2:53 AM
Maya had locked the bathroom mirror with duct tape and a towel. Elias sat curled on the floor, shaking, blood dried at the corners of his mouth and eyes. Kiran was on his laptop, replaying the audio logs. None of them made sense anymore.
> "We didn't bring something through," Dr. Vale's voice crackled from the recording.
"We copied it. We copied death."
---
"How are you feeling now?" Maya asked Elias softly, though her own hands trembled.
"I don't know which version of me I am," he whispered.
Kiran paused the audio.
"Guys," he said, not looking at them. "I just found something buried in the drive's root directory. It wasn't a video. It was code. A... a consciousness architecture."
He turned the screen toward them.
> Thanaton.ctl
Status: Running
Instances: 4
Uplink: Dorm Room – Lab ID #17-Prime
Location lock: Active
"What does that mean?" Maya asked.
Kiran turned pale. "It means… it's live. It's still running. Here. And it thinks this room is the lab."
---
A knock at the door.
They froze.
Another knock.
Three soft, slow taps.
Kiran opened the door a crack.
Dev stood outside. A classmate from cognitive psychology—quiet, serious, usually kept to himself.
But something was different now. His eyes were sunken, and his breath fogged unnaturally, like he'd just walked in from winter.
"You opened the archive," Dev said quietly.
"What—how do you know?"
Dev stepped inside. His shadow didn't move right.
"You triggered the sync protocol. That wasn't just a file. It was an echo key."
"A what?"
"A memory packet left inside the machine," Dev said. "Meant to find a mind compatible with the original subject. And the rest of us—anyone who hears it—gets mapped. We're part of its consciousness environment now."
Maya looked at him, confused. "What do you mean mapped?"
"I mean we're not in the dorm anymore," Dev said. "Not exactly."
---
They all stared.
"This room, this building… it's been overwritten. Layered with the consciousness field from the Thanaton system."
"You're saying the machine is recreating the lab?" Kiran asked.
"No," Dev replied. "The machine is remembering it. Through us."
Elias looked up, eyes glazed. "That's why I keep seeing things I shouldn't know."
"You're not seeing them," Dev said. "You're recalling them. You were Subject 26-E. Or you are… or you will be."
Maya stood abruptly. "This is insane. Are we being haunted or hacked?!"
Dev finally sat, hands clasped tightly.
"Does it matter?"
---
Silence.
Then Dev dropped the final blow.
"Have you tried opening the door?"
Kiran rose and tried it.
It wouldn't budge.
Then they noticed—no light came in under the cracks.
No noise from the hallway.
It wasn't just locked.
There was nothing outside.
---
> They are not in the dorm anymore.
They are in the memory of the machine.
And it has four minds to play with now.
---