Chapter 22 – Version Twelve
Clara’s Pov
The grin staring back from the phone screen didn’t belong to me. Not really. It was too fixed, too deliberate—like it knew I was watching. The faint light of the display flickered, illuminating the water around it in uneven pulses. I didn’t move. I was afraid of what would happen if I did.
Rain dripped from cracks above, each bead hitting the floor in tiny, echoing heartbeats. My breath synced with the rhythm before I realized it. The message still glowed on the screen—We liked this version—as though whoever wrote it was sitting just beyond the tunnel’s shadows, waiting for me to acknowledge them.
Every instinct told me to smash the phone. End it before anything else could crawl out. But curiosity is a parasite. And it had lived in me long enough to feed on fear.
I crouched, slowly picking up the device. The moment my fingers brushed its surface, the words vanished, replaced by static snow. Then another message shimmered through the distortion:
Don’t look away.
The screen brightened. The light from it stretched, spilling against the walls in geometric patterns—perfectly aligned squares and circles that pulsed outward like a heartbeat. My pulse matched without my permission.
And then, I heard it—soft at first, like a whisper tucked beneath the hum of electricity. Words in that same voice that haunted every corner of my nightmares.
Adrian.
He was speaking slowly, his tone detached, like he was reading from a technical manual.
“Version Twelve exhibits superior emotional endurance. Response times stable. Retention rate intact.”
Another voice, female this time—the same woman from before, the one who had locked us in that shop. “Do you approve of replication?”
“Yes,” he said. “She won't question herself now. Not enough to break.”
The static trembled. A new shape flickered across the screen—a dark room filled with glowing panels, faces moving behind tinted glass. The camera panned, or maybe my perspective shifted. And in that sterile light, I saw her.
Me.
Another Clara, sitting in a chair surrounded by machines. Electrodes attached to her temples, eyes vacant. The room shook slightly, the frame blurring. Then there was movement behind her.
Adrian stepped into view. His expression was calm, precise, almost gentle. He touched the clone’s shoulder, brushing aside a strand of hair—like I used to do in front of the mirror every morning.
I nearly dropped the phone.
“No,” I whispered. “No, that’s not real.”
But the video didn’t stop. The Clara on the screen blinked slowly and turned her head, as though she’d heard me.
Her lips formed words, faintly delayed. “It’s real now.”
The image froze there, her stare trapping mine through the glass. Then, with a burst of static, the projection dissolved back into darkness.
Renee’s voice flashed like lightning in my mind—her panicked warning: He’s everywhere.
I staggered backward, pressing the phone against my chest. I needed to leave this place, whatever it was—a stage, a lab, a grave. The distinction didn’t matter anymore.
The tunnel split ahead, two narrow paths stretching in opposite directions. The one on the left drifted upward, faint traces of daylight seeping through a broken grate. The one on the right curved downward into dense shadow.
A message popped up again before I made a move:
Left leads out. Right leads back. Choose carefully.
I laughed under my breath—a low, broken sound. “Haven’t I done enough choosing for you?”
No response.
I glanced between the two tunnels. Every part of me wanted to run toward the light, but something held me still. That same instinct that had guided—or doomed—me this entire time.
Right leads back.
If Renee was anywhere, it had to be behind me in the dark. I couldn’t leave her. I couldn’t leave any piece of this unfinished.
So I turned right.
The tunnel’s slope steepened fast, forcing me to brace against the slick walls as I descended. The air grew colder, heavier, the smell of rust sharper with every step. Water trickled down the sides in small streams, pooling at my feet.
Minutes, maybe hours, passed—time had lost its edges long ago. Then, up ahead, I saw it: movement. A flicker of light swaying gently like fire, tinted red.
Cautiously, I crept closer until shapes began to form. A room opened before me—wide and circular, humming with faint machinery. The walls were lined with hundreds of glass panels, each one glowing faintly.
Each one holding a version of me.
Every reflection stared back, trapped mid-expression: sleeping, screaming, laughing, crying. They flickered like snapshots from lives I might have lived if the story had gone another way.
In the center of the room sat a single terminal, and next to it, what looked like a human silhouette—slumped forward, unmoving.
It was Adrian.
Or, at least, what was left of him. His face was pale, almost waxen, but his eyes—those cold blue lenses—were still open. They glowed faintly with the same pulse as the screens around him.
I approached slowly, the sound of my breathing deafening in the quiet. The closer I got, the more the reflections began to twitch, moving slightly, adjusting their gaze until every version of me was looking in unison.
Then, in one fluid motion, Adrian’s head turned toward me.
Voice distorted, strained, he whispered, “I told them you’d come back.”
I stepped closer, whispering back despite the tremor in my voice. “Why show me this?”
“To remind you who you are,” he said. “You wanted the truth.”
“I wanted it to stop.”
He tilted his head, that familiar half-smile creeping up. “Then you’d have to end all of it. Can you destroy yourself that many times?”
Before I could answer, the screens behind him began to flare, one by one, each copy of me waking up inside their glass prisons. The air buzzed with electricity, shaking so violently I stumbled backward.
Adrian’s voice rose to a whisper that slithered through the chaos. “You’re not just one of them anymore, Clara. You’re all of them. Every decision, every version—you carry them now.”
The reflections screamed—the sound of hundreds of voices folding into one unbearable pitch. The glass cracked, splintered, and with a deafening crash, every wall shattered at once.
Shards of mirror fell in slow motion, each catching a different version of my face before hitting the ground. Light swallowed the floor.
I threw my arms up—and when the glow finally dimmed, the room was empty. Adrian was gone. The mirrors were gone. Only the terminal remained, humming faintly, one final message on its cracked screen.
Version Thirteen initializing.
And then, right behind me, in the pitch-dark, a voice whispered, soft and oddly familiar.
“Welcome back, Clara.”