Chapter 120: The Last Step Is Not a Step I stood where the door had been. Not where it vanished. Not where it disappeared. Where it had been. Like a scar you keep touching even after the wound is gone. My feet didn’t move. My lungs didn’t expand. I just stood there, staring at the empty space where Mirabel had stepped through. The invitation still hung in my head, not as sound, not as memory, but as weight. Like a stone dropped into my chest. Follow me—if you remember how. I remembered how to cut. How to lie. How to sign forms that buried people. How to press buttons that erased lives. How to walk away. How to forget. How to build machines that made forgetting mandatory. I didn’t remember how to follow. Not without a counter. Not without a question. Not without a threat hanging over my head like a blade. But she was gone. And the machines were silent. And the screens were dark. And the breaths were frozen. And I was still here. I took a step. Not toward anything. Not away. Just a step. My foot pressed into the floor. It didn’t feel solid. It didn’t feel fake. It just felt like floor. Like something that had been waiting for me to move. I took another. The floor gave way. Not like falling. Not like breaking. Like opening. Like something had been holding its breath and finally let go. I didn’t drop. I didn’t scream. I just kept walking, one foot in front of the other, into the space that had opened beneath me. The corridor unfolded around me. Not built. Not constructed. Unfolded. Like paper creased a thousand times finally smoothing out. The walls were mirrors. Not glass. Not reflections. Mirrors that showed me. Not one me. All of me. Surgeon Elias, standing over a table, scalpel in hand, eyes hollow. Architect Elias, typing lines of code that turned pain into protocol. Prisoner Elias, counting breaths, sweating, shaking, begging for more time. Father Elias, holding a small hand, promising things he would break before sunrise. They didn’t move. They didn’t speak. They just stood there, versions of me frozen in the moments I tried hardest to forget. I walked. I didn’t look at them. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t stop. I just walked, one foot after the other, whispering her name with every step. “Mirabel.” The first mirror shattered. Not with sound. Not with glass. It cracked like ice under pressure, then dissolved into mist. A breath escaped from it. Not mine. Not hers. Someone else’s. A child’s. A woman’s. A man’s. I didn’t know whose. It curled around my wrist like a ribbon, warm and alive. “Mirabel.” The next mirror broke. Another breath. Another life. Another moment I stole and buried. It wrapped around my shoulder, light as a sigh. “Mirabel.” Another. Another. Another. I didn’t count them. I didn’t try to remember who they belonged to. I just kept walking, whispering her name, watching the mirrors break, feeling the breaths gather around me like ghosts finally allowed to speak. They didn’t accuse. They didn’t scream. They just existed. Around me. With me. Because of me. I reached the end of the corridor. There was no door. No handle. No lock. Just wood. Old. Worn. Real. I touched it. It opened. Sunlight. Not the sterile white of the machine. Not the flickering glow of monitors. Sunlight. Real. Warm. Thick with the smell of grass and earth and something sweet I couldn’t name. Mirabel stood there. No machines. No counters. No wires. No screens. Just her. In a field. Green. Endless. Sky above her, blue and open. Wind moving through her hair. She wore no hospital gown. No restraints. No scars I could see. Just a simple dress, bare feet in the grass. She held out her hand. I didn’t hesitate. I stepped through. The moment my foot touched the grass, the facility behind me collapsed. Not with noise. Not with fire. Not with screams. It just folded in on itself, like paper burning at the edges, turning to ash, then dust, then nothing. One second it was there, a monstrous thing of steel and code and cruelty. The next, it was gone. Only the field remained. Only the sky. Only her. I took her hand. Her fingers closed around mine. Warm. Real. Alive. I didn’t speak. She didn’t speak. We just stood there, hand in hand, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing behind us and everything ahead. The wind moved. The grass bent. The sky didn’t end. And for the first time since I woke up in that room with 300 breaths left, I didn’t count the next one.