The lab hummed like a living throat.Light trembled across the walls, reflections twitching one heartbeat behind reality.Three versions of Elara existed in the room:
The woman.The mirror-self.The child fragment.
And somewhere inside the glass network,her mother watched.
Calen stood between the Bureau agents, weapon lowered but not forgotten. His eyes stayed locked on Elara, searching her face for the version he wanted to believe in.
"Elara," he said quietly. "The model is right.The city can't hold all of you."
Subject 00's voice reverberated through the vents, soft and merciless.
"Stabilize the anchor.Release the fragments."
The words weren't spoken in threat.They were spoken like instructions.A recipe for survival.
Elara stepped closer to the child, placing a hand on the small girl's back.She expected trembling.She expected fear.
Instead, she felt stillness.
"Sweetheart," Elara whispered, "I'm not sending you back."
The girl's voice shook. "You might have to."
"I won't."
"You don't get to decide," the mirror-Elara said, her tone gentle but final."Anchors aren't chosen. They emerge."
The child's eyes filled with tears.Calen flinched at the sight.
"Elara," he said, voice cracking, "listen to me. If she's a fragment, she might fade on her own. She might just… slip."
"No," Elara growled. "She won't. I won't let her."
Subject 00 responded, her voice echoing from every reflective surface at once.
"Your attachment destabilizes the system."
Elara's breath shook.She wanted to scream at the ceiling.At the city.At her mother.
"She's a child," Elara yelled. "She doesn't deserve to be erased."
The mirror-Elara stepped closer, her reflection bending unnaturally at the edges.
"She is you," the mirror version said. "The part of you that wasn't meant to survive. And the longer she exists here, the weaker you become."
Calen's head snapped toward Mirror-Elara.
"What do you mean weaker?"
Mirror-Elara's gaze softened.
"She is your memory, Calen. The piece of your childhood that didn't belong to this world. If she stays, Elara collapses."
The child's face crumpled.
"Elara… I don't want to hurt you."
Elara grabbed her little shoulders."You're not hurting me. You're—"
Her voice cracked.
"You're the only part of me that feels… real."
The child sobbed, burying her face in Elara's chest.
Subject 00's voice cut through the moment, cold as steel.
"Anchor selection must be completed.Choose the version that remains."
Calen looked away.Even the agents didn't move.
Elara closed her eyes.
She felt the city ripple.She felt the timeline bending.She felt the seam widen.
And she knew the truth.
Whether she chose or not—one version of her would die.
The child tugged her sleeve."Elara… I can go back. If it saves you."
"No."Elara held her tighter."No. You deserve to live."
"You deserve to exist too," the girl whispered.
The lights flickered, and the mirror-Elara stepped fully out of her reflective boundary, her outline blurring like heat.
"Elara," she said softly, "you know the rule.Only one anchor survives the merge."
Elara shook her head violently.
"I won't choose," she gasped."I won't do it."
Subject 00's voice turned sorrowful.
"Then the city will choose for you."
And the walls began to fracture.
Calen's breath hitched as the ceiling split with a hairline crack that glowed with impossible light.
"Elara—enough."His voice was no longer soft.No longer unsure.
He stepped in front of her.
"Elara, look at me."
She looked up, eyes shaking.
"I know you don't want to choose," Calen said. "But if you don't, the city collapses. Everyone dies."
Elara shook her head furiously. "I can't choose between myself."
"You already have," he said.
His voice broke on the last word.
Elara froze.
"Calen… what did you do?"
He stepped aside, revealing something he had been hiding behind him—
A containment ring, glowing with Phase-Null energy.He must have stolen it from the Bureau agents during the breach.
"Elara," he whispered,"I'm sorry."
Before she could move, Calen slammed the ring down over the child.
A dome of soft blue light enveloped the girl.She screamed—not in pain, but in heartbreak.
"Elara!"Her hands pounded against the energy barrier that separated them."Elara, don't let him—!"
"No!" Elara lunged forward.
Calen grabbed her by the shoulders, holding her back with all his strength.
"She's destabilizing reality," Calen choked out."She's going to kill you, Elara. I can't let that happen."
"You don't understand!" she cried."She's not the danger—I am!"
The mirror-Elara tilted her head.
"Calen made his choice," she said."Now you must decide whether to undo it."
Subject 00's voice echoed from the vents.
"Anchor alignment detected.Calibration in progress."
The child pounded the barrier, tears streaking her face.
"Elara… please… don't let me disappear…"
Elara's scream tore through the collapsing lab.
"STOP!"
But no one stopped.
Not Calen.Not the model-mother.Not the fractures crawling through the walls.
The seam widened.Reality bent.
And the choice that Elara refused to makewas now in the handsof the one person she trusted most.
And the one person who had just broken her.