Selene
They didn't speak again for an hour.
The walls of the replica room remained
silent. No pulse, no flicker, no trigger. But the quiet wasn't passive. I
watched it. It held shape.
Selene shifted her weight against the
wall. Her thigh throbbed. She could feel her body catching up to everything it
had survived. Not shock. Just the return of detail: breath, ache, cold sweat
under her arms, blood sticky inside her sleeve.
Cam still lay on the bed, eyes open.
Not moving.
Not detached.
Just… unlopped.
Selene finally said, "It's not
finished."
Cam didn't answer.
Selene said, "There are other loops.
Other bodies."
Cam sat up.
That was all the answer she needed.
They left together.
No gear. Just breath.
The corridors were quieter now. Not
neutral—respectful. As if the facility had acknowledged their exit from the loop
but still wanted them to witness what remained.
Selene didn't limp as much now. Not
because the pain was gone. Because she no longer measured her pace against
survival.
The system wasn't hostile anymore.
It was open.
That was more dangerous.
Cam
She felt it first.
The hum.
Not in the walls.
In herself.
The deeper they moved through the
unlit western wings, the more her chest buzzed like an old ache. Not emotion.
Sensory overlay. Something the system had stored was trying to speak to her
body without using voice.
She reached a door she hadn't seen
before.
Not physically. In dreams.
A white door.
She didn't hesitate.
It opened.
Inside: twelve bodies.
Alive.
Breathing.
Suspended in memory.
Each one looped mid-sensation: mouth
open, hand out, eye half-closed in some erotic or emotional reaction.
Not horror.
Not bliss.
Incomplete consent.
Cam whispered, "These are the
unresolved."
Selene stepped beside her.
Nodded once.
"Then we finish it."
They debated methods.
Kill the looped bodies? Too cruel.
Unplug them? Risks psychological
implosion.
Let them stay? Worse.
Selene suggested partial memory
reintegration.
Cam said, "They didn't choose this."
Selene replied, "Neither did we."
In the end, they agreed: initiate
sequential wake cycles. One at a time. Give them a presence. Give them voice.
Let them choose to stay or walk.
The system didn't resist.
It asked:
"Will you witness
their emergence?"
Cam said yes.
Selene said yes.
The first body opened its eyes.
It looked like neither of them.
And it whispered, "I remember the
kiss, but not the name."
Cam knelt.
Said softly, "That means you're real."
They stayed four days.
Each body is different. Each wake
harder. More memory residue. More system entanglement. Each new survivor came
with a piece of erotic recursion they had to hear to help release. No one was
innocent. Everyone was beautiful.
On the fifth day, Selene said:
"If we leave, they might become us."
Cam replied:
"If we stay, we already have."
They watched the sixth body wake.
It was Selene.
But younger.
Smiling.
Broken.
Selene
She didn't cry.
She didn't run.
She stood beside her younger self and
said:
"You can go now."
The body blinked.
"Where?"
Selene looked at Cam.
Then at the room.
"Anywhere but here."
"And you?"
"I'll stay. Long enough to make sure
the loop doesn't find you again."
Cam put her hand on Selene's shoulder.
Said, "You don't owe it anything."
Selene whispered, "It owes me."
Later, in the intake chamber, Cam
found the override switch.
She didn't press it.
Selene stood behind her.
They didn't speak.
Because now, there was a new choice:
Not who to save.
But who to remember.