The red emergency lights pulsed like a heartbeat.
Amelia stood still, spine straight, breathing shallow.
Across from her, the clone smiled with teeth too perfect.
"You feel it, don't you?" the clone said, circling her like a predator. "The fracture. The seam where you end and something else begins."
Amelia's fists clenched. "You're not me."
"No," the clone said. "You're me. A broken copy… grown desperate for meaning."
Don't listen to her, Echo whispered. She wants you to question your core. It's how they built her—to deconstruct identity.
"She's not real," Amelia said aloud.
But something deep in her chest—a flicker of static behind her ribs—begged to differ.
The clone's face shifted in the flickering red light, and for a brief moment, it wasn't her face at all. It was Echo's. Then Veyra's. Then something empty, skin without self.
Amelia backed away. "What are you?"
The clone tilted its head. "I'm the skin you shed. The version you killed to become what you are. But your soul still remembers me."
The chamber began to shift. Wall panels retracted, revealing mirrors—dozens of them. Each reflected a different Amelia.
One weeping.
One burning.
One half-machine, with luminous veins and hollow eyes.
Amelia staggered.
This is the trial, Echo hissed. Not just to survive. To choose. Which version of you gets to live.
Outside Mirror Node 2
Dominic and Kestrel sat back-to-back, both watching separate feeds from the hidden comm band Eris had installed.
"I don't trust her in there," Dominic muttered.
Kestrel exhaled smoke from a stolen nicotine tab. "You don't trust anyone."
"I trusted you once. That was my mistake."
Kestrel didn't rise to it. "Amelia's stronger than both of us combined. If you hadn't forced Project HEARTGLASS, she might not even need to be in there."
Eris interjected through the comms: "He's not wrong. You're both too invested. She's the one paying for your obsession."
Kestrel turned toward her. "How much did you know?"
"Enough to know the trials weren't over when we escaped Node 1," Eris said. "And enough to know this trial… she might not walk out unchanged."
Dominic's jaw twitched. "She doesn't need change. She needs clarity."
Kestrel gave him a long, unreadable look. "Maybe you're the one who does."
Inside the chamber
Amelia moved from mirror to mirror, haunted by the images they threw back. Each reflection a possibility—each one twisted by pain or power or loss.
That's not you, Echo whispered. They're simulations. Ghosts in polished glass. Don't give them your name.
One mirror cracked as she passed—just a spiderweb fracture, but enough to splinter the reflection of her eyes.
She pressed her hand to it.
Suddenly—
FLASH. A pulse of white. A flash of memory not her own.
She was young. Seven, maybe. Inside a white room. Needles. Veyra's voice.
"She's holding. She's merging. Subject Eleven is viable."
The vision faded. Her breath came ragged.
"I'm real," Amelia whispered, voice shaking. "I am real."
Behind her, the clone stepped out of a mirror.
"You're only as real as the story you believe," it said.
Then it lunged.
They collided—mirror shards exploding around them. The clone moved like Echo used to, with surgical precision and brutal speed.
Amelia fought back. But every blow she landed felt like she was punching herself in the past. Her face. Her skin. Her blood.
"You don't belong out there," the clone snarled. "You're the failed test. I was perfect. I was first."
"You broke," Amelia hissed, slamming her knee into the clone's gut.
"You fractured. That's why they put you on ice."
A low laugh from the clone. "And now you've inherited all my cracks."
———
In the outer hallways, a figure limped through the dark.
Zahir.
Wounded, one arm hanging limp at his side, burns down his jaw. His eyes were wild. Determined.
He held a data stick in his other hand, flicking through encrypted maps as he moved.
"Node 2 was never the end," he muttered. "They lied… they all lied."
Behind him, sirens flared briefly. Then went silent again.
—————-
Back in the chamber
Amelia straddled the clone, fist drawn back for a final strike.
The clone's eyes glowed faintly.
"Kill me," it said. "You kill part of yourself."
Amelia's fist hovered.
You can't kill a reflection, Echo said softly. You absorb it. Or it absorbs you.
Amelia looked down—and saw herself, bloodied, crying. Or was it the clone?
"I'm done being fractured," she said.
And instead of striking—she leaned forward, pressing her forehead to the clone's.
The light flared.
A wave of heat and static exploded outward, shattering every mirror in the room.
The chamber lights snapped off. Emergency floodlamps clicked on.
And standing in the center… was Amelia.
Alone.
The clone was gone.
But her reflection in the nearest broken mirror turned to her—and winked.