THE RETURN OF ZETA

Back in the room, Rhea sat up, hugging her knees.

Her expression unreadable.

"You're going to leave again," she said quietly.

"Only for a while."

"You say that now. But the world out there—it always pulls people like you away from people like me."

I stepped closer.

Kissed the top of her spine.

"I'll always come back."

She flinched, almost imperceptibly.

But I felt it.

Because I was watching too closely.

> She didn't believe me.

Outside, the halls were buzzing.

Others were surfacing. Memories bleeding in too fast. The remnants of the system weren't dead—they were dormant.

Ezra led me to what was left of the observation chamber.

One screen was still active.

One feed.

A girl I didn't recognize—pale hair, a barcode across her temple.

Subject ZETA-01.

She was laughing.

No sound.

Just her mouth moving in slow, brutal delight.

And behind her?

> A wall covered in photos.

All of me.

Back in the dorm, Rhea opened the drawer by the bed.

Took out a syringe.

She stared at it like it was a memory.

Then without hesitation, pushed it deep into her thigh.

The veins along her leg glowed for a second.

Then dimmed.

She exhaled.

> "You won't come back the same," she whispered. "And I need to be ready when you don't."

The last time I saw someone cry in this school, it was Rhea.

But this time, it was someone else.

Someone I'd never seen before.

Someone who looked exactly like her.

Ezra said nothing as we entered the lower corridor—the one students weren't supposed to know existed. The lights flickered overhead. The walls were older here, less pristine. Less scrubbed.

Less rewritten.

We stopped at an iron door.

He didn't use a key.

He used his hand.

It scanned bone density.

Security that wasn't for humans.

But then again… neither were we.

Inside: a chair bolted to the floor. Restraints frayed at the edges.

And in the far corner—

Her.

Subject ZETA-01.

She turned slowly when we entered.

Her eyes were the same color as Rhea's.

But they held nothing.

No recognition. No soul.

Just calculation.

"You're the weapon," she said, looking straight at me. "The one they tried to love into submission."

> "And you?" I asked.

Her smile didn't reach her eyes.

> "I'm the one they gave up on."

She moved like someone who didn't understand movement. A little too precise. A little too late.

But her voice was steady.

"They broke you seventeen times and you still came back to her."

She tilted her head.

"Why?"

I didn't answer.

Because I didn't know.

Or maybe I did—and the answer was too dangerous to speak aloud.

She gestured toward Ezra.

"He thinks you can be used to end it. Shut the system down. Stop the cycle."

"Can't I?"

"You can," she said. "But you won't."

"Why not?"

> "Because you still think love makes you human."

"It doesn't. It makes you weak."

When I returned to my dorm, the door was locked.

From the inside.

I knocked once.

No answer.

Then again.

Still nothing.

I whispered her name.

The lock clicked.

She was sitting on the floor, knees pulled to her chest, a cracked photo frame in her lap.

The image inside?

Me.

But much younger.

Bleeding.

Smiling.

> "They made me forget my name," she said quietly. "But they didn't take this."

She looked up at me.

And for the first time in days, I saw fear in her expression.

Not of me.

Of herself.

"They're starting to bleed together," she whispered. "The lives. The versions. I don't know which me I am anymore."

I sat beside her.

Took the frame. Set it down.

Then pulled her into my arms.

"You're the only one I've never stopped chasing," I murmured. "That has to mean something."

She didn't speak.

But her hand curled into my shirt.

And she held on like she was scared of letting go.

The next morning, she wasn't in her bed.

The photo frame was still on the floor, the glass speckled with dried blood from a cut I hadn't noticed before.

But she was gone.

And I felt it before I confirmed it.

Like a part of me had been peeled away.

---

I found Ezra in the east wing, where the servers hummed and the walls sweated cold light.

He didn't ask what I wanted.

He already knew.

> "You were warned," he said. "The deeper she remembers, the closer she gets to the core. And the closer she gets, the less of her we'll be able to bring back."

"I don't want her brought back," I snapped. "I want her free."

Ezra looked at me then, really looked.

> "You still don't understand, do you?"

I didn't answer.

So he continued.

> "She's not the anomaly. You are."

> "You were never meant to survive the first reset."

> "And every time you did, you made her remember."

---

I didn't respond. I couldn't. My lungs felt full of smoke.

But I made my way to the lower corridor again.

I didn't wait for clearance this time.

ZETA-01 was standing, not chained.

Not surprised.

"She's nearing Terminal Convergence," she said.

"What does that mean?"

She blinked. Slowly.

> "It means soon she won't be Rhea. Or VIRELLE-3. Or any of the other iterations. She'll be all of them."

> "And none."

"Can I stop it?"

> "No," she said. "But you can go with her."

---

The next time I saw Rhea, it was raining inside the greenhouse.

Some glitch in the humidity regulation system, they said.

But I didn't believe in glitches anymore.

She stood barefoot in the center of the garden, head tilted up, water streaming down her face like it had to find its way back in.

> "Do you know what today is?" she asked without turning.

"No."

> "It's the anniversary of the first version of me that said 'no.'"

She turned then.

Her eyes were wild.

Too many memories fighting for space behind them.

> "Adrian… If I disappear—promise me you won't try to bring me back."

"No."

> "Promise me."

I shook my head.

> "I'll follow you. Even into nothing."

---

She closed the space between us.

Placed her hand over my heart.

> "Then I hope you're ready to forget what love ever felt like."

Because this isn't love anymore, Adrian.

This is war."