The dark swallowed the corridor whole.
No walls. No floor. Just memory.
Mara's voice was the only real thing left.
"Jonas… am I real?"
He looked at her, and behind her, the swarm of echoes waited silent, patient, familiar.
Each one of them Jonas.
But none of them him.
Not anymore.
"I don't know," he whispered.
She flinched like he'd struck her. Her eyes filled with disbelief searched his face for anything familiar.
But Jonas wasn't sure there was anything left.
The versions of him moved forward. Not hostile. Not angry. Just… inevitable.
"You broke yourself apart to stay sane," one said.
"To stay clean," said another.
"But sanity without sorrow isn't survival. It's surrender."
Jonas stepped back.
The voices pressed in, wrapping around his skull, curling through his spine like smoke with memory:
You let them die.
You made the Gate.
You built Eris.
You are Eris.
"No," Jonas said aloud.
But the word felt weak.
Thin.
A child's denial in the face of something absolute.
Mara reached for him again. "You're still you. I don't care what they say..."
One of the echoes moved toward her, slow, deliberate. The scarred version.
Jonas stepped between them instantly.
"No."
The scarred Jonas tilted his head.
"She's not even part of the original thread. She's a reconstruction. Just like the rest of us."
Mara's breath hitched. "What is he saying?"
Jonas turned. "Ignore him."
But she didn't.
She stepped away.
One pace. Two.
"Jonas… what am I?"
He reached for her.
And then froze.
Because for a second, her face flickered.
Just slightly.
Like a corrupted file realigning itself.
A flash of static beneath her skin.
Jonas stumbled back.
"No…"
"Now you see it," said the voices in unison.
They weren't threatening him.
They were welcoming him.
"You never escaped the loop. You're still inside it. And she's part of it too."
Jonas clenched his fists.
"No," he growled. "If this is a loop. If none of it's real, then why do I still feel it?"
He grabbed Mara's hand. It was warm. Shaking.
Alive.
"I choose her," he said.
The echoes paused.
Something in the shadows stirred.
Then
From the center of the crowd
A new figure emerged.
Not Jonas.
Not a version.
Something taller.
Faceless.
With her voice.
"Then erase the rest."
Jonas froze.
The figure stepped closer, whispering from Mara's throat.
"You want to be whole? Choose. What will you keep? And what will you sacrifice?"
The crowd of selves began to dissolve, one by one leaving trails of light behind, like dying stars.
Jonas turned to Mara.
But now…
There were two of her.
One crying. One smiling.
One human.
One mirror.
"Choose."