Chapter 114: Now Listen I pressed the button. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t close my eyes. I just pressed it, like I was turning a key in a lock I’d spent my whole life trying to pick. The room didn’t shake. The lights didn’t flicker. The air didn’t change. Nothing dramatic. Nothing cinematic. Just a low, mechanical sigh from somewhere deep in the walls, like the machine had been holding its breath and finally let it out. Then the screens came alive. Not one. Not ten. Not even a hundred. Every screen in the facility. Every terminal. Every monitor. Every reflective surface that could be hijacked by the system. They all lit up at once, like stars blinking into existence in a dead sky. And on every single one of them — her face. Mirabel. Not the broken thing I left behind. Not the ghost I tried to bury. Not the child with the rabbit or the girl in the hospital bed. This was her now. Calm. Commanding. Eyes open, steady, fixed on me like she’d been waiting for this exact moment since the first breath I took in this room. She didn’t smile. She didn’t frown. She didn’t move. She just looked at me, through me, past me, like she was seeing every version of me that ever existed — the surgeon, the architect, the brother, the liar, the coward, the man who pressed the button. The silence stretched. I didn’t speak. I didn’t ask. I didn’t beg. I just stood there, hands at my sides, chest rising and falling, breaths ticking down somewhere in the back of my mind like a clock counting toward an execution I’d scheduled myself. Then she spoke. One sentence. Clear. Quiet. No echo. No distortion. No machine in her voice. Just her. “You called me back.” A pause. Not for effect. Not for drama. Just because she knew I needed to hear it. Needed to feel the weight of it. Needed to understand that this wasn’t a glitch. This wasn’t a trick. This wasn’t a test. This was a response. She leaned forward slightly in the frame, just enough to make it feel like she was stepping closer, like she was about to reach through the glass and grab me by the throat or the hand or the heart — I didn’t know which. “Now listen.” The word hit me like a slap. Not because it was loud. Not because it was angry. But because it was final. Absolute. Like the last word in a sentence that had been building since the first time I signed a form I shouldn’t have. Since the first time I looked away when I should’ve stayed. Since the first time I chose silence over truth. And then the screens changed. Not all at once. Not with fanfare. One by one, they began to speak. Not with her voice. Not with mine. With the machine’s voice — cold, flat, mechanical — but synchronized. Perfectly timed. Each syllable matched to the rise and fall of my chest. They recited my crimes. Not summaries. Not accusations. Full logs. Timestamped. Coded. Verified. Every override I authorized. Every consent I bypassed. Every subject I terminated. Every lie I buried under layers of protocol and procedure. Subject 014: Tomas Veld. Spinal decompression. No anesthesia. You logged it as “voluntary discomfort tolerance test.” He screamed for seventeen minutes before cardiac arrest. You watched the whole thing. Subject 089: Lien Park. Memory extraction. You labeled it “cognitive restructuring.” She begged you to stop. You told her it was for her own good. She forgot her daughter’s name before she forgot her own. Subject 002: Clara Reyes. You called her back after termination. You watched her thank you before the system erased her again. You didn’t stop it. Subject 317: Elias Varga. You. You designed the loop. You built the breath counters. You made the questions. You chose the photographs. You picked the rooms. You decided who lived. Who died. Who remembered. Who forgot. You did this. You. You. You. I tried to mute them. I slammed my fist against the nearest terminal. The screen cracked, but the voice didn’t stop. It just shifted to the one beside it. I ripped wires from the wall. Sparks flew. The voice moved to the ceiling panel. I smashed the console. The voice came from the floor. From the air vents. From the walls themselves. Every time I tried to silence them, my breath counter reset. 300. 299. 298. Each reset unlocked another layer. Deeper logs. More intimate betrayals. Things I didn’t even remember doing. Things I told myself I hadn’t done. Things I buried so deep I convinced myself they never happened. Subject 131: A boy. Six years old. Blue ribbon in his hair. You held his hand while you prepped the incision. You told him it wouldn’t hurt. You lied. Subject 007: Naomi Ellis. You terminated her twice. The first time, she asked why. You didn’t answer. The second time, she didn’t ask. She just looked at you. You looked away. Subject 001: Mirabel Varga. You deleted her. Not once. Not twice. Seven times. Each time, you told yourself it was necessary. Each time, you told yourself she wouldn’t remember. Each time, you told yourself you were saving her. You weren’t saving her. You were erasing her. I backed away from the screens. My hands were shaking. My throat was dry. My chest felt like it was caving in. I could feel the breaths slipping away. 250. 249. 248. Faster now. Like the machine was punishing me for trying to mute the truth. I looked at Mirabel’s face on the central screen. She hadn’t moved. She hadn’t blinked. She was just watching. Waiting. Like she knew this was coming. Like she knew I’d try to run. Like she knew I’d fail. I dropped to my knees. I didn’t beg. I didn’t apologize. I didn’t try to explain. I just looked up at her, at all of her, at every screen, at every voice, at every crime, and I did the only thing left. I surrendered. I said her name. Not as a plea. Not as a question. Not as a trick. Not as a test. Just her name. Full. Real. Unbroken. “Mirabel Varga.” The moment the last syllable left my lips, every screen went dark. Every voice stopped. Every log vanished. The room fell silent. The breath counter froze at 237. I stayed on my knees. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I just stared at the black screens, waiting for the next punishment. The next trick. The next layer. The next lie. But nothing came. Then, slowly, one screen flickered back to life. Not the central one. Not the largest one. A small monitor in the corner. The kind you’d miss if you weren’t looking for it. And on it — her face. Not the calm, commanding version from before. Not the ghost. Not the patient. Not the victim. Her. Awake. Eyes open. Watching me. Not through the glass. From inside the machine.