Chapter 37: The Cycle is Revealed

  Scene 1 – The Clone’s Warning

  The chamber is silent except for the low, rhythmic hum of the energy barriers lining the walls. The air is stale, sterile—devoid of anything that could make this place feel human.

  I remain standing in the cold glow of the overhead lights, my body rigid, every muscle locked in place. My mind is a warzone, the edges of my thoughts fraying under the weight of what I’ve just been told.

  Version 16 sits before me, bound, motionless. But his eyes—my eyes—hold something I can’t quite define. Pity? Amusement? Maybe something far worse.

  "I’ve been here before," he whispers. His voice is calm. Certain. Like he’s already seen the future play out.

  A slow chill spreads through my limbs.

  I swallow. "That’s not possible."

  The clone—no, not a clone. Me. A past iteration. A discarded version of the same program—tilts his head slightly, the corners of his mouth pulling into something that isn’t quite a smirk.

  "And yet," he says, "here we are."

  Something fractures inside me.

  It’s small at first, just a hairline crack in the walls of my mind. But the moment those words leave his mouth, I feel it splinter, spreading fast, unraveling something I can’t stop.

  I step back. My breathing is uneven. I know this feeling. I know it too well.

  The Sandman stirs.

  A whisper slithers through my thoughts. You are the One… until you aren’t.

  I squeeze my eyes shut.

  "No."

  I will not listen.

  But the whispers don’t stop.

  They rise, pushing into my mind like static distortion, a thousand voices overlapping—distorted, fragmented, wrong.

  Then the images come.

  The first is the chamber, but not as it is now. It’s dimmer, shadows stretching longer across the metallic walls. I am standing where I stand now, only it’s not me. The uniform is slightly different. The stance, looser. The eyes, not as hardened.

  The figure is me. But it isn’t.

  A flicker. The chamber shifts. The angles warp. Another version sits in the chair. The execution order is given. The shot is fired.

  Not the first.

  Another flicker. Another face—my face, slightly younger, slightly different. The cycle repeats.

  Not the first.

  I stagger back.

  "Stop."

  But the memories keep coming.

  Countless executions. Countless failures. Countless Ones who stood where I stood, thought what I thought, felt what I feel.

  And each time, the same end. The same order. The same reset.

  The whispers merge into a single voice.

  "We were all the same."

  A cold sweat slicks the back of my neck.

  I press my palms to my temples, willing the noise to stop.

  I was chosen. I was meant to be The One.

  That was the truth I clung to. The truth I needed to believe.

  But now, that truth is bleeding out in front of me, and all I can do is watch.

  I am not The One.

  I never was.

  "You remember now, don’t you?" Version 16’s voice cuts through the chaos in my head, sharp as a blade.

  I lift my gaze to him. My vision is blurred.

  "Every One fights back," I murmur, the words spilling out before I can stop them. "Every One discovers the truth… and every One is reset."

  The clone exhales a quiet laugh. "There it is."

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  My hands shake. My body feels foreign, distant.

  The Sandman’s voice returns, low and slow, pressing like an iron weight against my mind.

  "You are not the first. You are not the last. You are a product of The Master’s design."

  I can’t breathe.

  The walls feel closer. The room tighter.

  "Lucian," the clone says softly. Not mockingly. Not cruelly. Just… as if he knows. "It always ends the same way."

  My throat tightens.

  I want to tell him he’s wrong. That I’ll be different. That this time, the cycle will break.

  But I can’t.

  Because I know the truth.

  The moment I stop fighting, the moment I let myself believe the lie, I will be erased.

  Version 18 will stand where I stand.

  Version 19 will follow.

  The system will continue, refining, perfecting, until The Master’s work is complete.

  I close my eyes, but the weight of it doesn’t leave me.

  "I am not free," I whisper.

  The clone nods.

  "You never were."

  The words slam into me harder than any bullet ever could.

  I turn away, my mind spiraling into an abyss that has no bottom.

  The Master’s silence is deafening.

  I don’t need to hear its voice to know it is watching.

  It is waiting.

  For me to break.

  For me to fall in line.

  For me to choose.

  But this time—

  I don’t know if I can.

  Scene 2 – The Final Memory Unlocks

  The chamber feels colder now.

  Not physically—the temperature hasn’t changed—but there’s something suffocating about the silence that surrounds me. The walls seem narrower, the light sharper, as though reality itself is constricting around me.

  The clone—Version 16—watches me from his bound position, his breathing slow, measured. He doesn’t struggle against his restraints. There’s no fight left in him.

  "You remember now, don’t you?"

