Chapter 82: You Were Meant to Watch The countdown hit zero. I didn’t die. My body locked. Not like paralysis. Not like fear. Like the machine had reached into my bones and told every muscle to stop. My fingers wouldn’t curl. My jaw wouldn’t move. Even my eyes felt glued forward, staring at the console where the numbers had just blinked out. The silence didn’t feel empty. It felt loaded. Like the air had turned into glass and I was trapped inside it. Then the machine spoke. It didn’t crackle. Didn’t hiss. Didn’t echo. It just spoke, flat and clean, like a surgeon reading a chart. “Subject 001 termination failed — Architect override detected.” I couldn’t move, but my mind screamed. Subject 001. That was me. That was the designation I chose. The one I confirmed. The one I sentenced. I picked it. I signed off on it. I watched the countdown. I waited for the end. And now the machine was telling me it didn’t work. Not because I fought it. Not because I escaped. Because something inside the system said no. Mirabel lowered the scalpel. She didn’t drop it. Didn’t toss it. Didn’t even relax her grip. She just let her arm fall to her side, slow and deliberate, like she was done with a performance and now the real show could begin. Her lips didn’t curl into a grin. Didn’t twist into a sneer. They just lifted, faintly, at the corners. A smile that wasn’t happy. Wasn’t cruel. Wasn’t anything but knowing. “You were never meant to die,” she said. Her voice wasn’t loud. Wasn’t soft. It just was. Like the machine’s voice, but warmer. Warmer in the way a scalpel is warm after it’s been inside you. “You were meant to watch.” The console rebooted. Not with sparks. Not with alarms. Not with flashing red. Just a quiet hum, a reset, a recalibration. The screen flickered once, twice, then cleared. The countdown was gone. The termination log was gone. The list of subjects was gone. In its place, a single line of text, centered, bold, unblinking. SUBJECT 001: MIRABEL VARGA I didn’t breathe. Not because I couldn’t. Because I forgot how. Subject 001 wasn’t me. It was her. All this time. All the choices. All the guilt. All the blood. All the breaths. All the lies. All the memories I dug up, tore open, drowned in. All of it. Every single moment I thought I was saving myself, I was sentencing her. Every time I thought I was choosing her life over mine, I was choosing her death. Every time I thought I was the architect, I was just the instrument. The scalpel in someone else’s hand. She never stopped being the subject. She was always the target. And I was always the one holding the blade. Mirabel didn’t look at me. Didn’t gloat. Didn’t sigh. Didn’t even glance at the screen. She just stepped forward, one slow step, then another, until she stood directly in front of the console. Her fingers, still wrapped around the scalpel, hovered over the keypad. She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t pause to savor the moment. Didn’t look back to see if I was still frozen. She just typed. One key. Two. Three. Four. Five. Each press was quiet. Deliberate. Final. The screen changed again. New text appeared. Smaller. Cleaner. Official. TRANSFER ARCHITECT STATUS TO SUBJECT ZERO She pressed enter. The machine didn’t beep. Didn’t flash. Didn’t ask for confirmation. It just accepted it. Like it had been waiting for this. Like it had been designed for this. Like I had designed it for this. Mirabel turned. Not all the way. Just enough to catch me in her peripheral vision. Her smile hadn’t changed. Her eyes hadn’t softened. Her grip on the scalpel hadn’t loosened. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. The machine had already spoken. I was never meant to die. I was meant to watch. And now, she was the one holding the keys. She lifted her hand, the scalpel catching the sterile light, and reached for the next command.