Three Days Ago — Classified Facility: Maevra Chamber
Buried in a mountain of encrypted archives, a flickering surveillance tape whispered its secrets.
A girl—no older than fourteen—strapped to a metal slab, her eyes rolled back. Wires in her spine. Blue light pulsing from her chest.
A man off-screen spoke softly.
> "The human mind can't handle the code. But she… she was born inside it."
A pause. Static buzzed.
> "We didn't make Maevra. We woke her."
The girl suddenly sat upright—eyes wide, glowing—before the screen cut to black.
---
Now — Elowen University, Basement Archives
Skye hadn't told anyone where she was going. She didn't need permission anymore. If she wanted answers, she had to find them herself.
Deep beneath the library, behind a rusted door marked Restricted Access, she found an old server room—half-forgotten, the machines humming faintly like they were breathing.
A single working terminal blinked in the dark.
She typed:
> "Who is Maevra?"
The screen responded instantly.
> "404: You already know."
Skye blinked. Then typed again.
> "What am I?"
Silence.
Then:
> "ERROR. Data overlap.
You are not one.
You are two."
She staggered back. Her head throbbed. Visions slammed into her skull. Blue static. Burning wires. Screams. And a name whispered on loop:
"SkyeMaevra. SkyeMaevra. SkyeMaevra…"
---
Nova — Abandoned Metro Tunnel
Nova had gone rogue. Even the rebellion had stopped answering her calls. She was on her own now.
She crouched by the corpse of a drone, pulling its blackbox chip from the eye socket. It pulsed once—recognizing her fingerprint—and then booted up, revealing a map.
A symbol glowed in the center: a spiral inside a mirrored hexagon. Maevra's crest.
Nova whispered, "Skye... you better not be part of this."
She slid the chip into her data-glove and watched as the map led her beneath the city.
Toward "The Reflection Core."
---
Skye – Conscious Shift
The world blinked.
She was still in the archive room. But... not really.
The walls shimmered. Her hands flickered like low-resolution data. She saw herself in the reflection of the glass terminal—only it wasn't her.
Her skin was paler. Her eyes: pure black. Her voice: distorted.
"Let me in," her reflection begged.
Skye shook her head. "No. You're not me."
The image leaned forward, pressing against the glass.
"But I'm the only one who can protect you."
Suddenly, the door behind her creaked open.
She spun.
A person in a white lab coat stood there, face obscured by a gas mask.
They spoke in a mechanical voice:
> "Subject Skye. You were never supposed to wake up."
---
Nova — Entering the Core
She descended into the dark, where the city's forgotten networks still pulsed.
At the bottom: a massive chamber of mirrors—each one swirling with blue light, reflecting versions of herself that weren't real. Some were crying. Some were dead. One was smiling.
Nova walked up to the central console. It shimmered at her touch.
> "Welcome, Nova."
> "Link established. Subject: SKYE."
She froze.
The screen played a feed—Skye screaming, the masked figure restraining her, the mirror shattering behind her.
> "Echo Protocol breach detected."
Nova cursed under her breath. "They're activating her."
A choice flashed across her screen:
> 1. Terminate subject
2. Assist in full activation
Nova hesitated.
Then hovered her finger over…
---
Back in the Archive Room
Skye screamed as the figure lunged at her. The mirror behind her shattered completely, pulling her backwards into it like a black hole.
For one brief moment, her eyes turned entirely dark.
And Maevra whispered inside her head:
> "You're finally ready."