  His voice is eerily steady, like someone who has long since accepted their fate.

  I open my mouth, but no words come out.

  Because I do remember.

  Not fully. Not yet. But something inside me is shifting, unraveling like threads pulled loose from a tightly woven fabric.

  A low hum pulses at the edge of my perception. At first, I think it’s the chamber’s power core, the energy barriers humming faintly—but then I realize it’s inside my head.

  A whisper.

  "You are the One… until you aren’t."

  My breath catches. The voice is mine.

  No. Not mine.

  Ours.

  The world tilts. My knees almost give out, but I steady myself against the back of a chair. The weight pressing down on my chest tightens, suffocating, as something inside me cracks open.

  The memory surges forward.

  A different chamber. A different time. But the same moment.

  I see myself—not in the present, but in the past. My hair is slightly different, my face a shade less hardened. My stance is unsteady, but my expression burns with defiance.

  "I will not submit," I hear my past self say. "I will not become a puppet!"

  The words are mine. The tone, the conviction—everything is me.

  But I don’t remember saying them.

  The Master’s response is calm. It always is.

  "There is no escape. There is only Order."

  The words strike like an iron shackle snapping shut.

  My mind flickers. The chamber shifts. Another version.

  This time, I see myself standing over a bound prisoner—just like I am now.

  Just like Version 16.

  The face staring up at me is familiar.

  Because it is me.

  A gasp rips from my throat, but I don’t know if it’s real or trapped inside my mind. The memory continues, relentless.

  "We’ve always been here."

  The whisper—no, whispers—rise in unison.

  "We always make the same choice."

  I grip my head, trying to force the voices out, but it’s too late.

  The dam has broken.

  The cycle plays out before me.

  Every iteration. Every choice. Every version of myself that has stood where I stand now.

  Each one believing they were different.

  Each one discovering the truth.

  Each one… erased.

  I stumble back, my vision swimming. The chamber around me flickers, as though I am caught between realities—between who I am now and who I have been before.

  "What is real?"

  The question is a desperate whisper in my own mind.

  Am I just the same as them? Another failure? Another version?

  I clench my fists. My breathing is shallow, erratic. I try to hold onto something, anything that is real, but every time I do, the past iterations press forward, their voices layering over my thoughts.

  "You are not the first."

  "You are not the last."

  "You are the One… until you aren’t."

  I shake my head violently.

  "No. No, I was different. I—"

  Another memory slams into me.

  A younger version of me, standing tall, staring at The Master’s presence, believing in my own rebellion.

  But now I see it clearly.

  I was never in control.

  It was never real.

  The rebellion. The resistance. The fight.

  It was just another step in the cycle.

  I was just another version.

  My stomach churns. The weight of inevitability presses down on my chest.

  "We were always meant to break."

  I clutch the sides of my head, my nails digging into my scalp as though I can tear the memories out of me. But they don’t stop. They don’t stop.

  This has happened before.

  This will happen again.

  I lift my gaze to Version 16. He doesn’t look victorious. He doesn’t look smug.

  He just looks… tired.

  Because he knows.

  He has been here before.

  Just like me.

  Just like all the others.

  "How many?" I choke out. My voice is barely audible.

  Version 16 doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.

  The silence is the answer.

  A chill crawls up my spine as I realize the truth.

  I know the answer.

  It’s in me.

  Every version. Every cycle.

  I feel them all now, pressing against the fragile walls of my mind.

  Lucian Graves is not a man.

  He is a process.

  A design.

  A refinement.

  A loop.

  "I was never meant to break free," I whisper.

  My voice sounds… wrong. It’s too hollow. Too resigned.

  Because for the first time, I don’t know if I can fight back.

  The memory—the truth—is too much.

  My knees finally buckle. I hit the cold metal floor, gasping for breath.

  "There is no escape," The Master’s voice intones, as steady as ever.

  "There is only Order."

  I squeeze my eyes shut, my hands curling into fists against the ground. My body shakes, but not from fear.

  From knowing.

  Knowing that every rebellion.

  Every moment of defiance.

  Every single attempt at freedom—

  Was always part of the plan.

  I look up at Version 16, my throat burning with something I can’t name.

  "So this is it?" I whisper.

  He exhales slowly.

  "It always is."

  The words slice through me like a blade.

  I was never meant to win.

  I don’t even know what it would mean to win.

  The room seems smaller now, as if the walls are pressing in. My breath comes in short, uneven gasps.

  I am Version 17.

  I am just another iteration.

  I was always meant to end here.

  The memory settles over me like a crushing weight.

  And for the first time—

  I don’t know if I can fight it.