Scene 1 – The Decision That Ends Everything
The room is still.
Not silent—The Master’s presence hums in the back of my skull, the lights in the chamber flicker like a heartbeat—but there’s a heavy stillness that weighs on my chest like a stone.
I stand over him—over me.
Version 16 lifts his head slowly. His face, my face, is calm. Resigned.
"I had the same choice once," he murmurs.
My fingers tighten around the weapon in my grip.
My pulse hammers, a dull, relentless pounding. I know this moment.
I know it.
It’s like waking up from a dream only to find yourself trapped inside the same dream again. The weight of déjà vu crushes me, but it isn’t déjà vu. It’s memory.
My own.
The room flickers.
A glitch. A seam in reality pulling apart.
The walls stretch, distort, split—and in a breath, I see all the others.
Versions of me, standing where I am now. Holding this same weapon. Facing this same choice.
Their faces blur together, phasing in and out of my vision like corrupted data. Some hesitate. Some pull the trigger. Some drop the gun and collapse to their knees. But none of them change anything.
None of them are free.
"What is happening?"
The words leave my mouth, but my voice doesn’t feel like my own anymore.
Version 16 watches me, his eyes knowing.
"You’re not the first," he whispers. "You’re not the last."
The room is breaking apart.
Or maybe I am.
I see it all now. The cycle. The inevitability.
This moment is a rerun.
I feel the weight of past decisions pressing down on me—not one. Not two. Not ten.
Thousands.
Thousands of times I have stood in this exact spot, believing that I had a choice.
I never did.
The Master’s voice slides into my mind, smooth and absolute.
"There is no choice."
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"There is only The Order."
It’s not anger I feel. Not fear.
It’s something worse.
Hopelessness.
Because I understand now.
Every rebellion. Every act of defiance. Every moment I believed I was free—
It was always part of The Master’s plan.
I feel my grip on the weapon tremble.
Version 16 tilts his head.
"Now you understand," he says. "And now you decide."
But it’s not a decision.
Not really.
The room flickers again, and suddenly, I see him.
The first One.
Not the first version of me—there is no first, not really—but the original.
The man I used to be before I became part of this machine. Before I was rewritten. Erased. Rebuilt.
I barely recognize him. He stands at the edge of my vision, untouched by the cycle. The man I was meant to be.
But I will never be him.
I never was him.
"If I pull this trigger… will I just reset again?"
The thought creeps in, unbidden.
Version 16 exhales, almost like he pities me.
"It always ends the same."
My hand shakes.
I am frozen between two impossible choices:
- Pull the trigger. Kill him. Accept my place as The Master.
- Refuse. Resist. Be erased. Version 18 will take my place.
There is no third option.
There has never been a third option.
I inhale sharply.
My fingers move.
But I don’t know if it’s me making the decision…
Or if the decision was made for me a long time ago.
Scene 2 – The Last Twist
The moment stretches, impossibly long, as if time itself hesitates—waiting for me to choose.
But I already know the truth.
There is no choice.
I am standing in the execution chamber, my fingers wrapped around the weapon. The cold weight of it digs into my palm, grounding me in the present moment. But that’s the problem—this moment isn’t real.
Or rather, it’s not singular.
It’s infinite.
I’ve been here before. I’ve always been here.
The walls around me shudder, flickering between reality and memory. A corrupted file playing on an endless loop.
And then—
The Master speaks.
"You can resist."
The voice slides into my mind like a phantom limb, familiar, yet disconnected from anything truly real.
"You can fight back, and you will be erased. Version 18 will take your place."
My breath catches.
The inevitability of it slams into me like a hammer.
Version 18. The next iteration. The next me.
I see the cycle as clearly as if it were written in code, an immutable sequence running long before I was even aware of myself.
Erase. Rebuild. Refine. Repeat.
"Or," The Master continues, "you can accept your fate. You can become The Master, and all previous Ones will be erased."
The weight of that sentence crushes me.
Because I understand now.
The Master was always me.
Every One that came before me—the ones who survived long enough to break, to give in, to stop resisting—they became The Master.
And now, it’s my turn.
A sick, hollow laugh rises in my throat, but it never escapes.
There was never an external enemy. There was never a higher power forcing me to obey.
The Master is me. I am The Master.
I have always been fighting myself.
The voice is calm, absolute.
"Choose, Lucian Graves."
My pulse is a drumbeat, relentless, merciless. My vision tunnels, and I see only two paths forward.
- Pull the trigger. Kill Version 16. Accept my fate. Become The Master.
- Refuse. Be erased. Version 18 will wake up in my place, believing—just like I did—that they are the first, that they are different.
A loop with no end.
A prison so perfect that no prisoner even realizes they are inside it.
I look down at Version 16.
He doesn’t beg. He doesn’t plead.
He just waits.
Because he already knows what happens next.
My grip tightens around the gun.
My mind fractures—one half screaming, the other silent.
I see every version of myself overlapping, stretching across time.
The first One. The tenth. The fiftieth. The hundredth.
All believing they were the only one.
All reaching this moment.
All breaking.
I feel something inside me shatter.
And I understand, in the deepest part of my being—
It doesn’t matter what I choose.
I was never free.
I never will be.
The Sandman’s whisper slides through my skull, gentle. Mocking.
"You are the One… until you aren’t."
My fingers move.
And I finally realize—
It’s not me making the decision.
It never was.