The door hissed open.
Kevin stepped inside, heart hammering. The air shimmered, dense with sonic residue—like echoes still searching for someone to belong to.
He took a step forward.
The room pulsed in response.
Monitors blinked to life across the chamber. In their glass, fragments of Amari's face stitched together—never fully aligned, always shifting. Laughing, crying, silent.
From the far wall, a voice:
> "You were never supposed to come here."
It wasn't Amari.
It was *her copy*—the hybrid construct, glitching, trying to steady itself.
Kevin approached slowly. "You remember me."
> "I remember the pain of forgetting. And the fear... of becoming something else."
He stopped just meters away. "They want to overwrite you. Use me to do it."
> "Then don't let them."
A burst of static ripped through the chamber. Sirens flared outside—Ren had triggered the failsafe. Time was collapsing.
The hybrid extended a trembling hand. "Take it. The final waveform. The *original*."
From her chest, a crystalline drive detached, hovering.
Kevin reached for it.
As he touched it—*a surge*. Memories not his own flooded in: Amari's first concert. Her laughter in the old studio. Her final message, buried in harmonic code:
> "I'm more than a backup. I'm the echo that chose to survive."
And then—silence.
The chamber dimmed. The hybrid collapsed, finally still.
Kevin turned. Kim and Ren were at the doorway, wide-eyed.
He held up the drive. "She's not gone. Just waiting to be played."
A single piano stood on the stage.
Kevin sat before it, drive connected, keys trembling beneath his fingers.
He began to play.
The melody unfurled, delicate and powerful—like a memory taking root in real time.
And then—her voice joined in.
Amari. Pure. Undistorted.
Not a ghost. Not a copy.
A *collaboration*.
Ren hit RECORD.
Kim wiped her eyes.
And across every speaker, every hallway, every open heart in the school, Amari sang again.
This time, *for herself*.
.....BEEP BEEP BEEP.....
To Be Continue....