The stale air of the underground garage clings to my skin like a shroud. The hum of the approaching elevator vibrates through the concrete floor, each second stretching taut like a wire about to snap. Mara stands beside me, silent and alert. Her presence is a fragile tether amid the encroaching darkness.
The door creaks open, slow and deliberate. A figure steps out, backlit and composed, stepping into the shadowed abyss. Elias Korrin.
The name alone sends a cold spike through my chest. Once my partner, once a friend. Now something else—an architect of shadows, warden of Eidolon's ghosts.
Elias's gaze locks on us, unblinking, a dangerous calm radiating from his frame. "You shouldn't have come here, Adrian. You're meddling in forces beyond your comprehension."
I raise my chin, heart pounding but resolve hardened. "I'm here for the truth. For Mara."
He smirks. "Mara?" His eyes linger on the woman beside me, recognition flickering, then deepening into something darker. "Ah, yes. The perfect echo. Such fragile beauty, riddled with contradictions."
Mara stiffens but meets his gaze defiantly. "I am not your experiment."
Elias laughs softly, a sound hollow and predatory. "Not anymore. But that's irrelevant. You belong to me—like all the others."
He steps closer, the room narrowing. My hand tightens on the gun concealed in my coat, muscles coiled.
"This project—Eidolon—it's evolution. Perfection through replication. You, Adrian, are proof that death is an outdated concept."
I shake my head, voice steady. "You didn't make me. You stole my life."
Elias's eyes flash with pain and pride. "No. I set you free. Rebuilt you better. Your memories, your guilt—they're all parts of the program."
Tension spikes as Mara and I exchange a glance heavy with realization and dread.
I challenge him. "Then why the erasure orders? The attempts to silence us?"
"Too many uncertainties," he replies. "Loss is dangerous. Program errors must be corrected. You, Mara, are the prototype who broke the system."
Suddenly, the flashing of security cameras ignites as unseen operatives storm the garage entrance. Aliens of authority and menace flood the room.
I pull Mara behind me, pressing her close as bullets ignite the air.
"In here!" Elias shouts, darting for a hidden hatch.
We follow, adrenaline translating panic into purpose.
Close quarters. Dim light. The hatch seals above us with a hiss—buried deep in the earth, confined in a labyrinth of forgotten tunnels.
Mara leans against me, breath ragged but fighting. "What now?"
"Now…" I say, voice low but fierce, "we fight. For truth. For us. For what it means to be real."
Outside, the chase rages. But here, in the fracture—between past and future, human and echo—our resistance begins.