I opened my eyes in a completely unfamiliar space.
A dim white light shone down from fluorescent bulbs fixed to the ceiling. The air reeked of disinfectant and metal. I was lying on a cold stainless steel bed, my arms restrained by soft yet unyielding straps, unable to move freely.
"She's awake."
A female voice sounded to my left. Cold and firm. Not one I recognized. Footsteps echoed against the tiled floor, then a face came into view — a woman in a white lab coat, glasses glinting under the light, holding a tablet and jotting something down.
"Subject 07. Neural responses stable. Memory restoration likely complete."
I parted my lips; my throat felt parched. "Where… am I?"
"Memory Reinstatement Center, Level Five. Tier 3 Experimental Zone," she replied flatly.
Memory reinstatement? I froze, scrambling to recall the last images before I blacked out. Light. A portal. Wind tearing through a cliff's edge. And Hoai Trach… he had held my hand so tightly—but I had let go.
"Where is he?" I croaked.
She glanced at me as if I'd asked the dumbest question in the world. "Your companion is under isolation for examination. We can't guarantee safety from foreign elements."
Foreign.
She meant he wasn't from this world. But I was. I had belonged here long before this moment.
"Let me go," I said, trying to stay calm. "I need to see him."
"You're not ready." She turned toward a large two-way mirror on the wall. Behind it, I felt someone watching me—closely, silently, as if waiting for a sign.
"We need to ensure your core identity has stabilized," she added, her voice soft but laced with finality. "This time, don't let it end like all the others."
I froze.
All the others?
In a rush, visions exploded in my mind—countless lives, names, unfinished endings. How many times had I died? How many memories erased, rewritten, reloaded?
I wasn't the first to transmigrate into Hoa Tu's body. I was the original—but I had been split, rebooted, and tested across hundreds of iterations.
And now, I was back.
The door creaked open. A young man in a security uniform walked in. Tall, cold-eyed, with a face achingly familiar. Not Hoai Trach—but so similar it sent shivers down my spine. A copy? A simulation?
"You are authorized to move. System grants access to Sector 3." His voice was stiff, as if reading from code.
They unfastened my straps. My limbs were numb, and I stumbled a little getting to my feet. The guard didn't offer help or even glance my way again. He just turned and started walking.
Sector 3 was a long corridor lined with screens. On them, countless images flickered—me in a white dress, me holding a baby, me collapsing on a battlefield, me burning in a fire. Each image bore a code, a date, a termination log.
All versions of me—failures, broken fragments, unfinished missions.
One screen displayed the charity gala—where I had veered off script and refused to spill wine on the heroine's dress. For the first time, I saw Hoai Trach's face from that moment—clear, raw. He wasn't just surprised. He was hurt. Why?
I stopped in my tracks.
"He wasn't just a side character," I whispered.
The guard paused. "What did you say?"
I turned to him, meeting his eyes. "Hoai Trach. He appears in every version. He isn't a background NPC. He's my anchor."
Silence.
A red beam scanned the guard's forehead, then a voice echoed from overhead: "Confirmed. Subject 07 has reconnected with original emotional axis."
I smirked. "I'm not a subject. I'm the source."
A door ahead of us slid open, revealing a vast chamber. At its center was a throne-like chair surrounded by massive control systems—monitors, wires, and glowing cores. It was the system's heart.
And sitting beside it was someone I never expected to see—myself.
Or rather, the first version.
She sat calmly in a simple white dress. No emotion on her face. But her eyes… her eyes were exactly like mine—deep, old, unshakably cold.
"You finally made it."
I approached her slowly. "Why create so many versions? Why make me live and die hundreds of times?"
"To find someone like you," she replied. "Someone willing to resist the script. Someone who could love even when love meant danger."
I narrowed my eyes. "And now what?"
She stood, extending a hand. "Now, you choose. Take my place as the controller… or destroy everything."
I looked around. Screens. Data. Fragments of identity. Ghosts of versions I never knew.
Then I saw him—Hoai Trach. The real one, not a simulation. He was in a containment pod, unconscious, bruised, injured.
My heart clenched.
I turned back to her, my voice steady. "I don't want control. I want reality. I want him—real, and free."
She nodded. "Then end it."
I pressed the button.
The system began to shake.