The lab door slammed shut behind them with a mechanical groan, sealing off the whirring, whispering hum of the Thanaton Unit.
Elias and Kiran stood in silence for a long moment.
"I didn't scream," Elias said, still panting. "Not out loud."
Kiran's eyes were bloodshot. "Didn't have to. You were inside my head. I heard your voice. Felt your panic. Like we were…" He trailed off, shaking.
"Linked."
Kiran nodded. Then, shakily, pulled something from his jacket.
A photograph.
Crisp. Too crisp.
Black-and-white. Five figures in lab coats. One of them—face obscured by static—stood next to the Thanaton Unit, hand resting on the console.
Beneath it:
Neurosphere Corp – Project Thanaton – Final Trial, March 2047.
At the bottom, scrawled in faded ink:
Reyne, Elias.
"What the hell is this?" Elias breathed. "Where did you get this?"
"I didn't," Kiran said. "It was under my pillow this morning."
---
Later that evening, they sat in Elias's dorm, door locked, curtains drawn, laptop open with the stolen archive files spread across the screen.
"You think it's a mistake," Elias said. "Or a namesake."
Kiran just looked at him. "You've never had a DNA test, have you?"
Elias went still. "What?"
Kiran turned the screen. On it was a recovered scan from the Thanaton logs. Subject 26-E.
Next to it: a soulprint pattern—a waveform signature, unique like a fingerprint.
"You uploaded your EEG scans to my AI mapping project last semester. For fun."
Kiran dragged Elias's file into the comparison window. The system processed.
MATCH FOUND – 99.9% Confidence.
A single phrase appeared beneath the match:
> REANIMATION POSSIBILITY: UNCONFIRMED. INSTABILITY: HIGH.
Elias pushed the laptop away like it had burned him.
"You're telling me I'm some—what, clone? Soul copy? Experiment?"
"I don't know what the machine does, El." Kiran's voice trembled. "I just know it's calling you."
---
The lights flickered again.
Elias stood. "We need help."
They found it upstairs—sort of.
Kiran's girlfriend, Maya, was a med student. Practical, skeptical, tired of Kiran's conspiracy bullshit. But she listened.
Until Elias showed her the photo. The files. The match.
And then—
Elias's nose began to bleed.
Thick. Black.
Not red.
Maya screamed. Kiran backed away. Elias staggered to the sink, gasping.
The mirror above it showed something impossible:
His reflection wasn't bleeding.
It just smiled.
---