Damon Korz awoke before the sun.
His eyes opened to dim gray light pressing through the blinds—muted, colorless, filtered like the world outside had been stripped of vibrancy. The room was silent. Not peaceful. Silent like a closed tomb. His chest felt tight, like the oxygen around him had been thinned.
For a moment, he couldn't tell what was wrong.
Everything looked the same.
The walls. The floor. The smell of old electricity. The faint tick of the thermostat behind the drywall.
But the details were… misaligned.
The bedsheets were heavier than he remembered. Off-white instead of gray. His pillow was slightly larger. The fan overhead made a noise he'd never heard before—a subtle mechanical whine between clicks.
And the bonsai tree…
Alive.
Green. Trimmed. Balanced.
It had died. Weeks ago. Snapped during the first Dominion trial. He'd watched it curl and wither.
Now it was pristine.
His chest tightened. He stood slowly, glancing around the apartment like he was trespassing in a replica of his own life.
The desk was rearranged.
The chair faced the window.
His monitors—cleaned.
The sticky note taped to the lower corner of the screen bore his handwriting, yes—but not his message.
Where once it read: Control yourself or be controlled, it now read:
You already lost control.
His fingers trembled as he reached out. Touched the note.
It was real. The ink soaked into the paper. He tore it off and crushed it in one hand.
The Dominion didn't respond. No sync pulse. No mental ping. Just absence. It had never been this quiet before. Not even during the early stages of activation. It had always been there—guiding, suggesting, watching.
Now it was hiding.
Damon turned to the bathroom. Flipped on the light.
And froze.
The man in the mirror wasn't mirroring him.
The reflection stood there—same posture, same frame—but with a few key differences. A faint scar ran down its jawline. Its shirt was a pale slate gray instead of black. Its eyes… deeper. Heavier. Like it hadn't slept in weeks. There was an unnatural weight to the expression. Not fear. Not rage. Something older. As if it had watched everything Damon had done—and remembered all of it.
He raised a hand to test the reflection.
It didn't follow.
Instead, it moved on its own, tracing a slow spiral on the fogged glass.
The spiral wasn't meaningless.
It was a mark. Like a sigil in flux.
The reflection mouthed something.
No sound.
But Damon understood the words.
"Don't do it again."
He turned and walked out.
The reflection kept watching.
---
Ozmec Systems pulsed with its usual synthetic energy: too cold, too loud, too hollow.
But it didn't feel normal.
Damon's footsteps echoed down the hallway like he was alone in the building. Fluorescent lights buzzed just a decibel too loud. Monitors blinked with perfect timing—too perfect.
And no one noticed anything was off.
Layna greeted him with a casual nod and said, "See you again tonight?"
Damon blinked. "What?"
She tilted her head. "Dinner? Yesterday? You left your jacket in my car."
Damon stared at her.
They hadn't spoken in two days.
She smiled like nothing was wrong and walked away.
A minute later, Dargus passed him and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Morning, Alex."
Damon turned, sharp. "What?"
Dargus paused. "Sorry. You remind me of someone."
He kept walking.
No one else reacted. No one seemed to notice Damon's confusion, his rising panic.
At his desk, things were worse.
He had two monitors now. A new keyboard. Hotkeys he didn't map. Shortcuts to folders he never made. His login worked—but the layout wasn't his. Files were categorized differently. Naming conventions altered. There was a document titled Proposal Draft v3.4.
He opened it.
Not his writing.
But it was his logic.
His voice, stripped and rewritten.
No name in the metadata.
No author tag.
No history.
And Renna's name?
Gone.
No trace in any thread. No mention in the staff directory. Her cubicle was filled by a young intern named Shane who hummed loudly and smiled too easily. Damon stared at him for a long time.
He had no idea who Renna Mallis was.
No one did.
---
Damon escaped to the third floor's print server room.
No windows. No cameras. Stale recycled air and the rhythmic churn of backup cooling fans. A hideout. A controlled space.
He shut the door. Turned off the lights.
Sat down in the corner.
His thoughts scattered.
"Show me," he whispered.
For the first time in hours, the Dominion responded.
> Dominion Sync: Desynced
Echo Layer Interference: ACTIVE
Thread Stability: 63%
Core Logic Looping
Anchor Breach Confirmed
Then—
> Echo Variant Detected: DAMON-0B
Thread Classification: Ambition – Inverted
Emotional Driver: Suppressed Guilt
Loop Status: Unbroken
Response Directive: Observe Only. Do Not Engage.**
The wall across from him pulsed once.
Then he saw it.
Another Damon.
Not a ghost. Not a memory.
A living echo.
This version stood shirtless. Gaunt. Eyes bloodshot. Arms wrapped around his chest like he was trying to hold himself together. He scratched at his shoulders, muttering to no one.
"Didn't mean to," Echo-Damon said. "Didn't mean to. She screamed. Not out loud. In the thread. When you snapped it."
He raised his eyes—same eyes, but hollow.
"She wanted to fight. But you rewrote her into silence."
Damon pressed himself to the wall.
"You made her disappear," the echo said. "Then made yourself forget."
The Dominion surged—
> Thread Contamination Escalating
Variant Stability: Degenerating
Primary Core at Risk
"Go away," Damon whispered.
The echo stepped forward. Closer than the space allowed.
"I am you. But not finished."
Then the figure shattered—like static collapsing into code.
Gone.
---
Damon stumbled out of the room.
His reflection in the polished elevator glass didn't match.
One version smiled.
Another blinked twice when he didn't.
One looked older. One was bleeding.
One—far in the background—wore a suit made of pure black sigils and had no mouth.
At his desk, Layna smiled again.
"Big day," she said.
He didn't answer.
She didn't seem to notice.
By 4:00 p.m., he couldn't tell which version of reality he was in anymore.
Every reflection showed a different outcome.
In one, he was already promoted.
In another, Dargus was dead.
In another, Ozmec was on fire behind glass.
---
At 6:11 p.m., his phone vibrated.
No call.
No message.
Just a blank screen.
But his Dominion pulsed for the first time in full force.
> System Interruption Flagged
Core Logic Breach
Memory Divergence: 37%
Fracture Entity Preparing Contact
Observation Begins Now.**
A voice followed.
Not from outside.
From within the threadspace.
It spoke without tone.
"You are not broken. You are… diverging."
He turned to the window.
Reflected back at him was himself—except this version's eyes glowed faintly.
And behind that reflection, something moved.
A silhouette.
Impossible to measure.
Watching through his glass.
The Dominion didn't stop it.
It only offered a final line of text:
> They're all you now.
And they're all watching.