Chapter 159 – The Echoed Four

The glow from the simulation tank intensified.

Evryn instinctively stepped back as the silhouettes inside came into sharper focus—four women, all her, but not. They stood unmoving in a circle, each with a distinct expression carved into their face—pain, fury, serenity, and... emptiness.

Kai’s hand found hers. “Are they copies?”

“No,” Aurex whispered, scanning the interface. “They’re iterations. Alternate consciousnesses pulled from simulated failures of Project E.V.E.R. All quarantined memory fragments. Until now.”

The lights flickered again.

The simulation began to render one by one:

1. The Silent One – her eyes completely black, veins etched with flickering blue like digital scars. No mouth. She exuded death.

2. The Seraphic One – glowing white irises, a calm expression as if she had already accepted the end. Her heartbeat was slow. Almost too slow.

3. The Broken One – eyes wide, face contorted in perpetual panic, arms folded tightly across her chest like she was holding herself together by force.

4. The Crimson One – blood smeared along her temple. Her gaze was direct, piercing. And angry.

Kai swallowed. “They're versions of you from divergent collapse points?”

“Not collapse,” Evryn said. “Sacrifice points.”

Aurex spun the console around. “This isn’t a storage unit. It’s a decision matrix.”

Kai turned to her. “Explain.”

“These are the ‘what-if’ Evryns the system modeled whenever she reached a death trigger. They each made a different choice. Now, because the vault unlocked, they're waking.”

Evryn stepped forward, toward the tank.

The Crimson One snapped her head to attention.

The voice that came from the tank wasn't her own—but some amalgam of all four.

“You failed the merge.”

Evryn stiffened. “What merge?”

“You tried to overwrite Elaia,” the Seraphic One said gently, blinking slowly. “But you didn’t evolve. You fractured. We are the pieces left behind.”

The Silent One lifted her hand. A ghostly light shimmered beneath her skin—like a digital pulse barely holding her together.

Aurex’s screen suddenly flashed red.

A pulse shot through the lab. The tank seals began to hiss.

“No!” Aurex shouted. “They’re not stable! They were never meant to be reactivated!”

But it was too late.

The Crimson One stepped forward and whispered:

“We’re here to finish what you started.”

The glass cracked.

Evryn pulled Kai back as the energy inside surged.

All four copies stepped into reality.

For a moment, it felt like time fractured. Evryn’s mind spun, like her own consciousness was being pulled in four directions. Each of them whispered something only she could hear:

Seraphic: “Peace is a lie they built to keep you still.”

Broken: “You abandoned me.”

Silent: no words—only a deep echo of emptiness that gnawed into her gut.

Crimson: “I’m the one you were afraid to become.”

Aurex drew her weapon. “Evryn… this is a containment breach on a metaphysical level. If these copies aren’t tethered—”

“I don’t think they are,” Evryn muttered. “I think… I am.”

The four stepped into a loose circle around her, forming an arc. None of them attacked. None moved erratically. But each radiated a purpose.

Kai reached for Evryn’s shoulder. “What are they doing?”

“Offering me a choice,” Evryn breathed, heart pounding.

The Crimson One stepped forward again.

“One of us is the key to Unit Zero. The others… are ghosts. Fragments. Failures. Choose one. Absorb her. Kill the rest.”

Evryn’s stomach churned.

Kai looked between them. “What if you choose wrong?”

“Then the wrong version of me lives,” Evryn whispered. “And the right one… dies forever.”

Suddenly, Ivy’s face flashed in Evryn’s mind.

And then…

The Silent One lunged.

of blinding blue light. Kai thrown backward. Evryn caught mid-fusion with one of the Echoed Four—but which one?

When her eyes open again… her voice is no longer just hers.