Tilts her head.Studies Nivaan like he's both a medical chart and a bomb.
"Your vitals are stabilizing," she says."No foreign signal detected.Your neural pattern is reforming without system interference."
Nivaan swallows.
"What does that mean?"
She answers without blinking:
"It means—for the first time—you are entirely yourself."
That hits him.Hard.
I watch it land in his chest like a stone he's waited years to hold.
Kiyan claps once, too loudly.
"Great, love that for you, but can someone explain if the world is still ending?"
I stand.
Brush the grass off my palms.
And say the sentence I hoped I'd never have to speak out loud:
"Prime wasn't the threat."
They all look at me.
Nivaan's voice is barely audible.
"Then who was?"
"The one who came to my apartment," I say."The one who told me the key was no longer yours."
Silence stretches.
Avni's face goes blank—the kind of blank that hides algorithms calculating too fast for the rest of us.
Kiyan squints like a confused golden retriever.
"Nivaan," I say, turning to him, "remember what Prime said when he started dissolving?"
He frowns."'Don't waste what I built.'"
"No," I say quietly."Before that."
His breath catches.
And then he whispers the line I've been replaying since we escaped the node-field:
"Someone has already claimed him."
A cold wind cuts through the ruined grass.
The temperature drops like the world suddenly realized what we're up against.
Nivaan's hands curl into fists.
"Claimed… who?"
I step closer.
Look him dead in the eyes.
"You," I say."You weren't the only one chosen.And the person who claimed you?"
I swallow.
Because saying this feels like opening a door we can't ever shut again.
"They're not following us."
My voice drops to a whisper.
"They're already ahead of us."
The ground beneath us pulses—once.Twice.A resonance ripple.
Not from Nivaan.
From the horizon.
From somewhere waiting.
Watching.
Calling.
Kiyan stares at the glow rising in the distance.
"Uh… guys?"
Avni's face turns hard as steel.
Nivaan's skin prickles with electricity.
My pulse explodes.
Because the sky above the horizon tears like a screen glitch.
And a new voice emerges.
Cold.Unfamiliar.Not Prime.Not system-born.
"L-47: Retrieve."
Nivaan's eyes widen.
"No," he breathes."That's not—"
But the ground beneath us answers for him.
A second field snaps open—larger.Darker.Hungrier.
I grab Nivaan's arm.
"RUN!"
But part of him doesn't move.
Part of him… responds.
And the field responds back.