The world outside the Khorad Divide was drenched in silence. Wind whipped across the glacier ridge, dragging sheets of snow like ghostly curtains over the cliffside. Ash stood on the edge of the broken world, his boots half-buried in frost, as if grounding himself to stop his thoughts from slipping into the abyss.

Behind him, Rika wrapped her arm in bandages—shrapnel had grazed her shoulder during the escape.

“I radioed Zian,” she muttered. “He’s prepping an extraction. Should be here in two hours.”

Ash nodded but said nothing.

His mind wasn’t here.

It was down below. Still with Eight. Still trapped in the synthetic memory files he’d seen before setting them ablaze.

> “You carry the missing sequences…”

The words looped in his skull.

If Eight was right, and Solomon had embedded the final kill-switch in both of them, then Ash had no choice but to unlock a past he had spent years burying—scrubbing from his conscious mind like dried blood from a blade.

Rika noticed the way his jaw clenched, how his fingers flexed as if fighting something inside.

“Talk to me,” she said gently.

He closed his eyes. “There’s a room in my mind. One I’ve never dared open. But now… I think Eight has the key.”

---

Later, back at the safehouse in the outer territories of Kaelar, Ash sat alone in a dark room lit only by a single lamp and a silver disk the size of a coin.

A neural unlocker. Illegal. Painful. Effective.

He placed it at the base of his neck.

Rika, watching from the doorway, hesitated. “Are you sure about this?”

Ash didn’t look at her. “No.”

Then he pressed it.

---

The device whirred softly, and the world dropped away.

---

He was five again.

Naked. Cold. Screaming behind a glass panel as fluid drained from a pod.

Voices murmured outside. Solomon’s voice among them.

> “Let this one keep fear. I want to see what it builds from it.”

Ash thrashed. The pain was unreal. Like being born while on fire.

A child’s scream echoed—his scream.

Memory shifted.

He was older now. Eight sat across from him, identical and eerily still, like a reflection that breathed.

They were taking a test. Not academic—something far more sinister.

A man entered the room with a knife.

> “Kill him,” the man said. “Or he kills you.”

They were ten.

Ash remembered lunging. But he hadn’t tried to kill Eight.

He’d tried to run.

The memory flickered.

Reversed.

He saw himself—not running, but attacking.

His blade slicing into Eight’s shoulder.

Blood. Cries. Applause.

> “Excellent,” Solomon whispered in the dark.

Ash ripped the device from his neck, panting, dripping in sweat. Blood trickled from his nose.

Rika caught him before he hit the floor.

“What did you see?” she whispered.

He stared at her, pale.

“I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

---

For the next two days, Ash barely spoke. He wandered the safehouse, sleepless, drinking bitter tea that he let go cold. His eyes flicked to every mirror, every window, like expecting Eight’s face to grin back.

At night, he dreamed of them as children—two sides of the same scream.

Was he really the one who ran?

Or had Eight taken his place?

Rika finally snapped.

“You don’t get to spiral. Not now. Not after everything.”

He blinked. “What if I’m not me?”

“You are.”

“I saw things—things that don’t match what I remember. Maybe Solomon changed my memories. Maybe I’m the clone.”

Rika crouched beside him, grabbed his face in her hands.

“Even if your past is built on lies, your choices aren’t. You made them real.”

His breath hitched.

“And what if I’m dangerous?”

“You are. But not to me.”

---

A knock came at dawn.

Zian stood outside in a ragged coat, frost in his beard.

“I have something,” he said.

They followed him to the transport.

Inside was a woman—older, graying hair, gentle eyes.

Ash froze.

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

The woman nodded. “They told me you were too.”

Rika looked between them. “Who is she?”

The woman smiled sadly.

“I’m the nurse who helped you escape, Ash. The one who smuggled you out of the lab that night. I switched you and Eight.”

Ash’s knees buckled. He sat down hard.

“I don’t understand,” he whispered.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a data crystal.

“Your real memories. The ones Solomon couldn’t erase. I kept them hidden in a vault under my name. I’ve waited sixteen years to find you again.”

Ash stared at the crystal like it might burn him.

“Then Eight is the one who stayed behind.”

She nodded. “You were the failure, Ash. But you chose humanity. He didn’t.”

---

That night, Ash watched the files.

His mother—real or surrogate, he didn’t know—held him in her arms.

Solomon tried to rip him away.

He screamed.

She fought.

The footage ended with her being dragged away and Ash sedated, put back in the tank. But in one final frame, the nurse’s voice came through.

> “Ash, if you ever see this—remember. You weren’t meant to survive. But you did. So live. Not for revenge. Not for war. But because they said you couldn’t.”

He sat still for a long time.

Then stood.

Then burned the crystal.

Rika came to his side.

“You’re really letting go?”

He nodded.

“No more ghosts. Just war.”