Chapter 23: Ask Why You Were Never Meant to Survive I stood in the dark. The counter on my chest hadn’t moved since the glass dissolved. 130. Frozen. Not mercy. Not pause. Just waiting. Like the room was holding its breath with me. Behind me, Lena lay strapped to the table. I didn’t turn to look. I didn’t need to. I could feel her there. Not breathing. Not speaking. Just watching. Always watching. The new chamber swallowed sound. No hum. No echo. No mechanical voice. Just me and the dark and the number stuck to my ribs. I took a step forward. The floor didn’t shift. The air didn’t thin. Nothing grabbed me. Nothing whispered. I walked like I was crossing an empty stage before the curtain rose. Like the silence was part of the act. Then her voice came. Not from the table. Not from the walls. Not from any speaker or vent or hidden grate. It came from the dark itself. From the space between my ribs and the space behind my eyes. Soft. Clear. Like she was standing right beside me, lips brushing my ear. “Ask why you were never meant to survive.” I stopped. I didn’t turn. I didn’t look for her. I knew it wasn’t the Lena on the table. That Lena didn’t speak. That Lena didn’t move. That Lena was waiting for me to finish what I started. This voice was different. Older. Tired. Certain. It wasn’t asking me to beg. It wasn’t offering me a deal. It wasn’t testing me. It was telling me what to say. Like a director cueing an actor who forgot his line. I opened my mouth. The words came out before I could stop them. “Why was I never meant to survive?” I didn’t shout. I didn’t whisper. I just said it. Flat. Empty. Like reading a line off a script I didn’t write. The floor vanished. Not cracked. Not broke. Not gave way with a groan or a shudder. It just stopped being there. One moment I was standing. The next, I was falling. No wind. No scream. No flailing limbs. Just the sudden absence of ground and the cold rush of empty space swallowing me whole. I hit water. Hard. It knocked the breath out of me. Or tried to. The counter didn’t move. Still 130. Still frozen. Still waiting. I sank. The water was thick. Not muddy. Not murky. Just heavy. Like swimming through oil. Like the room itself had turned liquid and was holding me down. I kicked. My arms flailed. My lungs burned. Not from lack of air. From pressure. From weight. From the sheer impossibility of moving in something that refused to let me rise. I opened my eyes. Darkness. Then shapes. Rows of metal shelves. Tall. Endless. Stretching in every direction. Each shelf packed with files. Binders. Folders. Thick manila envelopes stamped with red ink. Some cracked open, spilling papers like guts. Others sealed tight with wax or tape or wire. Medical records. My records. Not the ones from the hospital. Not the ones from the trial. Not the ones Lena kept hidden in her desk drawer. These were older. Deeper. The kind buried under layers of bureaucracy and silence. The kind no one was ever supposed to see. I kicked again. My hand brushed against something solid. A folder. Floating just beneath the surface. I grabbed it. The label was clear even underwater. SUBJECT ZERO: TERMINATION APPROVED. I held it. The water pressed in. Cold. Silent. Relentless. The counter on my chest flickered. Then it moved. 129. I didn’t gasp. I didn’t panic. I just stared at the number as it dropped. The folder in my hand didn’t feel like paper. It felt like a verdict. Like a sentence. Like the last page of a story I never got to read. I didn’t open it. I didn’t need to. I knew what was inside. I always knew. The water didn’t let go. The dark didn’t lift. The shelves stretched on. And the counter kept falling.