The forest didn't feel real anymore.
Every tree bent wrong.
Every shadow stretched too long.
Every sound echoed inside Mara's skull like it was coming from inside her, not around her.
Her breath came in short, broken gasps as she stumbled through the underbrush, mud and blood smearing her hands. Her clothes clung to her like someone else's skin.
Evelyn's blood
Evelyn's eyes
Evelyn's last words
They looped inside Mara until her thoughts frayed like torn fabric.
"I didn't kill her," Mara whispered to no one.
"I didn't-They-It was the officer-It wasn't me-"
But then the voice in her head-quiet, familiar-responded:
You didn't pull the trigger, but would she have died if she hadn't followed you?
Mara dropped to her knees, fingers digging into the moss.
"Stop," she begged the voice. "Stop... stop..."
The voice only hummed.
You're waking up, Mara. This is what waking feels like.
She clamped her hands over her ears, but the voice wasn't coming from outside.
It was hers.
And not hers.
Something woven into her mind like a second spine.
The forest bent inward as her vision blurred.
She pressed her forehead to the cold ground.
"Please..."
She didn't know what she was pleading for.
Forgiveness?
Silence?
Death?
Then-
A twig snapped.
Slow, steady footsteps approached.
Mara's breath stilled.
"Is this really how you break?" a voice asked.
Daniel.
He stepped out from behind a tree, pale under the moonlight, arm still bleeding from their last fight, eyes sharp and oddly sympathetic.
"You survived everything else," he said.
"But her death ruins you? Out of all things?"
Mara scrambled backward, dirt sliding beneath her palms.
"Get away from me."
He sighed as if disappointed.
"You weren't supposed to run from the police. That part wasn't planned. But everything else... you handled it beautifully."
Her stomach twisted.
"Planned?"
Daniel crouched, wincing at the pain in his shoulder.
"Do you remember anything yet?" he asked softly.
"The rooms? The tests? The way you kept trying to escape even before your memories were taken?"
Mara shook her head so violently her vision doubled.
"No. No, that's not real. That's-That's something you put in my head-"
"Your mother called you her 'greatest attempt,'" Daniel continued, ignoring her panic.
"Her most successful prototype. The first to survive the awakening process without dying."
"Shut up-"
"You were never meant to be normal, Mara. You were built."
She screamed, lunging at him.
Daniel caught her wrists mid-swing and slammed her to the forest floor. Dirt burst around them.
"Mara," he hissed, pinning her down with one knee against her ribs, "you know I'm right. You felt it when you disarmed those officers. You didn't think. You remembered."
She struggled beneath him, teeth grit, tears streaking her cheeks.
"I'm not-some experiment-"
"You are the result of twenty-eight years of work," Daniel snapped. "You are not a mistake. You are the reason I exist. You and I were designed to be a pair."
She froze under him, breath catching.
"What?"
Daniel leaned closer, his breath trembling.
"We were grown in the same lab. Modified with the same sequences. A matched set. You were Alpha. I was Beta."
"No..." Mara whispered. "That's not true."
"It is. They erased your memory when the tests became too... unstable."
"Shut up!"
She bucked her hips and twisted-something instinctive, brutal.
Daniel lost balance for half a second-
It was enough.
Mara rolled out from under him, grabbed a fallen branch, and swung with everything inside her.
The wood cracked against Daniel's temple.
He fell sideways, stunned but not unconscious.
Mara backed away, chest heaving.
"You're lying," she gasped. "You're lying because you want me to go back."
Daniel touched his bleeding temple and laughed-softly, too softly.
"You really don't remember me."
Mara froze.
Daniel looked up at her with something like heartbreak.
"You used to trust me more than anyone else," he whispered.
"You used to grab my hand when the tests scared you. You used to beg me not to let them put you under again."
Mara's throat tightened painfully.
"No-no, I don't remember that. I don't know you. I don't-"
Daniel pushed himself to his feet, swaying, blood dripping down his cheek.
"I know you don't," he said.
"That's why I didn't want them to wipe you again."
He took a step forward.
Mara stepped back.
"I don't want to hurt you," he said.
"You already did."
Daniel shook his head.
"Not like them. I never lied to you. I never touched your mind. Your mother did that. The others did that. Not me."
His voice broke for the first time.
"You loved me, Mara."
Her entire body went cold.
She shook her head slowly.
"No... I didn't."
"Yes," he whispered. "You did."
Daniel reached for her, but she lifted the branch again.
"Don't touch me."
His jaw tightened.
"Mara, you can't survive out here without us. You're unraveling. You're losing the line between memory and fear."
"I don't want your help."
"You will," he said.
"That's the way you were built."
Mara swung again.
This time Daniel blocked it, grabbed her wrist, and yanked her toward him-
But she drove her knee into his ribs.
He gasped and staggered back.
Mara didn't give him time to recover.
She rammed her shoulder into his wounded side.
He fell hard, crashing into a tree trunk and dropping to his knees.
Mara stood over him, shaking violently, tears blurring her vision.
"Don't follow me."
Daniel looked up at her, breathing raggedly.
"I don't have to."
"Why?" she whispered.
He smiled weakly, eyes dark.
"Because you always come back."
Mara's spine turned to ice.
Daniel wiped blood from his mouth and added:
"That's what you were designed for."
Mara ran.
Not because she believed him.
But because she didn't.
And because the part of her mind she feared most-the part that felt too sharp, too trained, too not-Mara-
whispered a single word as she fled into the darkness:
Home.