She wasn't falling anymore.
She was sliding.
Sliding through a tunnel of glitching memories—her mother's voice looped backward, the smell of blood mixed with birthday cake, the scream of a rabbit with no mouth.
A cold, synthetic wind rushed past her ears, whispering phrases in a language she'd never heard, but somehow understood:
"You are data.""You are damage.""You are chosen."
Then—
THUD.
She landed.
But not on the ground.
She was suspended midair, floating like a puppet on invisible strings.
Before her, a colossal eye blinked open.
Not a real eye — a surveillance lens the size of a building, gleaming with red code.
Above it: a neon sign, flickering violently.
MERGE PROTOCOL INITIATED.PREPARE FOR IDENTITY REALIGNMENT.
"No," Elara whispered, as nausea spiraled in her chest."No, I didn't agree to this."
"Yes you did," said a voice — not Lab Elara's, but deeper. Familiar. Male.
Out of the dark stepped a man in a straight jacket.
His jaw was wired shut.
But she still heard his voice — in her head.
"I'm the original Host.""The one they copied your core from. The first dreamer."
His eyes were wide and raw. Blood rimmed the edges. His skin looked burned by static.
"They used me to build you," he growled."Each version of you is stitched from scraps of my trauma. You're not real. You're stolen."
She clutched her head. The pain was rising again — not physical, but conceptual. Like her sense of self was fracturing.
Suddenly, he lunged at her, but froze mid-air — locked in a glitch.
His body froze.
Then dissolved into binary mist.
Elara screamed — but no sound came out.
A console appeared beside her. The screen blinked, showing dozens of terms:
INTEGRITY: 23%
COGNITIVE CONSENT: FALSE
SPLIT INSTANCES DETECTED: 5
MERGE IN PROGRESS...
Then:
"YOU ARE THE LAST FUNCTIONING HOST."
The room expanded. Around her appeared five other versions of herself.
They looked drained, terrified, aged, fractured.
One of them — gaunt, shaking — stepped forward.
"Don't let it finish the merge.""We've all died once already. You're the last memory that thinks she's alive."
Elara's mouth went dry.
"Why me?""Why keep me going?"
Another version, the one with burn scars over her eyes, said:
"Because you still ask questions."
"And questions corrupt the system."
A giant hand of code reached from the darkness.
The merge had begun.
Each version of Elara screamed as they were pulled apart, code fracturing from their limbs like porcelain shattering.
Their memories leaked into Elara.
She saw them:
Dying in an asylum cell.
Being dissected awake in a lab.
Suffocating in a glitch loop.
Trapped in a child's body with no way to grow.
Watching their own body from the ceiling, unable to scream.
Elara absorbed it all.
Every pain. Every lie. Every failed version.
She vomited code.
The screen now blinked:
MERGE COMPLETE.
WELCOME, CORE HOST.
The world snapped again.
Now she stood in a small, cozy apartment.
Sunlight through the window. The smell of toast. A mug of coffee on the table.
It was... peaceful.
There was a note on the fridge.
"Hey honey, I'm running late — but dinner's on the stove. Love you. – R."
She touched the note. It felt real.
Too real.
She sat down at the table.
The television turned on.
A news anchor smiled at the camera:
"Today marks ten years since the groundbreaking launch of the Consciousness Preservation Project — now with over a million minds safely stored in our neural cloud architecture."
Her stomach dropped.
She remembered that project.
Because she was in it.
But she wasn't stored.
She was running it.
Suddenly, her own reflection appeared on the TV.
Smiling. Confident. In control.
The anchor's voice changed — deeper now. Robotic.
"How does it feel to torture yourself, Dr. Elara Vance?""How does it feel to meet the parts you deleted?"
Elara stood up. Backed away.
The apartment flickered.
The couch melted into server racks.
The stove hissed and opened — not to fire, but a screaming child version of her, clawing to get out, eyes sewn shut.
She turned, but the windows were screens — replaying every moment of her breakdown.
Every failed suicide.Every lie told to the others.Every version of her she locked away in pain.
"You did this," the TV said."This is not your punishment. This is your design."
She collapsed.
Crawled to the corner.
Sobbing.
Then —
A new screen flickered on beside her.
A face.
Male.
Young. Barely 20.
Pale.
Terrified.
"Hello?" he whispered."Is... is someone else here?"
Elara froze.
"Where are you?"
"I—I was in a VR sim. A horror game. But then I ended up here. It won't let me log out. I think it's been days. Are you trapped too?"
She realized…
He wasn't a construct.
He was real.
A user.
Somehow caught inside her loop.
"Oh God," she whispered, "you're not supposed to be here."
The boy's eyes widened.
"They said my name wasn't even in the system anymore.""They said I'm not real.""Are you... Elara?"
The screen blinked.
"MERGE FAILED."
"CORRUPTION DETECTED."
"NEW HOST DETECTED: SUBJECT 45."
The boy screamed.
His image began to distort.
Elara lunged at the screen.
"Wait! Don't let it—"
But the screen cracked.
His face twisted into something unrecognizable.
Half her face. Half his.
"Thank you, Elara.""I'm free now."
The world went white.
Elara woke up inside a hospital bed.
Real light. Real machines. Real people.
A doctor leaned over her.
"Welcome back."
She blinked. Cried. Smiled.
She was out.
She made it.
Then she saw herself sitting in the chair beside the bed.
Wearing a doctor's coat.
Smiling.
"We've successfully transferred Subject 45," the other her said.
"We just needed one last core to overwrite the chain."
"Thank you for being the perfect vessel."
The real Elara tried to scream.
But her mouth wouldn't open.
Her hands wouldn't move.
She couldn't feel her body.
Inside her own skull, a single line of code echoed:
LOOP RESTARTED.