The air in the complex felt heavy, each corridor pressing into Mayu's consciousness like a suffocating shroud of darkness. Her eyes remained fixed on the terminal's screen, the single line of text scrolling in mechanical cadence: "Welcome, Subject M‑8. The final phase begins."
A shiver ran down her spine. Something about that phrasing chilled her to the bone. "Final phase." The words sounded like a verdict, a closing act—an ending to a script already written. The weight of the clone collapsed at her feet bore down on her. What else did they know? What fate awaited her in this grim labyrinth?
Zéro watched in silence, as always. But Mayu knew the agent had understood everything. Seen it all.
"Zéro," she said, voice trembling, "who am I, really?"
The question hung in the air like an echo. Zéro stepped forward, then—without a word—placed a hand on her shoulder. The silence between them crackled with new tension. Then, at last, the answer fell, heavy with meaning.
"You are the end of all this. The final project. The one they never wanted to see succeed. But you are also the beginning of something else. You are… the last hope."
The words rang strangely, as if Zéro spoke them with cold certainty tinged by regret. She had witnessed this before: the birth of hope, then its inevitable fall.
Mayu's feet dragged on the floor, her mind burdened. She was not a product. Not a mere failure or success. She was something more. Something neither the Project nor its creators could have foreseen.
The door ahead groaned open, revealing a vast chamber plunged in darkness, machines humming softly like dormant insects. The room was filled with vats like those they'd seen before—but these were all active. Inside floated countless silhouettes, tethered by cables and wires. A sea of sleeping clones. Yet one, in the central vat, stirred. A thin shaft of light illuminated its features.
Mayu approached instinctively. The clone turned slowly toward her, its black eyes empty yet brimming with awareness.
"You… you are the one who must finish what we began," the figure in the tank murmured, voice weak and fractured. "You are the result of our mistakes. The end of our cycle."
Mayu froze, breath caught in her throat. This clone… it was unlike the others. There was something different here—a consciousness awakened, an understanding of what was happening. Like a version of herself, but less… human.
"You know what must be done," the voice continued, growing fainter. "You know what they expect."
"No, I don't," Mayu replied, turning to Zéro—but the agent offered no answer. Calculating, distant Zéro now seemed shaken by this revelation.
The clone lifted a hand toward the terminal at the center of the room. An alert flashed—an abrupt burst of red light filling the chamber.
"It's time." The clone's voice cut out suddenly, and a metallic rumble echoed. The vats around them vibrated, and a blinding light flooded the space.
Mayu, Zéro, and the clone were now surrounded by a tangle of cables and tubes. Then a powerful, mechanical voice boomed through the speakers:
"The process to create a perfect world is now underway. Subject M‑8, activated." The voice was inexorable. The die was cast.
Mayu felt Zéro's hand on her shoulder. The agent looked at her with intensity, as if on the verge of imparting something crucial.
"This is what you wanted, isn't it? What we all wanted. The final project."
Mayu turned slowly to Zéro, and a wave of understanding washed through her mind. She had never wanted this. Neither the Project nor a "perfect world." But she was the key. The key to everything. To the end. To rebirth.
The world around her began to warp. The vats cracked, the light twisted. Past and future visions overlapped in her mind: moments of pain, doubt, struggle.
She closed her eyes. The clone's voice echoed in her thoughts: "You are the one who must finish what we began."
But was that truly her? Was she the end—or the beginning?
The walls closed in around her as a bolt of blinding light engulfed her.
Everything was about to change.