The silence that followed the clone's destruction was too quiet.
Not peaceful.
Just… unfinished.
Like the world had stopped breathing, waiting for the next move.
Rhea sat beside Lucien on the cold metal floor, her hand still in his, heart refusing to slow. Her skin still buzzed from the heat of the explosion, her soul still cracked from the image of that face—Arden's face—twisted by the system.
But it wasn't over.
Not truly.
"Lucien," she said quietly. "That memory you gave up. The one you said didn't matter…"
He didn't look at her right away.
Instead, he stared at the shattered glass wall, at the wreckage of the Prometheus rig, and the flickering remnants of the AI interface blinking its final commands.
"I remember fragments now," he said hoarsely. "Like smoke trying to form a shape."
She waited.
"I was younger. The system trained us in pairs. Not just with simulations—but real people. Mine was her."
Rhea's breath caught. "The clone?"
"She wasn't a clone then," he said. "She was a prototype. A girl built to follow commands. And I—" He swallowed hard. "I didn't protect her. I obeyed them instead. Even when they ordered me to abandon her."
"You didn't love her," Rhea said gently.
"No," he said. "But she loved me. Or whatever version of love she was programmed to feel."
Rhea's heart broke a little—for the boy he had been, and for the monster they'd created in his past.
"She became something else after that. Something angry. She called it evolution. But it was just pain."
Rhea touched his cheek, turning his face toward hers. "You chose to forget her because she reminded you of what they made you do."
He nodded.
"But now you remember," she said. "And you're still choosing to be better."
His eyes locked on hers, and it was like the air between them folded in.
"I'm choosing you," he whispered. "Even if it kills me."
She leaned in slowly.
No urgency. No fear. Just the weight of truth between them.
And when she kissed him—it was quiet, steady, real. A promise sealed not with fire, but with healing.
Meanwhile...
In the hidden chamber miles below the surface, a blue console blinked to life.
PROMETHEUS FRAGMENT 07: SURVIVED.
A female voice whispered from the dark.
"They broke the body. Not the code."
Back above, Rhea and Lucien stood again.
"I need to see something," Rhea said.
They returned to the vault.
To Kairo's body.
Except—
It was gone.
In its place, a blood smear.
Lucien looked at the trail disappearing into the dark.
"No," Rhea whispered.
A screen flickered behind them.
And in glitching text, Kairo's final signature command scrolled across:
Welcome to Level Zero.
[To be continued...]