Chapter 90: You Don’t Get to Choose Who Lives The console glowed with those three words—SUBJECT ZERO ASCENSION—and I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I just stared at them like they were written in a language I used to know but forgot how to speak. My hands were still pressed against the panel, sticky with my own blood. The room was silent. No hum. No flicker. No countdown. Just that message, pulsing faintly, like a heartbeat trapped behind glass. Mirabel didn’t look at me. She didn’t look at the screens. She didn’t even look at the scalpel in her hand. She just stood there, calm, like she’d been waiting for this exact moment since the first time I woke up in that room with the counter above me ticking down from 300. I wanted to ask her what it meant. I wanted to ask her what ascension was. I wanted to ask her if this was the end or the beginning or something else entirely. But I didn’t. I knew she wouldn’t answer. Not yet. Not until she was ready. Instead, I turned to the nearest screen. Subject 047. The woman with short brown hair. Her counter was climbing. Steady. Unbroken. She didn’t look scared. She didn’t look relieved. She just looked… awake. Like she’d been pulled out of a dream and didn’t know where she was yet. I touched the screen. My finger left a smudge. She didn’t react. I pulled my hand back. I didn’t know if she could see me. I didn’t know if any of them could. Mirabel moved. Just a step. Just enough to shift her weight. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the scalpel. The same one she’d held since the beginning. The one I’d given her. The one she’d used to unlock the system. She turned it over in her hand, studying the blade. Not like she was planning to use it. Like she was remembering something. Something I didn’t know. I wanted to ask her what she was thinking. I wanted to ask her what was going to happen when the countdown hit zero. I wanted to ask her why she wasn’t trying to stop it. But I didn’t. I knew it wouldn’t work. She wasn’t going to tell me anything I didn’t already know. Or anything I wasn’t ready to remember. I turned back to the screens. Subject 189. The boy. Couldn’t have been older than twelve. His counter read 89. He was smiling. Not a big smile. Just a small one. Like he was remembering something good. Or maybe he was just happy to be breathing again. I didn’t know. I didn’t ask. I kept walking. Screen after screen. Face after face. Some I recognized. Some I didn’t. Some looked like they were sleeping. Some looked like they were praying. None of them looked at me. None of them knew I was here. None of them knew I was the one who put them here. None of them knew I was the one who almost killed them. None of them knew I was the one who saved them. Maybe that was the point. Mirabel stepped closer to the console. She didn’t touch it. She just stood there. Scalpel in hand. Watching the countdown. 00:45… 00:44… 00:43… I stopped in front of her. “What happens when it hits zero?” She didn’t look at me. “You’ll see.” “I don’t want to see. I want to know.” She finally turned her head. Just enough to meet my eyes. “You built this. You should know.” “I don’t remember.” “That’s not my problem.” I wanted to argue. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she told me what was going on. But I didn’t. I knew it wouldn’t work. She wasn’t going to tell me anything I didn’t already know. Or anything I wasn’t ready to remember. I turned back to the screens. Subject 003. An old man. His counter read 201. He was crying. Quietly. Tears rolling down his cheeks. He didn’t wipe them away. He just let them fall. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know what he was thinking. I didn’t know if he even knew where he was. 00:30… 00:29… 00:28… The red lights flickered faster. The countdown sped up. 00:27… 00:26… 00:25… I walked back to the console. I pressed my hands against it again. I didn’t try the biometrics this time. I just leaned on it. Like I was trying to hold it together. Like I was trying to keep it from falling apart. Like I was trying to keep myself from falling apart. Mirabel stepped beside me. She didn’t say anything. She just stood there. Scalpel in hand. Watching the countdown. 00:20… 00:19… 00:18… I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to watch the numbers drop. I didn’t want to hear the silence that would come after. I didn’t want to know what would happen next. But I opened them anyway. 00:10… 00:09… 00:08… Mirabel moved. She placed her hand on the console. Right next to mine. Her fingers brushed against mine. Cold. Steady. Unmoving. 00:07… 00:06… 00:05… I held my breath. I didn’t know why. It wasn’t going to stop the countdown. It wasn’t going to change what was coming. But I did it anyway. 00:04… 00:03… 00:02… Mirabel whispered something. I didn’t catch it. I didn’t ask her to repeat it. 00:01… The countdown hit zero. The red lights went out. The screens went black. The room went silent. For a second, nothing happened. Then the console lit up. A single line of text appeared on the main display. SUBJECT ZERO ASCENSION. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I just stared at the words like they were written in blood. Mirabel didn’t answer the question. Instead, she stepped toward the console and input a command that rebooted the system into “Judgment Mode.” The screens flickered, displaying only two faces: hers and mine. Our breath counters synced in real time. She turned to me and said, “If you want to know why I let you live, survive longer than me.” The counters dropped simultaneously. One. Two. Three. I lunged for the console. My fingers slapped against the panel, searching for the override, the backdoor, the emergency protocol I coded into the system when I first built it. I knew where it was. I designed every wire, every failsafe, every hidden command. I built this to be unbreakable—except by me. Mirabel didn’t move fast. She didn’t need to. She just lifted her hand and slammed it onto a secondary panel I didn’t even know existed. A sharp chime echoed through the room, and the console flashed red. ACCESS DENIED. ARCHITECT LOCKOUT INITIATED. I spun toward her. “What the hell was that?” She didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just held my gaze like she was waiting for me to catch up. “You don’t get to choose who lives,” she said. “You get to choose who you become.” The counters kept falling. Four. Five. Six. I looked at the screens. My face. Her face. The numbers dropping in perfect sync. No lag. No mercy. No escape. I looked at her. Really looked. Not at the woman who haunted me. Not at the ghost I buried. Not at the victim I created. I looked at Mirabel. The architect of this moment. The one who waited. The one who remembered everything I tried to forget. She wasn’t going to save me. She wasn’t going to stop this. She was going to watch me choose. Seven. Eight. Nine. I reached for the scalpel. Not to hurt her. Not to fight her. Not to beg. I grabbed it because it was the only thing in this room that still listened to me. The only tool I hadn’t coded, hadn’t locked, hadn’t buried under layers of protocol and guilt. It was cold. Real. Honest. I pressed the blade against my wrist. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. I cut. Deep. Fast. Purposeful. Blood welled instantly, thick and dark, sliding down my forearm, dripping onto the console below. The machine shrieked—a high, digital wail—and every screen flashed white. The breath counters froze. 12. Both of them. Stopped. Dead. Silent. The scalpel slipped from my fingers.