The rain keeps falling, thin and icy, but I don't feel it anymore. My whole body is frozen.
In front of me, on the bridge, a soaked figure walks slowly toward us. And when the lamp light catches her face, my heart stops.
It's her.
Clara.
Not a photo. Not a memory.
Alive.
Noah steps back, as if he's just seen a ghost.
"Clara?… This can't be."
She gives him a faint, sad smile.
"Yes, Noah. It's really me."
Nathan stays perfectly still, fists clenched.
"You should've stayed hidden."
She turns to him.
"You're the one who started this again, Nathan. Not me."
I don't understand anything anymore. The three of them face each other, and it feels like I'm watching a scene that was written long ago, and they just dropped me into it to blur the lines.
I finally manage to whisper:
"How… how is this possible?"
Clara looks at me.
Her eyes are a strange green, almost translucent.
"Because I never died."
Silence. Even the rain seems to stop.
"The night of the accident," she says, "I realized they were going to erase us. Not kill us physically not yet but erase us from everything: the database, the files, the narrative. So I used the chaos. I disappeared."
Noah sways.
"You let me believe that…" "That you'd killed me? Yes. It was the only way to free you from the contract."
She steps closer, eyes burning.
"But you didn't stop, Noah. You kept going. You kept doing their tests. You played the same role, over and over."
I stare at him, stunned.
"Is that true?"
Noah shuts his eyes.
"I wanted to understand, Léna. Understand why everything fell apart. Why I lost you, Clara."
"So you replaced me," she breathes. "With her."
I step back. That her hits me right in the chest.
Now Clara looks straight at me.
"They chose you because you're like me. In the way you speak, the way you react. They studied you before your first swipe. You were perfect to replay the story."
"No…"
"Yes. You're proof that Novera controls everything. Even coincidence."
My legs start shaking.
Everything I've lived the messages, the coincidences, the places suddenly tastes bitter.
"And you?" I manage to ask, my voice breaking. "Why come back now?"
Clara turns toward the brothers.
"Because they want to relaunch the project. 'Swipe 2.0.' And this time, they want a real ending. Not an accident."
Nathan frowns.
"What are you talking about?"
"I infiltrated their servers. They're still watching. Look around you."
She points at a streetlamp.
I step closer.
Under the metal grate, a small red light is blinking. A camera.
And suddenly, I see them everywhere: in the poles, the lamps, the electrical boxes.
We're being filmed. Live.
Noah rushes toward her.
"You should've told me!"
"You wouldn't have listened." "You could've saved me." "No, Noah. I couldn't save anyone."
She walks up to me.
"Léna, listen. You can still step out of the program. But you have to do it now. What they want is your reaction when everything collapses."
"I… I don't understand."
"They want to see if love survives the truth."
I stare at her, struggling to breathe.
And in a whisper, she adds:
"If you stay with him, they win."
A sharp sound breaks in behind us. A phone buzzing.
Noah's.
On the screen, a message:
"Final phase: emotional activation. Subject L.V. – decision imminent."
Clara reads it at the same time as I do. Our eyes meet.
"See?" she murmurs.
"No… no, it's not me," Noah stammers.
"Then prove it. Shut it all down. Make them disappear."
He hesitates. His fingers tremble over the screen.
"If I do, they'll come after you."
"They already did once," Clara says quietly. "This time, I choose."
She takes his hand.
For a second, I see in their eyes who they once were: two young people in love, turned into an experiment.
Noah inhales, then types something on his phone.
One by one, the red camera lights go dark.
Silence.
Nothing.
Clara closes her eyes.
"It's over."
But as she turns toward me, something shifts in her gaze. A shadow passes across her face.
She staggers.
Noah catches her.
"Clara?!"
Her lips tremble.
"They… knew… I'd come."
And before I can move, she collapses in his arms.