Chapter 57 The Lab of Infinite Sorrows
The floor didn't just spin; it screamed. The giant saw blade beneath us was made of polished diamond, and it was rising. Kael and I scrambled backward, our heels catching on the edge of the disappearing carpet. The room, the boy’s bedroom, was melting away like a wax candle. The walls were being replaced by cold, white tiles and the hum of a thousand machines.
"Secondary simulation?" I whispered, my voice trembling with a new kind of fury. "You mean the 'real world' was just another lie?"
The man in the lab coat didn't look at me with hate. He looked at me like I was a bug under a glass slide. He checked his clipboard and tapped a pen against his chin.
"Simulation 42-B was a success," the man said. His voice was flat, like a robot trying to sound human. "The 'Reader' scenario provided excellent data on your survival instinct. But we need to test your breaking point. Bring her in."
A set of double doors at the end of the room hissed open. A woman stepped out. She wasn't made of ink, and she wasn't a giant. She looked tired. Her hair was messy, and her eyes were red from crying.
"Mom?" I gasped.
She looked at me, and for the first time in fifty-seven chapters, I saw a look of pure, agonizing recognition. She wasn't a queen. She wasn't a battery. She was just a woman in a hospital gown.
"Eara," she sobbed. "Run. Please, just run. They’re making me do it again."
"Do what?" Kael asked, standing in front of me, his fists clenched.
The man in the lab coat pressed a button on his remote. My mother’s face twisted. Her body began to jerk as if she were being electrocuted. Her skin started to glow with a sickly, neon green light.
"The Mother unit is the only one with the code to reset your heart, Eara," the man said. "If she touches you, you go back to the beginning. No memories. No Kael. Just a fresh start for our next project."
"I won't let her!" I screamed.
The saw blade was inches from my feet. I grabbed a metal tray from a nearby table, it was full of scalpels and needles. I didn't care about being a hero anymore. I wanted blood. I wanted the man in the white coat to feel the pain he had put into my mother’s eyes.
"Eara, don't!" my mother cried out, her voice becoming deep and mechanical. "My hands... they aren't mine!"
She lunged at me. She was fast, faster than any version of her I had seen before. She tackled me onto the white tiles, her fingers digging into my shoulders. Her touch felt like ice-cold needles. I could feel my memories starting to flicker. I saw flashes of the Sun Palace, and then they turned into static.
"Get off her!" Kael roared.
He jumped on my mother’s back, trying to pull her away. But she swung an arm back, hitting him with a strength that sounded like a car crash. Kael flew across the room, hitting a glass tank. The glass shattered, and a thick, blue liquid poured out.
"Kael!" I shrieked.
I looked at my mother. Her eyes were glowing green, but I saw a single tear fall down her cheek. She was fighting the machine inside her.
"Do it, Eara," she whispered through gritted teeth. "Kill the core. It’s in my chest. If you don't stop me, I’ll erase you forever."
I looked at the scalpel in my hand. My heart felt like it was being ripped in half. This was the revenge they wanted. They wanted me to kill the only person who ever truly loved me just so I could survive.
"I can't," I sobbed.
"You have to!" the man in the lab coat yelled. "It’s the only way to win the game!"
"This isn't a game!" I screamed.
I didn't stab my mother. I looked at the man. He was standing near a large power cable that ran from the ceiling to the floor. I realized then that he wasn't just watching; he was the one providing the energy.
I kicked my mother off me and dived for the cable.
"Eara, no! That’s ten thousand volts!" Kael shouted, struggling to get up from the blue slime.
I didn't care. I grabbed the cable with both hands. The electricity surged through me, turning my vision white. My glass skin didn't just come back; it shattered into a million glowing shards. I wasn't a girl. I was a lightning bolt.
I channelled all that power through the floor, straight toward the man in the lab coat.
"System failure!" the machines screamed.
The man’s clipboard caught fire. He tried to run, but the blue liquid on the floor acted like a wire. The electricity hit him, and he didn't bleed; he dissolved into a cloud of binary code. He was a simulation, too.
The room began to explode. The tiles flew off the walls. The saw blade stopped.
I fell to the floor, my skin smoking. My mother was lying next to me, the green glow fading from her eyes. She reached out and touched my hand. It was a warm, human touch.
"You did it," she whispered. "You broke the loop."
But then, the ceiling opened up.
A giant, black claw, real metal, covered in rust and blood, descended from the dark. It didn't work for me. It grabbed Kael by the waist and jerked him upward.
"Eara!" Kael screamed, his hands reaching out for me as he was dragged toward the ceiling.
I looked up into the darkness. I didn't see a lab. I didn't see a bedroom.
I saw a giant, rotting face made of old TV screens. Every screen showed a different version of me dying.
"One more time," the face boomed.
The floor beneath me vanished, and I started to fall into a pit of fire. At the bottom of the pit, I saw my father, but he was holding a chainsaw, and his eyes were gone.