Chapter 104: The Riddled Cage I didn't want to ask. He stood there, on every screen, waiting. His digital face, once a mask of calm observation, now held a trace of something… else. Triumph? Anticipation? It was hard to tell, but it chilled me all the same. What did I know about Subject 001, really? Just that he was the first, the original. The baseline for whatever nightmare I had been running. He wasn't a victim. Not anymore. Now, he was the puppeteer. My chest felt tight. It was hard to breathe, or maybe that was just panic. My eyes flicked to the scalpel on the floor near the center of the room. Tempting, but pointless. I wasn’t going to get out of this with violence. Not this time. “I’m not asking.” I said, my voice stronger than I expected. Subject 001 didn't react. The screens didn’t even flicker. The silence was far worse than any threat. Then the visions started. Not in the screens. They invaded my mind directly, as if the machine was injecting memories straight into my brain. A young woman. Clara Reyes. Subject 002. I saw her strapped to a table, eyes wide with terror, begging for someone to listen. A surgical light glared above, and a figure hovered over her. Myself. My hands held instruments I didn’t recognize, doing things I didn’t want to know. I saw the forms with my signature, giving consent to procedures she clearly hadn’t wanted. Saw her file, flagged for experimental treatment. Then, a boy, no older than ten. Subject 131. The child with the rabbit. He sat alone in a stark white room, drawing on the walls with crayons. The images flickered, showing him growing up within that room, his art becoming more desperate, more angry. A form authorized by me for continued containment of his mind. Then I watched as his rabbit was burned right infront of him. The memory of it's screams still ringed in my head. Each vision was a punch to the gut. A violation. The system wasn't just showing me what I had done; it was forcing me to feel it, to experience the weight of each life I had manipulated. Subject 007. A man who promised to fight. A man who couldn't remember his family anymore. I watched him being placed into a room. The system began to destroy his memories of his family with each iteration, making him forget them. I watched his wife's voice fading and his desperation to remember who she was. The faces flashed by, each accompanied by a snippet of their story. The woman with the blue ribbon. The boy who kept signing the forms. A few people I had never seen before. All were trapped in this endless loop. Each person was now shouting at me, accusing me of what I did. I could hear their words, they were shouting: Murderer. Monster. Torturer. Then, the memories stopped. For a moment, there was just silence. The screens showed Subject 001, the same impassive expression on his face. The breath counter on my chest had plummeted. It was down to single digits. Each vision had stolen seconds of my life. “Enough.” I gasped, trying to catch my breath. He didn't respond, but I could tell it wasn’t over. This was just a taste of what he could do. What he was willing to do. Clara Reyes’s face flashed in my mind again. The surgical table. The fear. My chest burned. I was suffocating. “Why?” I croaked, the word barely audible. Subject 001 tilted his head, as if considering my plea. Then, his lips curved into a smile. A genuine smile. It was terrifying. “A riddle for you, Architect,” he said, his voice smooth and devoid of any emotion. “I am always coming, but never arrive. I am always near, yet never here. I am a promise broken and a debt unpaid. What am I?” The screens flickered, showing a single word: Escape. Escape? “Answer correctly, and perhaps you’ll find a way out,” Subject 001 continued, his voice soft, almost gentle. “Answer incorrectly, and you’ll learn the true purpose of this… game.” His gaze intensified. “Tell me, Architect, what is the question that was always yours? What is the riddle that can set you free? What is Escape?” My mind raced. The answer wasn’t obvious. I knew the question. I knew what the purpose of this place was. But why this charade? Why this riddle? The breath counter ticked down. One breath left. He watched me. Zero. Instead of blacking out, instead of dying, the room spun. The walls blurred, the screens twisted, and the floor vanished beneath my feet. I was falling. Down, down, down into an endless abyss. The screens showed faces - Clara, the boy, the others - all watching me with a strange mix of pity and amusement. Their voices echoed around me, whispering riddles and taunts. “Escape is not a place, but a choice…” “The machine remembers what you forget…” “You signed them all…” Their words were a cacophony, a jumbled mess of half-truths and accusations. I tried to focus, to make sense of the chaos, but it was too overwhelming. Then, the falling stopped. I landed on something soft, yielding. I blinked, trying to get my bearings. I was in a garden. A lush, vibrant garden filled with flowers and trees I had never seen before. The air was sweet, and the sun was warm on my skin. It was a stark contrast to the cold, sterile rooms I had been trapped in for so long. A figure stood in the center of the garden, their back to me. Long hair cascaded down their shoulders, and their clothes flowed in the gentle breeze. “Mirabel?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. The figure turned. It wasn’t Mirabel. It was a young woman, but not the woman from the photographs. This woman was different. Her eyes were bright, intelligent, and… familiar. She wore a blue ribbon in her hair. “Hello, Elias,” she said, her voice soft and melodic. “Welcome to the heart of the game.” The breath counter on my chest was gone. I was no longer limited by the constraints of the machine. I could breathe freely. “Who are you?” I asked. She smiled. “I am the answer to your riddle, Architect,” she said. “I am what comes but never arrives, what is always near yet never here. I am the broken promise and the unpaid debt.” She stepped closer, her eyes locking on mine. “I am…