Robert now stood in front of me, ready for a fight.
His shoulders were squared, jaw set, hands steady at his sides—but I knew that stillness. It wasn't calm. It was calculation. The refined strength I had just poured into him moved beneath his skin like a second pulse.
Then I felt it.
Not from the chamber ahead.
From everywhere.
A tremor beneath the stone. A ripple in the air. The kind of presence that doesn't announce itself loudly—but waits. Watching. Surrounding.
We weren't the only ones here.
The cave had inhaled before.
Now it was holding its breath.
"Robert—" I tried.
Too late.
The stand-in moved first, a blur of controlled aggression, and Robert met him mid-stride. The impact wasn't explosive, not theatrically violent. It was sharp, deliberate. Stone cracked under pressure. Air displaced.
I scanned the shadows.
They weren't empty anymore.
Figures detached themselves from the walls—not grotesque, not monstrous in the obvious way. They were wrong in subtler ways. Limbs too fluid. Eyes reflecting no light. Bodies shaped like humans but wearing that shape loosely.
More creatures.
They had been waiting for the outcome of the test.
I didn't think.
I acted.
The cave responded to me now—not like before, not with quiet approval. With obedience.
I raised my hands and felt the perimeter of this place like a map beneath my skin. The mouth of the cave, the thin cracks along the ceiling, the unseen channels beneath the earth. I pressed outward.
Seal.
The air thickened. The entrance dimmed. Sound from the jungle outside dissolved completely.
We would not be hunted.
Not today.
Robert was winning.
That was the first thing that unsettled me.
He moved with precision, each strike economical, each block timed. The stand-in's confidence thinned. The false Lexi faltered, her form flickering at the edges as instability rippled through her disguise.
This should have felt like victory.
It didn't.
The other creatures didn't rush him.
They watched.
Like something had changed in the script.
Robert pivoted, pinned the stand-in against a column of stone, forearm locked against his throat.
"Say it," Robert demanded.
The stand-in laughed, breathless but not afraid.
"You really didn't tell her?"
My pulse skipped.
"Tell me what?" I called out.
Robert's jaw tightened.
"Don't," he said.
But the stand-in's smile widened.
"There are powers that want your strength," he said, his eyes locking onto mine. "And your dad is one of them."
For a second—
I almost laughed.
It came up from somewhere hollow inside me.
"My dad is dead," I said. Calm. Certain.
The words tasted like memory and grief and old finality.
The stand-in's gaze didn't waver.
"Robert knows I'm not lying."
Silence stretched between us.
I turned slowly.
Robert wasn't looking at me.
He adjusted his grip on the stand-in instead.
"Robert," I said, softer now.
He didn't answer.
"Robert," I repeated, stepping closer.
His silence was louder than any confession.
The creatures in the shadows shifted.
"He was not sent just to kill you," the stand-in continued, voice rough but steady. "He was sent to draw your power using that crystal. That was the design."
The word echoed.
Design.
"But he fell in love," the stand-in added lightly. "And now we are here."
I stopped moving.
The cave felt smaller.
Robert's hand trembled slightly where it held the stand-in in place.
I didn't need him to speak.
The avoidance told me everything.
"You knew?" My voice barely sounded like mine.
His grip faltered.
"I was supposed to bring you here," he said finally. "But not like this."
Not like this.
The phrase splintered something in me.
The plane crash.
The jungle.
The survival.
All of it engineered.
All of it chosen.
My chest tightened—not with fear.
With betrayal.
"I was never meant to survive?" I asked.
"You were meant to break," the stand-in corrected.
The word hit harder than any blow.
Break.
Not die.
Shatter.
Split open.
Become something unstable enough to control.
Robert released the stand-in abruptly and stepped toward me.
"I changed it," he said quickly. "Selene, I changed it. I didn't know what they were planning fully. I didn't know about your father's involvement. I only knew they wanted your power. I thought I could protect you by staying close."
"You thought you could manipulate the situation," I said.
He flinched.
The creatures began circling now—not rushing, not attacking. Just tightening the ring.
The cave hummed faintly beneath us.
My father.
Dead.
Buried.
Mourned.
The grief had been real.
So what did that make this?
A lie?
A resurrection?
Or something worse—something that had never left?
"I screamed," I realized later.
But in the moment, it wasn't a choice.
It tore out of me—raw, unfiltered, ripping through the chamber like a shockwave.
The cave answered.
The seal trembled.
The hum beneath the stone rose sharply, no longer approving. No longer neutral.
Something inside me—something I had restrained, negotiated with, refused—stopped listening.
You will not fracture me.
But I had.
The hunger surged—not quiet this time.
Not patient.
Alive.
Not a beast clawing for freedom.
A force.
The creatures lunged all at once.
Too late.
The air around me bent violently, light distorting, sound compressing into a high ringing tone. The energy that had aligned within me earlier now erupted outward—not chaotic, not uncontrolled.
Absolute.
There was no blood.
No gore.
Just pressure.
A pulse expanding from my center in perfect symmetry.
Every living human form in that chamber froze for half a heartbeat.
Then—
They burst into light.
Not torn apart.
Unmade.
Their bodies dissolved into fragments of brightness that scattered like shattered glass and vanished into nothing.
The false Lexi flickered violently before collapsing into dust-fine particles.
The stand-in's expression shifted from triumph to disbelief before he too disintegrated into a silent flare.
And Robert—
I didn't see it happen.
I felt it.
His presence, bright and steady beside mine—
Snuffed.
The pulse finished expanding.
Silence crashed down.
The creatures were gone.
The shadows empty.
The cave still.
I stood alone in the center of it, breath ragged, ears ringing.
Dust drifted slowly through the air where life had been seconds before.
My hands trembled.
Not from exertion.
From realization.
"Robert?" I whispered.
No answer.
I took a step forward.
The stone beneath my feet cracked softly.
"Robert."
The name echoed weakly.
Nothing responded.
The hunger receded instantly, as if satisfied.
Satisfied.
My stomach twisted.
The cave's hum returned—but not approving this time.
Observing.
Judging.
The seal at the entrance weakened without my command. A thin draft slipped inside, cool and indifferent.
I had wanted control.
I had refused to break.
But I had broken.
Not fractured into instability.
Fractured into devastation.
I sank to my knees slowly, palms pressing against the cold stone.
No bodies remained.
No proof.
Only absence.
"My dad," I whispered to the empty chamber.
If he was alive—
If he had orchestrated this—
If he had wanted my strength—
Then he had just seen what I was capable of.
And I didn't know which frightened me more.
That he might be watching.
Or that part of me hoped he was.
Because if he was alive—
Then maybe this wasn't final.
Maybe nothing here truly was.
The cave's ancient presence stirred faintly beneath the earth, not alarmed.
Not angry.
Aware.
The test had ended.
But something else had begun.
And I was no longer certain I had passed anything at all.