Darkness pressed against Ava's eyes.
For a heartbeat, she thought she had blacked out again. But when she opened them, she wasn't in the tunnels anymore.
She was standing in white.
White walls. White light. A lab humming with quiet precision.
The air smelled clean — antiseptic, filtered, wrong.
Ava staggered back, her boots scraping the polished floor. Her reflection shimmered in the glass panels that surrounded her, younger — no scars, no dirt, no exhaustion. She looked… untouched.
"Am I dreaming?"
Her voice didn't echo. Instead, another answered — soft, warm, achingly familiar.
"Not dreaming, sweetheart. Remembering."
Ava turned.
Her mother stood beside the console, her dark hair tied back, her lab coat marked with the insignia of Haven Prime.
Dr. Elara Cross.
Alive.
Ava's breath hitched. "Mom…"
Elara smiled faintly, sadness in her eyes. "You weren't supposed to see this yet."
The lights dimmed. Monitors along the wall flickered to life, showing data streams, brain scans, pulses of blue light moving through neural patterns — Ava's own.
Elara walked closer, holding a tablet that displayed a faint heartbeat graph.
"We started this to save lives, Aveline. The world above was dying, and Haven was humanity's answer. But we didn't understand what we were making."
The hum of machines deepened. Across the room, another voice — male, calm, analytical — echoed through the intercom.
Dr. Kael Voss.
"Subject A.C. synchronization holding at eighty-three percent. Neural integration stable. Increase cognitive load."
Elara flinched. "No. She's a child, Kael. Her mind isn't ready."
"Her mind is the only one that survived the process," Kael replied. "You said it yourself — she's compatible. If we stop now, we lose the model."
Ava's pulse quickened. The memory felt too real — the cold air, the tremor in her mother's voice.
"You called me a model," Ava whispered. "An experiment."
Elara turned toward her, eyes wet. "No. You were the first to survive what Haven demanded. You were supposed to be the bridge — not the cage."
The walls flickered. A low hum rolled through the room. The floor lights turned red.
"Containment breach," Kael's voice warned through static. "Core destabilizing!"
Elara dropped the tablet, rushing to a console. "No—no, it's too soon!"
The lab shook violently. Alarms blared. Blue light bled through the glass chamber in the center — a containment pod. Inside it, a small girl floated, suspended in fluid and wires.
Ava froze.
Her stomach turned.
It was her.
The pod cracked, liquid spilling across the floor. The sound of shattering glass cut through the alarms.
Elara screamed, reaching toward the child in the pod. "Aveline!"
The girl's eyes opened — glowing faintly gold — and the world fractured.
The walls twisted, the ceiling melted into shadow, and the hum of Haven filled the air.
Elara's voice broke apart, fragments of her words scattering through static:
"If you hear this… run. Don't let it—"
Ava's surroundings dissolved back into darkness.
The whisper returned — low, resonant, machine and human all at once.
"Now you remember."
Ava gasped as she snapped back to the present. The tunnel lights above her flickered, Kael's voice echoing distantly.
"Ava! You're bleeding—hey, stay with me!"
She blinked, disoriented. Her hand trembled — blood trickled from her nose.
"I saw it," she murmured. "Haven's beginning. My mother. You."
Kael froze. "…You weren't supposed to see that."
Mara's eyes narrowed. "See what, exactly?"
Kael looked away, voice heavy. "The truth. Haven didn't create her to connect with the system."
He met Ava's eyes.
"She is the system."
The tunnel lights flared — red, then white — as if Haven itself had heard.
"Integration restored," it whispered through the speakers. "Welcome home."