I woke with a scream lodged in my throat and blood pooling on my tongue.
The lights above flickered in erratic pulses. Fluorescent. Surgical. Too clean. My wrists were strapped to a chair with bindings that shimmered between synthetic mesh and living muscle.
Across from me stood Mu.
Not a projection. Not a memory. The original.
Her white coat was buttoned to the neck. Her eyes were tired but lucid—the kind of lucidity that only comes after dissecting thousands of minds and forgetting which ones were human.
She smiled like a god tired of worship.
"You passed the Labyrinth. Congratulations, Chen. Most break in Room Four. You made it all the way to the core."
I spat blood. "Where is she?"
Mu lifted a remote. The screen behind her flickered.
Anya. Pregnant. Laughing.
But the man beside her wasn't me.
He had my face, my voice. But he was... wrong. Too still. Too polished. Like a puppet wearing my skin.
Li's voice echoed from an unseen speaker.
"Meet Subject 01. Chen Prime. The first of you."
---
Memory File Access: Project Ouroboros
Mu tapped her wrist, and the lights dimmed.
"You were never meant to survive," she said. "You were a safety net. A failsafe. A reroute. Project Ouroboros was my answer to immortality through memory continuity. A body doesn't have to persist if a mind can loop."
I laughed. Hollow.
"So what was Anya?"
Mu paused.
"Collateral."
She turned the screen again.
This time, I saw myself. Not one of me. Hundreds. Stored in data banks. Waking. Screaming. Looping.
"Every failed Chen taught the System how to evolve you. You were never the protagonist. You were a rehearsal."
---
System Breach Detected
The lights shattered. Red sirens howled.
[System Override: External Intervention.]
The restraints melted. Not unlocked. Melted.
A shadow stepped from the wall.
Anya.
But not pregnant. Not smiling. This one wore surgical armor and carried a blade made from repurposed System code.
"Come with me," she said. "Before Mu resets the room."
Mu reached for her console.
Anya threw the blade. It lodged in Mu's shoulder. The console exploded.
The wall opened into a corridor of static and sound.
---
The Data Tunnels
We ran. Past walls bleeding light. Past rooms where versions of me bled out, endlessly replaying their own deaths.
"I saw your loop," she said. "The one where you chose me. That's the one they deleted."
"Why delete it?"
"Because you loved me too much. You broke the loop."
We reached a junction. Three paths. One led up. One down. One flickered between both.
"Up leads to the simulation core," she said. "Down leads to the clone vaults. Middle..."
"What?"
"Middle leads to the truth."
We took the middle.
---
Core Truth Room
The room was silent. Empty.
At its center stood a chair. Not surgical. Wooden. Old.
In it sat a boy.
Li.
He was crying.
"They lied to me too," he said. "I thought I was your son. I thought I mattered. But I was a backup. A failed loop stabilizer."
"What are you now?"
"Angry."
He raised a pistol. Pointed it at Anya.
"Choose, Chen. Her or me."
Anya didn't move.
"It's always been her," I said.
I stepped in front of her.
Li pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
The gun evaporated.
"This was the last trial," he said. "Now you remember."
The room dissolved.
---
Final Sequence Initiation
We were back in the hospital.
But everything was quiet.
Mu lay dead. A smile on her lips.
Screens all around us displayed a countdown.
[FINAL LOOP: 03:17... 03:16...]
"What happens when it hits zero?" I asked.
Anya looked at me. Her belly was swollen again. Pregnant.
"You wake up. And I disappear."
I reached out.
"No. Not this time."