Chapter 15: The Virus
They had left Threnos.
Not because they wanted to.
Because the Reverse had rejected them.
Too many truths had been spoken.
And Klinik-13… had heard them.
The return to Reality was brutal.
Their bodies hit the floor of the Sanctuary, vomited out by the black mirror.
Lila lay unconscious but stable.
Kelvin carried her.
Echo was trembling. Orane's nose was bleeding.
But this was no longer the same world.
The building, once silent, now echoed with whispers.
The walls pulsed. Literally.
Kelvin stopped.
— Do you hear them…?
Echo nodded.
— It's not normal. Thoughts have gotten loud.
They understood.
Klinik-13 had awakened.
And she was everywhere.
They descended into the Sanctuary's mental archives. There, in a chamber sealed for years, Orane showed them what she called "the Source."
A brain.
But not a human one.
A mass of synaptic tissue floated inside a tank suspended from the ceiling. Black veins entered and exited it, connected to the entire building.
— Is that the heart of Klinik-13? asked Kelvin.
— It's not a heart, replied Orane. It's a vector. The mental virus that Klinik-13 spreads needs a core to survive. This brain is synthetic… but it thinks. And more importantly: it dreams.
Echo stepped closer.
— And what does it dream of?
Orane closed her eyes.
— It dreams of domination. Of absolute conformity. Of a world where no one remembers what fear felt like… because fear has become order.
Kelvin clenched his teeth.
— Then we destroy it.
But Orane raised her hand.
— If you do that… every mind connected to Klinik-13 will collapse. Hundreds of patients. Thousands of fragments. Including you two.
Kelvin hesitated.
— Is there another way?
Silence.
Then Echo spoke.
— What if we hacked the dream? Reprogrammed it from the inside?
Orane stared at him.
— You want to enter the virus's mind?
— Yes.
Kelvin nodded.
— We fight it on its own ground.
The ritual was complex.
The three of them sat in the circle.
Orane placed a mental needle at the back of their necks.
A drug. A code. A dive.
— You're going into what the Klinik calls the Mother-Chamber. Where the virus dreams. Where it is made.
Kelvin inhaled.
And dove.
They fell.
Into a world without logic.
An ocean of eyes. A sky made of screams.
Buildings that breathed.
And at the center, a living throne, upon which sat a shapeless entity.
This was Klinik-13.
But not as a building.
Not as a memory.
As a will.
She spoke to them without a mouth.
Through the floor. Through the blood. Through their thoughts.
"You are my fragments. You fled. You are broken. I have come to piece you back together."
Kelvin stepped forward.
— You have no right over us.
"You are made of me. Of my experiments. Of my shattered dreams."
Echo dropped to his knees.
— She's calling me… by my real name…
Kelvin turned to him.
— No. You are Echo. What you chose to be. Not what she built.
Klinik-13's voice rose.
"So you reject healing? You choose pain? Chaos?"
Kelvin screamed.
— I choose freedom!
And he drove his mind into the entity's.
A mental duel began.
Kelvin saw his memories twisted, his fears magnified. He relived his own death, dozens of times. But he held strong.
Because now he knew who he was.
And Lila, still connected despite her coma, sent a black bolt through the link.
Iskara.
She, too, refused to be possessed.
Klinik-13 screamed.
And cracked.
They woke up with a start.
The brain in the tank was vibrating. Then it froze.
Silence.
— Is it over? Echo asked, breathless.
Kelvin looked around.
— No.
He turned toward a screen, where an alert had just appeared:
"Director Protocol Alpha activated. Release of Dormant Units. Global deployment in progress."
Kelvin paled.
— That was just one cell. There are others.
Orane confirmed, her face ashen.
— And now… they know you're awake