Back in the world above, the game shifts. Lila returns to her desk—only to find something waiting. A single red thread tied across the handle of her drawer. Damien's silent signature. The message is clear: boundaries no longer exist. She tears it off. But the gesture haunts her. In the hours that follow, paranoia creeps in, memories bleed, and nothing—not even her art—feels safe. The first line was drawn. Now she must decide: will she cross it… or erase herself entirely?
---
LAST MOMENT:
Someone else had seen what she had drawn.
And it was watching, too.
---
When Lila stepped off the elevator into the design floor, the lights seemed brighter than they should've been.
Artificial. Clinical. Watching.
The silence hit first. Not just the lack of sound—but an absence of presence. As if the building itself had swallowed its occupants whole and left only the sterile bones of cubicles and screens in their place.
She moved slowly through the rows of empty workstations, their screens asleep, their chairs turned slightly, as if abandoned mid-thought.
Her own desk—the glass pod at the far corner—waited like a stage. Brightly lit. Too perfect.
It should have comforted her.
But her stomach coiled the moment she saw it.
Her pace slowed.
There, stretched across the handle of her main drawer, was a single strand of red thread.
Red.
Not frayed. Not tangled.
Perfect.
It glimmered slightly under the ceiling lights, pulled taut between the edge of the glass and the handle. Tied like a boundary. A barrier. A mark.
She stood in front of it for a long moment.
Just looking.
As if daring it to explain itself.
She didn't touch it.
Not yet.
Instead, she looked around. Scanned the floor.
No one.
The building, it seemed, had decided she would face this alone.
So she did.
She reached out.
Gently.
And with two fingers, she plucked the thread.
It gave way with a soft snap. Fell limp.
Silk. Real silk.
She studied it, holding it to the light. It shimmered like blood under moonlight.
Deliberate.
She opened the drawer.
Everything looked untouched.
Perfectly arranged.
Except…
Her sketchpad.
The top page had been turned. Bent slightly at the corner, just enough to betray interference.
She reached in, pulled it out.
The previous sketch she remembered—an unfinished eye—was now complete.
But it wasn't hers.
She would never shade like that.
The lines were too precise. Too intimate. The eye stared back at her not as a subject… but as a mirror.
It was hers.
But drawn by someone else.
Her hand trembled.
She tore the page out.
Beneath it—another.
A rooftop.
Her silhouette, standing against the night.
Below it, in small inked script:
"This is where you stop pretending."
She dropped the sketchpad onto her desk like it had burned her fingers.
"Damien," she whispered.
But it wasn't a curse.
It was a realization.
He had been in her space.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Not even Evelyne had been able to keep him out.
Lila's eyes moved to the walls. The ceiling. The corners of the room. Every glass panel felt like an eye.
Every screen, a mouth waiting to whisper back.
She sat down. Slowly.
Her fingers hovered over the tablet.
It woke without her touching it.
A blank canvas.
White.
Then, slowly—like a photograph developing in reverse—lines appeared.
Red pencil.
Thin at first. Then thicker.
The room she'd just left.
Level 41.
The room with no windows.
And in the middle—her.
Back turned.
Hair falling down her shoulder.
Drawing.
She didn't remember sketching it.
But it was her hand.
Her line weight. Her fingerprint visible in the corner.
And just beneath it, typed in tiny digital font:
"Version 1 of 47. Upload complete."
She blinked.
"Upload?"
The screen faded.
Back to white.
She pushed back from the desk. Rose.
The red thread still sat there. Coiled now. Waiting.
She picked it up.
Held it.
Tied it around her finger like a ribbon.
A reminder.
She looked up and saw herself in the reflection of the glass wall.
She didn't recognize the woman looking back.
Not entirely.
Behind her, thunder rolled.
And for the first time in days… she smiled.
Just a little.
Because now she knew the rules.
And she was going to redraw them.
One red line at a time.