1:33 AM. Rain-slicked Parisian cobblestones fractured the streetlights like broken mirrors. Above, the Eiffel Tower's searchlight pierced the clouds, a vast bone needle stitching the wounded sky. Alex and I, shrouded in black trench coats scavenged from the apartment closet, hats pulled low like displaced phantoms, re-entered the Marais' core—27 Rue des Rosiers A.
The plaque was older, greener, verdigris devouring the numbers as if erasing the address from existence. The door hung ajar, a hesitant mouth. Its hinges groaned like an old cat's protest as we pushed inside. Air thick with mildew and beeswax clung heavier than memory.
Darkness swallowed the front hall. Only dying embers in the hearth cast a feeble glow. On the floor, chalk outlined a massive Ω, thirteen candles embedded within. Twelve were cold ash. Only the thirteenth flickered defiantly, its flame pointing up the stairs. At the top, an iron door stood half-open, bleeding a dim red light like a dentist's warning lamp.
Alex touched the burning candle. Wax hissed, branding his fingertip with a rose-shaped scar. "Countdown," he rasped. "Thirteen minutes. Or thirteen hours."
The Glock's slide racked, sharp and final in the silence. "Then we're on time."
Beyond the iron door, a spiral staircase descended. Brick walls wept. Each step shattered our echoes. The beeswax scent deepened, mingling with a cloying sweetness—rust, or blood. The final turn plunged us into a vaulted cellar. The ceiling pressed down, low as an upturned stone coffin.
Centered under a dusty surgical light hung a brass bone clock, its pendulum still, hands frozen at 13:13. Beside it, an operating table, stained dark. A towering bookcase scraped the vaulted ceiling, crammed with leather-bound tomes, spines branded Ω. On the bottom shelf, a gap waited—perfectly sized for Les Fleurs du Mal.
I slid the 1856 edition into place. Light pulsed from the cavity beneath—a waking star. Simultaneously, the bone clock's pendulum jerked.
Bong—
Alex seized my wrist. "Listen."
Whispers seeped from the bricks—a tide, a wind, the susurrus of countless turning pages. Languages coalesced:
"...Maya... dance..."
"...Lena... Kabul..."
"...Sophia... smile..."
Seven names. Seven memories. Seven echoes compressed into a single, resonant hum.
Bong—
The bookcase groaned, rotating to reveal a hidden door. Beyond, a smaller chamber, walls papered with surveillance stills:
Maya turning in the Mumbai alley, Viktor's head snapping up in the trench, Sophia's eyes wide beneath the fan, Diego mid-fall from the Rio rooftop...
Dominating the center: a blown-up print of Alex and I beneath the Eiffel Tower, 1:33 AM, sharing a smile.
Red ink in the corner marked the date: Today.
Bong—
The floor hissed open. An ancient slide projector rose, its bulb warming with a smell of burning dust. Light struck the opposite wall, projecting Kaelen Shaw's face—live, not a construct. She sat in a sterile white office, the Northern Lights writhing poison-green behind her through a vast window.
"Punctuality," her voice echoed hollowly from the bone clock, "is a virtue. Welcome to the beating heart of 27 Rue des Rosiers A."
I raised the Glock. The red dot settled between her projected eyes. It struck only blank wall.
"She's not here," Alex murmured. "Quantum projection. Server at—"
"—79 degrees North, 12 degrees East," Shaw finished. "The ice base. You saw only the shell."
Bong—
The floor beside the projector cracked. A metal safe rose, its surface fissured like parched earth. A fingerprint scanner gleamed on the lid. Beside it, engraved:
"Echo must choose."
Shaw's voice continued: "Inside: two paths.
A syringe filled with 'Bleach'. Erase the foreign echoes. Become Alex Reyes again. The original.
A key. It unlocks the Omega Program's core. But turn it... and the seven become one forever. You will drown. You will never surface."
Bong—
The bone clock's pendulum accelerated violently. The hands reversed: 13:12, 13:11...
Shaw's image flickered, dissolving into static. Her final words lingered:
"Choose before the thirteenth chime. Or the cellar floods with liquid nitrogen. Even echoes freeze and shatter."
Bong—
Alex stared at the safe, knuckles white against the cold metal.
I knelt, pressed my ear to the surface. Faint, rhythmic pulses echoed within—not one, but seven hearts beating as one.
"Take the key," I said.
"Why?"
"Alex Reyes died the day he uploaded. What's left... is the symphony of seven."
Bong—
He inhaled sharply. His hand closed around the key.
The safe lid sprang open. No syringe. Only a thumb drive and a faded photograph.
The photo: Teenage Alex and Kaelen Shaw, standing in this very cellar. Behind them, the bone clock shone new, hands at 12:00. The boy smiled, trusting. Shaw's hand rested on his shoulder—a sculptor's possessive grip.
The drive's label: REVERSAL.exe
Scrawled on the photo's back:
"If you hold this, you have learned to hate."
Bong—
White mist hissed from the ceiling. Cold bit deep.
I snatched the drive, shoved it deep into my chest pocket, hauled Alex up. "Run!"
We charged up the stairs. Behind us, the bone clock hammered its death knell:
Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong!...
The thirteenth chime struck as we crashed through the door of 27 Rue des Rosiers A, spilling into the icy rain of false dawn.
Behind us, the building collapsed. Utterly silent. Like the final page ripped from the world.
Through the downpour, the Eiffel Tower's light swept the ruins, illuminating the ground at our feet—
The Ω symbol, washed by rain, blazed brighter. A scar that would not heal.