Time seemed to stop.
Aurora was staring at her, eyes blue and bright, the same shade as Adrian's.
Clara felt her heart burst inside her chest, her breath splitting in two. Everything that had happened, the experiments, the fear, the running, vanished in an instant.
There was only them.
Mother and daughter.
"Aurora…" she whispered.
The little girl gazed back through the glass with an almost otherworldly calm. Then her lips moved slightly.
"Mom."
Clara flinched.
It wasn't spoken aloud. The word echoed inside her head.
Aurora was speaking to her mind.
Adrian moved closer, placing his hand beside Clara's on the glass.
"Clara… she can hear me too."
Elias stepped back, stunned.
"She's connecting with both of you. That's impossible, the neural waves can't cross…"
He stopped. The lights above them flickered.
Aurora was doing something.
The amber liquid began to boil, streaked with flashes of white light. Monitors went insane, spitting out numbers, then words, then chaotic images.
Memories.
Clara holding her newborn, Adrian kissing her tiny forehead, Rinaldi taking her away.
"Clara, you're overloading her!" Elias shouted, but she couldn't pull back.
Aurora was sending everything she had ever endured, her loneliness, the sterile voice teaching her to suppress pain, the years spent being called Subject Zero.
Clara screamed, clutching her head, yet refused to move.
Adrian wrapped his arms around her, trying to drag her away.
"Clara! Stop, she's hurting you!"
"I can't! If I let go, she dies!"
Inside the capsule, Aurora raised her small hand, placing it exactly where Clara's rested.
A pulse of blue light shot through the glass.
Luca stumbled backward, shielding his face.
"What the hell is happening?"
Elias understood first.
"She's merging with her! She's trying to exit through Clara's mind!"
The veins under Clara's skin glowed electric blue. The air quivered; a sharp crack split the silence.
Adrian called her name, but she couldn't hear him anymore.
Inside her mind, there was only Aurora.
A white void stretched endlessly. Aurora stood there, barefoot, her hair drifting like it was underwater.
"I can't stay here, Mom," she said softly.
"They told me to fear you. But that's not true… is it?"
Clara moved closer, trembling.
"No, my love. They lied to keep us apart."
Aurora shook her head, and the space around them fractured like glass.
"They're listening. Even now."
"Who, sweetheart?"
"The ones who made me. The ones who want you dead."
Behind the child, Clara saw shadowed figures, silhouettes without faces, pure energy pulsing like living thought.
Then a voice, the same metallic tone that once whispered in Rinaldi's head, filled the air: "The Pandora Vessel is complete. It will bring either the end… or the awakening."
Clara jolted awake. The capsule shattered, amber liquid flooding the floor.
Adrian lunged forward, shielding her with his body.
Aurora lay motionless on the ground, but she was alive.
Clara gathered her into her arms, sobbing.
"I found you. I found you, my love."
Elias stared at the monitors, every life reading flatlined. All the other subjects in the Sanctuary had died the instant Aurora's capsule broke.
Luca looked around the chaos and muttered,
"What the hell did you just do, Clara?"
She lifted her face, her irises now glowing the same blue as her daughter's.
"I awakened what they were afraid to see: the truth."
The lights of the Sanctuary went out.
In the dark, a metallic voice echoed through the halls:
"Emergency protocol activated. Total lockdown. All access points will be sealed."
Clara clutched Aurora tighter.
Adrian took her hand.
Elias turned toward them, his expression filled with dread.
"Now," he said quietly, "the real war begins."