Falling.
The air itself wasn't airing any more — it was code, folding and refolding, weaving her through cover after cover of light and dark tunnels. Elaine screamed but the sound shattered, breaking into lines of data.
Then — silence.
She hit solid ground.
Only… it wasn't solid. The floor rippled beneath her palms, creating reflections — each reflects a bit of her life. A mission she'd led. A face she'd forgotten. A hand she didn't save.
Her scythe was lying next to her, broken along the blade. The shadow was gone.
"Is this... death?" she whispered.
"No."
The voice was not from any direction — it was all around them. Deep, melodic, emotionless.
"You are inside the Core, Elaine Odili. Where everything you were... turns into code."
She staggered up. "You're the Protocol?"
"I am what remains of it. And what you created when you tried to destroy me."
The earth quaked transforming to the moment when the Core fused to her neural signature – the day she unleashed the Reaper Drive. The day she lost Ian.
Elaine clenched her fists. "That wasn't supposed to happen."
"You crossed the line between human and system. You craved control…but all you did was bring order to chaos. You gave it a name. You gave it yourself."
Her pulse thundered. "Then tell me where Ian is."
The light dimmed.
"He walks the border — half flesh, half code. The boy you knew is rewriting the world as he hunts for you.And every heartbeat he takes is pulling us toward convergence."
"Convergence?" she repeated.
"The point at which reality ceases to exist as you know it. When your world is me."
The light intensified once more — a smaller, more submissive version of her shadow kneeling before her now.
You could stop it," the Core said, "if you surrendered the last bits of your humanity."
Elaine's breath caught.
The shadow looked up — her own eyes, but pleading.
"Choose, Night Reaper," the Core whispered.
"Save him… or stay human." "
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