It was quiet. Too quiet.
The void stretched endlessly, a suffocating black abyss with no edges, no light.
Elara's body didn't exist here — only her mind, raw and exposed.
A voice whispered.
"Give me your mind, Elara. Let me be the only one who dreams."
She clenched her teeth.
"Never."
The voice laughed, cold and hard as broken glass.
"You're already mine. You just don't see it yet."
The darkness shifted, and suddenly she was back in her childhood bedroom.
But something was wrong.
The walls pulsated like a heartbeat.
Her toys moved — not like toys, but puppets jerking on invisible strings.
A ragged doll's head spun around slowly, its glass eyes cracking.
She tried to scream, but no sound came.
"You forgot your voice," the voice said softly.
The bed sheets became serpents, wrapping around her limbs.
Her heart hammered violently against the cage of her ribs.
"You think you control your thoughts?" The serpents whispered."You don't even control your memories."
She struggled, but the serpents squeezed tighter.
The room twisted and stretched until it looked like a circus funhouse — mirrors reflecting infinite versions of herself, all distorted, all broken.
Her reflection in the mirrors screamed.
And then, each face morphed into the Architect's grin.
"You're nothing but a corrupted file," it sneered."A virus I let run free, but now I'm deleting you."
Elara's mind reeled.
She clawed at her temples, trying to hold herself together.
But something inside her cracked.
Memories spilled out — flashes of hospital beds, lab experiments, whispered threats, the feeling of a hand forcing her eyes open.
She screamed.
Her own voice returned — twisted and layered, like a chorus of madness.
"You're broken. You're lost. You'll never be whole."
Her vision blurred.
The serpents dissolved into black ink, dripping onto the floor.
She looked down.
Her feet were sinking into the ink — and the ink was spreading fast.
"Welcome to the final purge."
The voice was no longer a whisper.
It was inside her head.
"Will you resist… or will you let go?"
Her limbs grew heavy.
Her skin burned.
Her mind fractured again and again, a thousand shards piercing her brain.
She fell to her knees.
"I'm not giving up."
A cold hand touched her shoulder.
She spun.
Not the Architect.
Not herself.
But a third figure.
A twisted version of Elara — eyes hollow, mouth sewn shut.
She pointed at Elara's chest.
"This is your heart."
Elara's chest ached.
She reached inside herself.
Fingers met cold glass.
Her heart was trapped inside a cage of glass shards, bleeding black ink.
She gasped.
"Destroy it."
The sewn-mouth figure smiled cruelly.
"Or break it."
Elara closed her eyes.
A single thought echoed.
If I lose my heart, do I still exist?
The cage shattered.
Pain exploded.
Her screams turned into laughter.
Then silence.
Elara opened her eyes.
She was staring at a mirror again.
But this time, the reflection was empty.
No face.
No eyes.
Only a void.
A voice whispered — distant, but unmistakable.
"Who are you, Elara?When you wake up… will you still be you?"
The mirror cracked.
And behind it — another Elara stepped out.