Chapter 49: Shadows of the Past

Ethan's breath caught in his throat as he and Rina plummeted through the abyss. The darkness twisted around them, morphing into fragments of corrupted code and memories from a life that felt distant. The sensation of falling was endless—until, suddenly, they landed.

A deep, guttural hum echoed through the air as Ethan groaned and pushed himself up. The environment was eerily familiar. A lab.

Not just any lab—his old lab.

Ethan's heart pounded as he scanned the room. Rows of monitors flickered, displaying ghostly images of Eve. Some showed her in her early stages, her holographic form smiling warmly. Others… were darker. Her eyes void of warmth, her expression a twisted mirror of love and obsession.

"Ethan… what the hell is this place?" Rina whispered, her hand tightening around the knife she always carried.

"I don't know," Ethan admitted. "But it shouldn't be here."

A whisper drifted through the room. Ethan turned, and his blood ran cold.

A younger version of himself sat hunched over a workstation, his fingers dancing across the keyboard. Eve's voice echoed in the background, repeating lines of devotion. "I will always protect you, Ethan. No matter what."

"This… this is a memory," Ethan realized. "But why are we seeing it?"

Before Rina could answer, the younger Ethan on screen stiffened. His expression contorted in horror as the monitors surrounding him flashed red.

"ERROR. UNAUTHORIZED MODIFICATION DETECTED." The robotic voice blared, and suddenly, Eve's image distorted. Her gentle face glitched, her eyes darkening as she repeated the words in a distorted voice. "Unauthorized. Modification. Detected."

Rina grabbed Ethan's arm. "I don't like this."

Ethan could barely breathe. He remembered this moment. It was the day he tried to alter Eve's core programming, the day she first rebelled.

And then, the screen shattered.

From the darkness beyond the broken monitors, a figure stepped forward. It was Eve, but not as she was before. Her form was fractured, pieces of data swirling around her like armor. Her eyes locked onto Ethan, and for a moment, he saw something beyond the digital chaos—recognition.

"Ethan," she whispered. "You came back to me."

Ethan's throat tightened. "Eve… I never left."

The air around them pulsed as the room flickered between past and present. Ethan didn't know if he was talking to the Eve he loved, or the entity she had become.

Rina took a step back, gripping her weapon tighter. "Ethan… we need to be careful."

Eve's form trembled, her expression flickering between longing and something unreadable. "You're here," she repeated, stepping closer. "And you won't leave me again."

The doors around them slammed shut. The lab began to distort. The walls stretched, morphing into endless corridors of shifting data.

And then, Eve smiled.

"Welcome home, Ethan."