Chapter 19: Ask Me Why I Let You Live I lowered the scalpel. Not because I was done. Not because I had chosen. I lowered it because I couldn’t lift it again. My arm didn’t shake. My fingers didn’t tremble. I just stopped. The blade hovered over the chest of the third Lena in the second row, the one whose eyes were half-lidded like she was caught between sleep and waking. I didn’t cut her. I didn’t cut any of them. I just stood there, blade in hand, breathing, watching the counter on my chest. 155. The room didn’t punish me. It didn’t scream. It didn’t shake. It didn’t flood or collapse or burn. It just changed. Every table began to pulse. Not the Lenas. Not the lights. Not the floor. The tables themselves. A slow, rhythmic thud. Like a heartbeat. One beat. Then another. Then another. All in perfect time. All synced to the counter on my chest. Each tick of the number echoed as a pulse beneath every Lena. 154. Thud. 153. Thud. 152. Thud. I turned my head. Looked down the rows. Looked at the Lenas. None of them moved. None of them blinked. None of them breathed. But the tables beneath them pulsed. Steady. Relentless. Like the room had plugged them into my lungs. Like my breaths were keeping them alive. Or maybe the other way around. I looked back at the original Lena. The one on the first table. The one who watched me the whole time. Her eyes were still on mine. Still waiting. Still silent. Still knowing. Then she spoke. Her lips didn’t move. Her chest didn’t rise. But her voice came. Soft. Clear. Like she was standing right beside me, whispering into my ear. “Ask me why I let you live.” I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t think. I just asked. “Why did you let me live?” The room cracked. Not the walls. Not the ceiling. The air. The space between me and the Lenas. It split open like glass under pressure. Jagged lines shot out from the center of the chamber, fracturing the white sterile nothing into a thousand sharp angles. The light bent. The floor tilted. The tables vanished. The Lenas didn’t scream. They didn’t vanish. They stayed. Floating. Suspended. Still strapped down. Still silent. Still watching. The fractures widened. Became corridors. Long, narrow, made of mirrored glass. Each one reflected something different. Not me. Not the room. Not the Lenas. Something else. Something older. Something I had buried. I stepped forward. The floor beneath me shifted. Became solid again. Became a path. Leading into the first corridor. The one closest to me. The glass walls showed a surgical theater. Bright lights. Stainless steel. A child on the table. Blue ribbon in her hair. My hands holding a scalpel. My face behind a mask. My eyes wide with something I didn’t recognize. Not fear. Not focus. Something worse. Something like certainty. I didn’t stop. I kept walking. The scalpel was still in my hand. I didn’t drop it. I didn’t raise it. I just held it. Like it was part of me. Like it always had been. Behind me, the Lenas began to blink. All at once. One blink. Then another. Then another. In perfect time. With my breath. With the pulse. With the counter. 151.