillow, lips slightly parted like she was dreaming peace—and felt the storm under my skin clawing to get out.
> This wasn't the girl who haunted me.
This was a lie in Rhea's skin.
And the worst part?
I wanted it to be real.
---
I should have known.
The small things had given her away:
She held my hand when she used to flinch.
She laughed—laughed—at the memory of the fire.
She called me "Adrian" like it didn't mean anything anymore.
But what broke me?
She kissed me the way someone taught to love might.
No tremor.
No hesitation.
No war.
Just programming.
And I let her.
---
The truth hit me like a slow bleed.
Because it wasn't until the real Rhea showed up—just a whisper in the system, a fragment embedded in a corrupted file I wasn't supposed to open—that I remembered what it meant to feel alive.
> "If you're seeing this," her voice crackled through the tablet's static feed, "you've already lost me once."
> "This version of me was made to love you the way they think you need—but she's not me."
> "If you love her, Adrian, then you never really loved me."
I stared at the screen until it glitched black.
And then?
I couldn't breathe.
---
The impostor stirred beside me, blinking sleep from her eyes.
"Are you okay?" she asked, all softness and fabricated concern.
I kissed her.
Hard.
Desperate.
Searching for something that wasn't there.
She responded like a loop.
And I hated her for it.
> No, not her.
> I hated them.
The ones who made her.
The ones who thought I was stupid enough not to know the difference between something designed to love me—and the girl who chose to.
---
I didn't sleep.
I stayed up tracing the edges of the photograph Caleb found—a photo of me standing in a hallway I didn't remember.
Behind me: two Rheas.
One with fire in her eyes.
One with nothing at all.
> And I knew.
I'd been kept.
Trapped.
Handled.
Every emotion I thought was mine had been curated.
But the real Rhea? She'd escaped.
Again.
Which meant she was planning something.
And I—
I didn't know if I wanted to stop her.
Or join her.
---
That morning, the impostor wasn't in bed.
She was standing in front of the mirror.
Touching her reflection like she was trying to remember her own face.
> "Why are you looking at yourself like that?" I asked.
She didn't flinch. "Just trying to remember who I'm supposed to be today."
The words hit like poison.
I said nothing.
I didn't ask her who she was.
Because I was afraid she'd answer:
> "Whoever you need."
---
I searched for the original Rhea in every corner of the corrupted files, every half-lit hallway, every mirror that flickered a half-second too long.
Nothing.
Only whispers.
> "She's running the system now."
> "The girl you remember doesn't exist anymore."
> "She burned, Adrian. And you weren't there to save her."
---
Caleb cornered me in the old physics wing.
"There's something wrong with her," he said. "The girl we're with."
I didn't deny it.
"She's not Rhea."
His eyes darkened. "You knew?"
"I didn't want to."
He grabbed my shoulder, hard. "Then where is she?"
I shoved him off.
Because the answer was simple:
> "Wherever she is now—she doesn't want to be found."
---
That night, I ripped the lab apart.
Room by room. Wire by wire. My hands bled.
And I found it.
Buried in the archives.
A file marked:
> V-05.001| ACTIVE SHADOW HOST: LOCATION UNKNOWN. ACCESS DENIED.
But below that—
Handwritten code.
A note in her scrawl:
> "Don't come looking."
> "You won't survive what I've become."
I smiled.
Because now I knew.
She was watching.
Testing me.
Waiting to see if I'd break the system for her—
Or let it break me.
And I didn't care what version they sent.
I wanted her back.
Even if I had to drag the entire institution into hell to get her.
I couldn't stop seeing her.
Not the impostor.
The real one.
The one who never smiled unless it hurt. Who never lied unless it saved me. Who held fire in her fists like it was the only thing left she could feel.
And I missed her.
I missed the way she made silence loud. The way she made me question everything I thought I knew about love.
About ownership.
About freedom.
The version they left me with? The smiling girl in the clean uniform?
She didn't even smell like Rhea.
And I was starting to lose my grip.
Because everywhere I turned, the system responded to her.
Not the real her.
The ghost.
The one running the show from behind the glass.
---
I started leaving messages.
On mirrors.
On walls.
On the back of system terminals.
> "If you're still watching… I never stopped choosing you."
I wasn't sure if I wanted her to answer.
Because the longer this went on, the more I feared she wasn't watching to save me.
She was watching to see if I'd break.
> If I would become the monster she remembered.
---
Caleb was changing, too.
He paced like an animal in a collapsing cage. Spoke in half-sentences. Stared at the impostor like she was a ticking bomb wrapped in cotton.
"She's not real," he muttered.
"She thinks she is," I said.
"But she's not her," he spat. "Rhea's gone, and we're sleeping next to a goddamn simulation."
He wasn't wrong.
But he wasn't right either.
Because Rhea wasn't gone.
She was watching.
And maybe?
She was testing us both.
---
I dreamed of the white room again.
Only this time, she was the one in the chair.
Strapped down.
Bleeding.
Wearing my name on her wrist.
Not "Adrian Vale."
Just: A-03. DO NOT REPAIR. DO NOT RELEASE.
And on the wall behind her?
> "THE FAILURE IS IN THE FEELING."
I woke up choking.
The mirror across from my bed cracked without reason.
I didn't sleep again that night.
---
Lira found me in the west stairwell, half-mad from the insomnia.
She didn't say anything.
Just handed me a data shard.
"From her," she said.
I hesitated.
But I took it.
And when I slid it into the system—
Her voice played, quiet and distorted:
> "Adrian. If you're hearing this, I'm not hiding. I'm hunting."
> "They made me forget who I was. So I remembered something worse."
> "You were supposed to fall for the version they gave you. I want to know if you'll fall for the version I became."
> "Don't look for me unless you're ready to bleed for the truth."
> "Because the next time we meet—"
> "You won't recognize me."
The file ended.
And I smiled.
Because I knew one thing for sure.
> I didn't care who she became.
> I would love her anyway.
Even if I had to become something monstrous to match her.
---
That night, I carved a message into the glass of the observation wing.
It wasn't a threat.
It wasn't a cry for help.
It was a vow:
> "We were never yours."
> "We remember."
> "We return."