Subject 32 stood beneath the emergency lights — blood soaked into her white medical gown, staining it like an artist's canvas of carnage. Her smile was wide, disturbingly calm, but her eyes… they weren't Elara's. Not anymore.
They were older. Hungrier.
Elara remained strapped to the gurney, unable to move. Her heart thudded with such intensity she thought her ribs might split open from the inside. Her skin prickled — not from cold, but from something far worse: recognition.
This wasn't just another version of her.
It was the final one.
Subject 32's steps echoed as she walked closer — slow, deliberate. The lights above her flickered in rhythm with her movement, like they were responding to her, worshiping her arrival.
"You were the first fracture," she whispered, tilting her head. "I'm the collapse."
Elara shook her head.
"This isn't real. You're a construct. An echo of fear — they made you."
Subject 32 grinned wider, blood trailing from the corner of her lips like smeared lipstick.
"You still think they're the ones in control?" she whispered, almost gently. "Oh no, Elara. They just opened the door."
"We were already inside."
Suddenly, the restraints holding Elara loosened — not unlocked, not released — they evaporated, like illusions fading with disbelief. She sat up too quickly, her head swimming in a mixture of adrenaline and existential nausea.
The lights snapped off.
Darkness.
And in that void, a sound: metal dragging on concrete.
Subject 32 had something in her hand now. A scalpel? No. Something older. A key. But not to a door.
"You want out?" came her voice from the dark.
"Then open it. But you don't like what's on the other side."
Elara stood slowly. Her knees nearly buckled.
She blinked — and the room changed again.
She was back in her childhood home.
Same chipped walls. Same ticking clock.
Only this time, everything was reversed — mirrored like a photo flipped the wrong way. The furniture, the wallpaper, even the light — all wrong.
A figure sat at the dinner table, unmoving.
Elara inched closer.
"Mom?"
The woman at the table didn't turn.
Instead, the kitchen radio clicked on, playing a recording of her mother's voice:
"You were always too curious, Elara."
"Too eager to open things that should stay closed."
"Some doors aren't locked to keep you out. They're locked to keep something in."
The woman at the table began twitching. Jerkily. Like a puppet whose strings had been yanked by multiple hands.
Her head turned — not with a neck twist, but a full, grotesque 180-degree pivot. The face that stared back was not her mother.
It was hers again.
Burned. Smiling. Missing both eyes.
Elara stumbled backward, knocking over a chair. It didn't fall — it floated, hovering upside down, spinning slowly.
Gravity had stopped obeying the rules.
The hallway at the far end stretched longer, distorting like warm plastic. A light flickered at the end.
And beneath that flicker — a door.
Identical to the door she'd seen in dreams she never remembered after waking.
It pulsed.Not with light.With heartbeat.
She had to open it.
As she walked, the hallway whispered.
Each step unlocked a memory.Not hers.But ones implanted.
A girl crying in a mirror, cutting off her own braid.
A figure behind glass, whispering someone else's name with Elara's voice.
A scientist laughing as his skin peeled away like paper, revealing no muscle — only wires.
The door got closer.
She reached for the handle.
Subject 32 appeared beside her.
"Do you even know what's behind it?"
Elara nodded.
"No. But I know what's behind me."
She turned the knob.
And opened it.
Blackness. But not empty.
A memory that had been erased. Forcefully.
The room was cold. Too cold. Her breath came out in steam.
A child sat in the center — cross-legged, humming.
That child was her. Maybe eight.
Holding a stuffed rabbit — the same one from the cracked mirror. But this one was bleeding. Dripping red onto her white dress.
She was humming a song. One Elara couldn't place — until the tune looped.
It was the theme from the simulation.
The one that played whenever Subject 47 entered "calm mode."
The child looked up.
"They said if I was good, the voices would stop."
"But they just got smarter."
"They started pretending to be me."
Elara knelt in front of her.
"What did they do to you?"
The child's smile vanished.
"They didn't do anything. I invited them."
"I built the door."
Suddenly, the child pulled a string — and her own face split open like fabric, revealing a mirror inside her skull.
Elara screamed.
Reflected in that mirror was not her, not a child — but an empty chair.
A voice whispered from the shadows:
"You've been gone longer than you think."
Elara stumbled back through the door, slamming it shut.
But this time, the hallway was gone.
She stood in a forest.
Dead trees. No wind. No sound.
Just a single figure ahead, wrapped in cloth, motionless.
She approached.
The figure twitched.
Slowly, it unwrapped the cloth from its face.
And underneath was... nothing.
Just a hole. A black void. Where the face should be.
But it spoke.
In her voice.
"You keep chasing the truth like it's a destination."
"But it's not a place."
"It's the weapon."
The cloth fell away — and suddenly, the figure was Elara again.
And in her hand — the same rusted scalpel from the earlier room.
She held it out.
"Take it."
Elara hesitated.
"What happens if I do?"
"You wake up," the figure said. "But not where you think."
Her hand reached forward.
She took the scalpel.
Instantly, she was back in the gurney room.
But it was abandoned. Lights off. Monitors dead.
Subject 32 was gone.
The walls were scratched with hundreds of lines.
Words, phrases, carved violently.
NO DOOR IS EVER REALLY LOCKEDEVERY VERSION LIES DIFFERENTLYTRUST NO ONE — NOT EVEN THE MIRRORSHE WAS THE FIRST ONE WHO ESCAPEDSHE NEVER REALLY LEFT
Then she saw it.
On the wall, in thick black ink — or dried blood — one word:
"RUN."
She didn't wait.
She sprinted into the corridor beyond.
Red emergency lights pulsed.
Siren blaring again.
"SUBJECT 32 DETECTED IN MULTIPLE LOCATIONS."
"PHYSICAL LAW BREACH DETECTED."
She ran down the hall.
Doors opened on either side.
And from each one — a version of her stepped out.
Thirty, forty, maybe more.
All different. All broken.
One had no mouth.
Another floated, limbs dangling like marionette strings.
Another screamed nonstop, eyes bleeding ink.
They all began walking toward her.
Not rushing.Not running.
Just walking.
And whispering in unison:
"Welcome back."
"We saved your room."
"It's just like you left it."
Elara turned and fled into the final corridor — one lined with screens.
Each showed different scenes. All of her.
In places she'd never been. Doing things she didn't remember.
Murder. Fire. Screaming. Laughing.
She tripped.
Fell into a room that wasn't there a second ago.
Lights clicked on.
A single chair.
A headset.
A screen.
On it — three words:
LOAD MAIN INSTANCE.
And below it:
User: ELARAOverride? Y/N
She stared at it.
Her hand moved.
She didn't make it move.
Her finger hovered over "Y".
THE LOOP'S TRUTH
Before she could press it —
The screen glitched.
Static.
Then:
"Welcome, Subject 1."
"Do you remember why you made this world?"
"Because you were the one who designed it."
Suddenly, everything around her froze.
Every screen. Every whisper. Every light.
And from the corner of the room…
A door creaked open.
Beyond it: a laboratory.
And inside it:
Elara. Wearing a lab coat. Smiling.
"Hello, me."
"Ready to see what you've done?"
And behind her…
Rows of capsules.Each one holding a version of Elara.Eyes open.Watching.
And smiling.