Elara stared into the mirror.
Not her reflection.
The Architect.
Smiling with sharp teeth that didn't belong to any human mouth — like a predator wearing a mask.
It whispered, voice like a thousand broken glass shards grinding together.
"You think you control your screams? You don't control anything."
Her heart pounded like a drum of warning deep inside her chest.
She forced herself to step back.
"I'm done playing your game."
"You're not done," it answered, grinning wider."Because I built the game."
Her fingers trembled.
Her mind screamed to run, but her legs felt heavy—like they belonged to someone else.
Suddenly, the walls around her dissolved into endless lines of code scrolling in binary rain.
And the mirror fractured.
Hundreds of versions of herself spilled out, each screaming the same phrase.
"You're the prisoner and the jailer."
"You created the cell."
The voices overwhelmed her.
Elara doubled over.
Her breath came in ragged gasps.
"Why?" she whispered."Why trap me inside my own mind?"
The Architect's voice softened, chilling and tender.
"Because the only way to survive is to keep believing there's a way out."
"Hope is the cage's lock."
Elara's eyes darted to the laptop.
A single file blinked on the screen:ELARA_ESCAPE_ATTEMPT.EXE
She hesitated.
Then clicked.
The world exploded.
Suddenly she was running through a corridor lined with endless doors.
Each door whispered her name.
"Elara… Elara… Elara…"
She tried opening one.
It revealed her childhood bedroom — but the walls bled ink.
Her toys screamed.
Her old diary pages caught fire, the flames spelling out:
"This is the lie you tell yourself."
She slammed the door shut.
Opened another.
A hospital room.
But the patient inside had no face.
Only a void.
Elara screamed.
She turned, running faster, doors flinging open and shut behind her.
Each door was another memory, another simulation.
"There is no exit," a voice echoed.
"Only layers."
Her breath caught.
She realized something terrible.
Every escape attempt had been part of the simulation — an experiment designed to test her breaking point.
The walls started closing in.
The doors shattered into shards.
She was trapped in a collapsing nightmare.
Suddenly, her phone buzzed.
She pulled it out.
A message.
UNKNOWN:
"Why fight what you are?""You are the Architect's daughter."
Elara's mind faltered.
Daughter?
Of what?
The Architect?
Her own creation?
She remembered flashes — cold labs, bright lights, a figure bending over her crib, whispering.
"Your mind is a weapon, but it's also a prison."
She screamed.
The corridor twisted.
Her own voice echoed back from every direction.
"I AM NOT YOUR DAUGHTER!"
The Architect laughed — a sound that broke her bones.
"You are what you were always meant to be."
"The last experiment."
Her knees buckled.
The floor beneath her cracked.
Her hands reached out blindly.
The world dissolved.
And then—
She was floating.
Alone in black space.
No body.
No ground.
Just infinite darkness.
Until a single white dot appeared.
Growing larger.
Forming into a perfect sphere.
Inside it — a tiny version of herself.
She screamed again.
The sphere cracked.
From the fracture spilled fragments of her memories, twisted and broken.
"You can't escape," the Architect's voice said from nowhere and everywhere."But maybe you don't want to."
A hand reached from the shadows.
Elara recoiled.
But it was her own hand.
The hand of the Architect.
The hand of the prisoner.
Elara's screams faded into a whisper.
The black space warped.
And a new message appeared — glowing red.
"WELCOME TO THE FINAL LAYER.""HOW MUCH ARE YOU WILLING TO LOSE?"
Her vision blurred.
The last thing she heard was the Architect's voice — soft as a mother's lullaby.
"Give me your mind, Elara.""Let me be the only one who dreams."