The heir's body arched off the floor, his black eyes swallowing the light. His mouth stretched too wide, cracking at the corners as his bones snapped and reformed with wet, grinding pops. The reflection watched with a smile, its fingers still buried in the golden tooth—now pulsing like a second heart.
Anya grabbed my arm. "We need to go. *Now.*"
But the facility doors weren't unlocking.
They were *breathing*.
The reflection tilted its head. "You still don't understand. There *is* no outside. Just layers of the same nightmare." It stepped closer, its golden eyes reflecting the heir's writhing form. "Mu didn't create the loops. She *stumbled* into them. And what she found inside... well."
The heir's convulsions stopped.
He stood.
Not as the child. Not as the monster.
But as something *older*.
---
THE FIRST TRUTH
The air thickened with the scent of rust and rotting honey. The heir—no, the *thing* wearing his skin—flexed its fingers, examining them with detached curiosity. When it spoke, its voice was the sound of a hundred corpses whispering in unison:
"*You are late.*"
The reflection bowed. "Apologies. The vessel was... resistant."
The heir's black eyes slid to me. "But *this* one is perfect."
Anya fired.
The bullet struck the heir's forehead—and stuck there, suspended half an inch from his skin before dissolving into golden mist.
The heir sighed. "*Tiresome.*"
He flicked his wrist.
Anya's gun turned to liquid metal in her hands.
---
THE SECOND TRUTH
The reflection grabbed my shoulder, its fingers burning cold. "You want to know what this place really is?" It gestured to the crumbling facility. "A nursery. And *he* is the firstborn."
The walls peeled back like rotting skin, revealing an endless void beyond. Floating in the darkness were thousands of glass chambers, each containing a single human figure suspended in golden fluid.
All of them were me.
All of them were *awake*.
The heir stroked one of the chambers lovingly. "So many iterations. So many failures." His black eyes gleamed. "But you... you brought me *her*."
He pointed at Anya.
And I remembered.
*The pills. The house. The way she'd always been part of the loop.*
Anya backed away. "Chen, whatever it's saying—"
The heir snapped his fingers.
Anya collapsed, her body seizing as golden light erupted from her mouth, her eyes, her *veins*.
"*No!*" I lunged for her, but the reflection held me back with impossible strength.
"Watch," it whispered.
Anya's screams turned to laughter as her skin split open—not with blood, but with *light*.
---
**THE THIRD TRUTH**
The heir knelt beside Anya's twisting form, pressing the golden tooth to her forehead. "You never escaped," he crooned. "You were *born* here."
Her body convulsed once, twice—then stilled.
When she opened her eyes, they were pure gold.
"Hello, Chen," she said in a voice that wasn't hers.
The reflection released me with a shove. "Now you see. The loops weren't Mu's experiments. They were *hers*. Anya's. She's been trying to *remember* you."
The facility shook. The glass chambers trembled in the void.
And from the darkness beyond, *something* began to crawl.
---
The heir smiled. "She's here."
The walls dissolved.
The floor cracked open.
And rising from the abyss, wreathed in golden fire, was a woman with Anya's face and a crown of screaming mouths.
Her voice shook the ruins:
"*You promised me forever.*"
The reflection leaned close, its breath like ice against my ear:
"Run."