The wind howled through the broken windows of the old radio tower.Its steel frame cut against the skyline like a skeleton reaching for the moon. Every step Elara took echoed through the hollow corridors, swallowed by static from the half-dead transmitters above.
Midnight in Orvale was quieter than it had any right to be. No cars. No chatter. Just the rhythmic thrum of electricity crawling through cables and the occasional flicker of a streetlight fighting to stay alive.
Elara tightened her coat, gripping the folder of crime scene notes against her chest. Each page felt heavier than paper should. She didn't know why she came — only that she had to. The messages had stopped after that last one. Whoever had sent them wanted her here, and part of her needed to know why.
At the tower's base, the security gate hung open. A single light flickered near the maintenance stairwell. The bulb buzzed like an insect trapped in a jar.
"Dr. Voss?"
The voice came from behind her. She spun around, flashlight cutting through the dark — and caught sight of a man leaning against a rusted console.
Detective Calen Dray.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded."Following you," he said simply. "You weren't exactly subtle leaving your building at midnight."
Her anger flared, but underneath it was relief. For all her fears, Calen's presence grounded her — made her believe, if only for a moment, that the world was still logical.
"I told you to trust me," he said, his voice low. "But you didn't tell me about the messages, did you?""Because I didn't know if they were real.""And now?""Now I think nothing is."
Calen studied her for a moment. The flashlight beam cut across her face — sharp shadows carving into the fatigue under her eyes. "You look like you haven't slept in days," he murmured.
"I keep dreaming of places I've never been," she said. "And people who look like me but aren't."
They climbed the tower's inner stairwell in silence. Each step groaned under their weight. Dust coated the air like old memories. At the top, a steel door led to the control room.
Elara pushed it open.Inside, the hum of old machines filled the space — screens flickering with lines of unreadable code, radios whispering voices too soft to catch.
She moved toward the central console, her fingers brushing across the controls.
"This equipment's decades old," Calen said. "No one uses this place anymore.""Then why is it still on?" she whispered.
One of the monitors blinked — then steadied.Static formed a pattern, morphing into an image.
A face.Elara's face.
Only this time, the reflection spoke first.
"You shouldn't have come."
Elara froze. The voice was hers, distorted through the static, layered like a recording played backward.
"What is this?" Calen demanded, stepping forward.
The image flickered — and now the other Elara was standing inside what looked like a room of mirrors, her smile thin, deliberate.
"They told you not to wake up," the reflection said. "But curiosity never sleeps, does it?"
Calen grabbed Elara's shoulder. "We're leaving."
"Wait," she said softly. "Listen to her."
The reflection tilted its head. "You wanted truth. So here it is."
The lights above them flickered violently. The radio static rose into a screech. Calen covered his ears as the room seemed to bend — not collapse, but fold, like two realities trying to occupy the same space.
Then everything stopped.
When Elara opened her eyes, she was sitting in a chair she didn't remember. The air smelled like disinfectant. A dim bulb swung overhead. Across from her sat Calen — bound to a chair, unconscious.
Her hands trembled as she reached for him, but stopped short when she noticed the small device on the table beside them. It looked like a tape recorder — except there was no tape. Only a glowing red button marked PLAYBACK.
She pressed it.
Static hissed, then her own voice filled the room:
"Experiment log. Subject Voss, Elara. Test sequence three — cognitive duplication in progress. Memory mapping unstable. Recommend immediate suspension of—"
Her heart stopped.
It was her voice — but colder, clinical, detached. She listened, paralyzed, as the recording continued:
"Control version shows increased awareness of simulation boundaries. Subject believes herself to be real. Terminate sequence before consciousness overlap."
The tape clicked off.
Her reflection in the dark window stared back at her, trembling.
"Control version?" she whispered. "Am I—?"
Before she could finish, Calen groaned, eyes fluttering open.
"Elara… where are we?""I don't know," she said, voice cracking. "But I think… I think I've been here before."
The walls began to hum again, faint and rhythmic, like a heartbeat buried beneath metal. And from somewhere deep inside the tower, a voice echoed — faint, mechanical, but undeniably human.
"Wake up, Elara."
Her breath caught. She turned toward the sound.
It wasn't coming from the speakers.It was coming from inside her own mind.