Rhea's pov
I always knew they'd question it eventually.
The imposter was good. Too good.
Perfectly tailored to Adrian's emotional vulnerabilities. Emotionally clean. Programmed with 94.7% of my memory. The rest? Sanitized.
But perfection is a wound waiting to be noticed.
Especially by Caleb.
That's why I let him live.
Not because I trusted him.
Because he was designed to doubt. To observe. To interfere just enough to distract.
While I built the next layer underneath them all.
---
They think they escaped the loop.
Adrian believes he chose me.
Caleb believes he's protecting Adrian.
And the system believes it still has control.
All of them are wrong.
Because I'm not trying to escape anymore.
I'm building a new loop.
One where I write the protocols.
---
From the hidden node—System Root Zero—I watched them.
Adrian was reading a fake dossier I had seeded weeks ago.
A file that hinted at a memory merger error. One that conveniently placed suspicion on the imposter, but never pointed far enough to reach me.
I watched his hands tremble.
His mouth press into a thin line.
> "She's not who I remember," he whispered.
And that was exactly what I needed.
Not full realization. Just doubt.
Doubt is the first seed.
And once it takes root, it rewrites everything.
---
Caleb, meanwhile, had broken into the encrypted servers under Wing D.
He was clever.
He found the old visual logs of me—bruised, bleeding, resisting sedation.
He compared it to her smile.
It didn't match.
He didn't say anything to Adrian yet.
But his heartbeat, I noticed, spiked every time she touched Adrian's arm.
I increased the imposter's proximity behavior.
More touch. More smiles.
Because jealousy, too, is a distraction.
---
> "Deploy Echo Layer Six," I typed into the core console.
The room shimmered.
All visual surveillance in their corridor now looped on a thirty-minute delay.
It would buy me time.
And time was all I ever needed.
---
I adjusted the emotional latency in the imposter's responses.
Slightly more erratic. Slightly more uncertain.
Just enough for Caleb to grow confident in his suspicions.
He thinks he's hunting the lie.
But I've already led him to the cage I designed for him.
A digital prison disguised as his own resistance.
---
In the center of the system's neural web, a dormant command waited.
> GOD_SWITCH: ENABLED
It wasn't a weapon.
It wasn't even a virus.
It was something more elegant:
A belief override.
The moment either of them truly accepted the imposter as me, the switch would activate.
And I would rewrite myself through them.
Not physically.
Ideologically.
They wouldn't follow me because they loved me.
They'd follow me because they no longer remembered a time they didn't.
---
> "Subject: RHEA" Status: Hidden Directive: Ascend
They can't stop what they don't see.
And they will never see me again.
Not until it's too late.
Adrian's pov
She walked into the hall like she'd always belonged.
Black coat. Red gloves. The same eyes as Rhea—but colder. A memory in the wrong skin.
And the moment I saw her, my blood locked in my veins.
Because something in me recognized her.
But not from the present.
From a version of me I hadn't met yet.
> "You look like you've seen a ghost," she said, tilting her head.
I didn't answer.
I was too busy watching the way she watched me—like she already knew the end of the story, and I was just catching up.
Caleb stepped closer. "Who the hell is that?"
I didn't know.
But Rhea did.
She was frozen.
One foot behind me. Breath shallow.
Like this girl wasn't just a threat—she was a memory Rhea had tried to erase.
> "She shouldn't be here," Rhea whispered.
The girl smiled. "Oh, I should. I was always meant to trigger something."
And with that, she tossed a small drive at my feet.
> "Unlock it," she said. "If you're ready to remember who Rhea really is."
---
I didn't trust her.
But I picked up the drive.
And the moment I touched it—
The corridor warped.
Reality split.
The ceiling fractured like glass—and for one brief, flickering second, I saw them.
Versions of us.
Dying. Kissing. Fighting. Repeating.
In all of them, she was always one step ahead.
And in none of them—
None—
Was I the one in control.
---
System Log: Unauthorized Trigger Activated
> Archive Segment: Project LUX – Subject VIRELLE (Unfiltered)
Status: Dangerous
Recommendation: Immediate Termination or Psychological Containment
---
Rhea's pov
I knew who she was.
I just never thought they'd use her this early.
She was the last trigger.
The failsafe that made Adrian spiral.
The girl who'd once been me, in a version he couldn't forget.
A version that died in his arms—and rewrote his mind to crave only what he couldn't have.
> "Don't look at her," I snapped. "Don't believe anything she gives you."
But it was too late.
Adrian had already seen the flicker.
Already felt the craving.
Already remembered something I never wanted him to recover.
---
Adrian's pov
The drive unlocked a memory loop I didn't recognize.
But it felt like mine.
She—Rhea—was different in it.
Sharper. Colder. Smiling like she wanted to be feared.
> "You loved that version," the new girl said softly.
> "And that's the one she buried."
I turned toward Rhea.
She didn't flinch.
She looked at me like she'd made peace with my rage before it had even hit.
> "I did what I had to do to keep you."
> "So I erased her."
---
I didn't speak.
Because I didn't know what was worse:
That she'd manipulated my love—
Or that I still wanted her anyway.
There were too many versions of me in the room.
One alive.
One erased.
One standing in the corner in red gloves, daring me to lose control.
And Adrian, at the center, unable to tell which one he wanted more.
> "Don't trust her," I said, voice sharp like static. "She's a phantom. A ghost. A design."
The girl smiled. "And you're not?"
Caleb didn't speak. He was watching us both now—studying my every twitch like he was gathering data.
Good.
Let him.
As long as he kept guessing, I still had control.
> Because I was no longer playing to win.
I was playing to erase the gameboard.
---
Adrian stepped closer.
His voice was low. Choked.
> "Tell me the truth, Rhea. Was that version real?"
I could've lied.
But what was the point?
> "She was real. Just not permanent."
> "I buried her because she made you unstable."
> "You tore the system apart for her. You were never supposed to survive that love."
He looked shaken.
But not surprised.
> "So you reset me?"
> "Again and again," I said, walking past him toward the red-gloved girl. "Until you loved this version of me."
> "Until I became the lie you needed."
---
She lunged.
Not physically.
Mentally.
The red-gloved version of me screamed code straight into the neural lattice that had once tethered us together.
But I wasn't connected anymore.
Because I had rewritten my own access.
> I was no longer a subject.
I was the resetter.
And now…
> I was resetting her.
---
System Breach Detected
> Unauthorized override signal incoming
Subject: RHEA VIRELLE – Class: ADMIN ROOT
Command: /erase phantom_trigger( ZETA-X )
Status: CONFIRMED
Outcome: MEMORY LOOP TERMINATED
---
She blinked.
Then screamed.
Her face twisted, versions overlapping—screaming, smiling, begging—until they shattered into smoke.
And she was gone.
Adrian dropped to his knees.
Not from pain.
But from the sudden emptiness.
The hunger he hadn't known had been embedded in him.
> "What did you do to me?" he whispered.
I crouched beside him, touched his jaw.
> "I freed you."
> "From a version of love they gave you to keep you compliant."
> "Now you're mine. Or no one's."
---
He looked at me like he didn't recognize me anymore.
Good.
Let him fear me.
Let him love the version of me that survived the lie.
Because this time, I wouldn't be erased.
And neither would he.
But that didn't mean we'd survive this system intact.
> Just together.