The Copy didn’t move. It remained a perfectly rendered stillness, a statue of Rhael’s own features, yet devoid of the nervous tremors that Rhael couldn’t suppress. It stood there, arms loose at its sides, its face a smooth, unblemished version of the man who had been dragged through filth for weeks. It didn’t look like an enemy; it looked like a finished product, a sleek, upgraded version of a prototype that had been discarded in the gutter.Rhael’s hand trembled as he gripped the hilt of his rusted shiv. The metal was cold, biting into his calloused palm, but it was the only thing that felt real. His heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs, a frantic, syncopated beat that seemed to mock the absolute, unnatural serenity of the thing before him."I said, speak!" Rhael roared, his voice ricocheting off the damp, metallic walls of the corridor.The Copy tilted its head, a motion so fluid and uncanny that it triggered a primal revulsion in Rhael’s gut. It wasn't the movement of a

He spun around, the rusted shiv held in a white-knuckled grip, his lungs heaving like a bellows struggling to draw fire. The corridor was empty. The silence, which had been absolute only moments ago, now felt heavy with the weight of unseen eyes. He was alone, yet the oppressive sensation of being scrutinized remained, humming in the marrow of his bones. Ordan, Ilyra, and Mavin were somewhere ahead, navigating the labyrinthine pipes, their voices distant echoes of a reality Rhael was rapidly losing his tether to.He leaned against the bulkhead, the steel freezing against his overheated skin. The ventilation fans somewhere deep in the gut of the facility pulsed with a low, sub-audible thrum that vibrated the floorplates beneath his boots. It was a rhythm designed to induce vertigo, a mechanical heartbeat meant to sync with the captives’ own, forcing them into a trance of lethargic despair. Rhael focused on the pain in his shoulder, using the sharp, localized ache to pull his mind back

The silence of the corridor was a physical weight, a thick, pressurized blanket that smelled faintly of ozone and recycled rot. Rhael pressed his forehead against the cold bulkhead, closing his eyes to shut out the flickering emergency lights that cast long, distorting shadows across the floor. The rhythm of the ventilation fans—that steady, soul-grinding thrum—seemed to bleed into the very substance of his thoughts, turning his memories into stagnant water. Was he truly Rhael? Or was he merely the leftover iteration of a mind that had been scrubbed clean and repopulated with someone else’s history?The question gnawed at him, a serrated edge carving through his resolve. He pushed away from the wall, his boots crunching on a scattering of grit and metal shavings. He needed to find the others. If he stayed here, trapped in this narrow vein of the facility, he feared he would simply dissolve into the background radiation of the dungeon."Rhael?"The voice was rough, like gravel ground b

"Don't," Rhael rasped, the word tearing through the dryness of his throat like sandpaper on raw nerve. He held the shiv steady, though his hand betrayed him with a micro-tremor that defied his iron-clad will. "Don't look at me like I'm a puzzle you’re trying to solve, Ordan. I’m standing right here. I’m breathing. I’m bleeding. That’s more proof of humanity than this floor has seen in a decade."Ordan didn't move. He kept the heavy iron pipe-wrench held low, a weapon of crude, brutal efficiency. The overhead light flickered again, a stuttering death-throe of an electrical circuit that bathed the corridor in rhythmic spasms of sickly yellow and oppressive, absolute black. In the brief pulses of illumination, Rhael saw Ordan’s jaw tighten, the muscles bunching like coiled wire beneath his stubbled cheeks."I’ve cleared this level before," Ordan said, his voice dropping into a register of hollow, cavernous gravity. "Three years ago, or maybe it was six. Time is a liquid down here, Rhael.

"If I were a plant," Rhael started, his voice cracking, a sound that felt like splintering dry wood, "I wouldn’t have spent the last three days dragging your carcass through the refuse chutes while the Cleaners were breathing down our necks. I wouldn’t be bleeding from a wound that I didn’t even feel until the adrenaline wore off. If I were an agent of this place, Ordan, I would have killed you while you slept in that drainage pocket behind the turbine. I would have made it clean. I wouldn't be standing here, shivering, wondering if the man I’m talking to is a ghost or a dying comrade."Ordan did not lower the wrench. He didn’t even blink. He looked through Rhael, his eyes tracing the contours of the bulkhead behind him as if searching for hidden cameras or pneumatic triggers. The air hummed—a low, discordant vibration that served as the heartbeat of the facility. It wasn't just noise; it was a rhythmic pulse that felt calibrated to interfere with the natural cadence of a human heart.