The hallway stretched ahead like a royal corridor. Rich mahogany walls, velvet curtains, marble floors… but every detail felt off. Too perfect, too staged as if Gerald Okon had built his own throne room in the heart of hell.
Karen's footsteps echoed as she walked forward, Alex and Luca close behind. Her eyes scanned the portraits on the walls, each one showing Gerald through the years: younger, older, always smiling. Always powerful.
But in each painting… her image appeared somewhere small. In a reflection, a shadow or crowd, as a child clinging to a woman's side.
Luca whispered, "He's been watching you your whole life."
Karen's jaw clenched. "Not anymore."
They reached the end of the corridor where a tall door stood open as if inviting her in.
Inside: a vast, modern office.
Floor-to-ceiling windows faced the dark trees beyond the resort. At the center of the room, behind a sleek glass desk, stood Gerald Okon.
Real, alive and waiting.
He looked older than his portraits. Greying, calm and entirely unbothered.
Karen stepped into the room slowly. Her voice was steel.
"You orchestrated everything."
He nodded. "I did."
"You experimented on me."
"I did."
"You tried to erase who I was."
He smiled faintly. "Not erase, Karen. Refine. You were always extraordinary, I just… accelerated your evolution."
Alex stepped beside her. "She's not yours."
Gerald's gaze flicked to him, then to Luca. "No, She's her own now and that's what makes this next part so important."
Karen blinked. "What next part?"
He walked around the desk slowly, like he had all the time in the world. "You've destroyed the system, exposed the project, and faced the truth. So now the question is…"
He opened a drawer and pulled out a small box. Inside: a red button.
"…what do you want to do with me?"
Karen stared at it.
He placed the box on the table. "Push it, and I'll die. The explosives under this wing are wired to go. No escape route for me. You can end this, right now."
Silence.
"But if you don't," he added, "I disappear quietly and you get access to everything...funds, names, data, every detail of Project HER. You burn me… or you take the keys."
Luca's voice was low. "Karen, he's bluffing."
Alex shook his head. "Or worse… he's betting you'll become him."
Karen stared at the box. Her hand hovered above it.
Her pulse thundered in her ears.
Gerald's voice was barely a whisper now.
"You want to be free? Be feared, you want justice? Own the fire, don't just light it."
Karen looked at him… then down at the button.
And said
"You made me a weapon.
But I choose what I destroy."
She pushed it.
A faint beep echoed.
Then a soft female voice from the ceiling:
"Wing detonation: 30 seconds."
Gerald didn't flinch. "Good girl."
Alex grabbed Karen's arm. "We move. Now!"
They ran back through the velvet-lined corridor, down the pristine bathroom, back into the vents.
Behind them, as they climbed, the explosion ripped through the wing — flames chasing their heels like a scream.
They burst out onto the resort grounds, coughing and covered in dust.
The east wing collapsed behind them in a storm of fire.
Karen stood there, watching it burn.
Her voice was calm.
"Now… it's over."