Damien stood in the hallway, staring at the paused screen. Ash’s face filled the frame, caught mid-step in a place she insisted she’d never been. The video didn’t have a timestamp or any metadata just her, clear as day.Ash claimed the footage was fake. Eclipse had the tech to create deepfakes on the fly. They’d done worse before. Damien didn’t argue, but unease settled in his gut. Sophia stood behind them, arms crossed and quiet. She hadn’t said much since they left the staging facility.In the command room, Ash pulled up a damaged file Jace had left behind. It was still readable, revealing a manifest of embedded assets. It wasn’t just Sophia; there were others too. Names, ID numbers, and last-known statuses.One file blinked in red: Caleb Kirby. Seventeen years old. Active. Unstable.Ash said he’d been activated three days ago. His location? Washington D.C. His profile matched a known Eclipse trigger sequence. Damien didn’t need to ask what that meant. Suicide directive. Likely a ci

The tunnel felt like a void. When the lights flickered out, Damien didn’t budge. He pressed his back against the cold wall, his sidearm gripped tightly in his hand. Silence enveloped him. No sounds, no signals, nothing creeping up behind him.Just that message pulsing in his comm display: Subject Mirror online.He didn’t even blink.He ran that phrase through his mind, trying to make sense of it. It wasn’t part of the original Eclipse protocol. Not a known asset. Jace hadn’t mentioned it, and Vale had never dared to say it aloud.Mirror.Deep down, he knew what that meant. He just didn’t want to accept it.Taking a deep breath, he turned and headed back toward the main chamber.When he got there, he found Sophia sitting up. She looked pale, her hands gripping her knees tightly. It was like she hadn’t blinked in ages.She said she heard it again.Not quite sound. Not exactly words. Just something beneath all the noise. A breath. A heartbeat that didn’t belong to her.He asked her if s

They spent the night in the old school building. No lights. No fire. No signals. Ash kept checking the windows every hour. Since that message showed up, Sophia hadn’t said a word.Mirror reached activation. Awaiting final deviation.Damien kept an eye on the hallway. He wasn’t expecting an attack. Eclipse didn’t need brute force anymore. It just needed a choice.Sophia was the first to wake up. Her eyes opened wide, not even blinking. Her breathing was calm.She mentioned that the dream was gone. But she never shared what had taken its place.Damien wandered the halls before sunrise. Each door opened quietly, and every room was empty. No traps. No signs of life.This building wasn’t made to hold them. It was built to watch them.Ash checked the comm lines again. Still nothing. No updates. No pings.Sophia sat near a blank whiteboard, reading old writings. Names. Messages. Some are from kids. Others from before the school shut down.She said it felt like a place where things end