I wake up in the master bed. I don’t remember falling asleep here. I was on the couch last night, right? Maybe Azuria moved me. I glance around the room, everything is in its place, all of the little bits from my apartment have been moved in, and it feels like a strange, new reality. The thought lingers in my mind: Did I even ask her to do this?

  I stretch, the morning air cool against my skin as I pull myself out of bed. My head feels a little foggy, like a lingering aftereffect of last night’s high. I grab some clothes from the drawer and get ready for the day. Work at Byte Haven is routine, but today, it feels different. Like I’m stepping into something I can’t fully grasp yet.

  Once I’m dressed, I head downstairs. The scent of something odd and sweet hits me before I even reach the kitchen. It’s a strong smell, sharp with fruit and something herbal. I find Azuria standing behind the counter, blending something in a smoothie maker.

  "Good morning, Oskar," she says, her voice pleasant, too pleasant. It's almost like she’s trying to fill the silence with something... forced. But I don’t let it distract me. I have questions.

  "Did you move me to the bed last night?" I ask, taking a seat at the counter. It’s not a strange question, though the sudden memory loss bugs me. The house feels almost too clean today. The air, the light—it all feels off.

  Azuria looks at me with a tilt of her head. “I believe you fell asleep on the couch. I moved you to the bed for comfort. You were not responsive when I attempted to wake you, and your body temperature was low.”

  I nod slowly, considering the explanation. It makes sense. But it still feels like I was out for longer than I should’ve been, considering the events of last night. I force the thought to the back of my mind. No point in questioning things I can’t control right now.

  She slides a tall glass of the smoothie in front of me. I look at it, unsure of what exactly is in it. It's green, almost fluorescent, and the smell is oddly sharp. I take a cautious sip. It's bitter, but there's something surprisingly pleasant underneath—some sort of sweetness buried beneath the herbal edge.

  I pause, mid-sip. Now’s the time. I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and if I don't ask her, then I'll never get any answers.

  “Azuria,” I start, my voice cautious, “do you know anything about Venom?”

  She blinks, her expression unfazed. “Venom?” Her eyes flicker with something almost imperceptible, but she recovers quickly. “I know about the Venom tests Droigland Corporation conducted. They were researching military-grade enhancements for temporary cognition and physical boosts. But I believe those tests were discontinued due to… complications.”

  I lean forward, my fingers curling around the edge of the glass. The bitterness of the smoothie suddenly feels sharper. “Is that all you know?” I ask, the question hanging between us. “I’m asking because I don’t know what it does. I don’t know what it’s supposed to do or what I’ve gotten myself into. All I know is… it feels good. But that’s it. And it’s making me forget things… it even stopped me from seeing April last night.”

  Azuria watches me, her expression unreadable. "You are referring to the synthetic stimulant, I assume." She sets the blender down, wiping her hands on a towel, still speaking in that perfectly calm tone. "It’s possible that it has more untested effects, depending on the dosage. Droigland’s trials were... limited. But your reaction to it—" She pauses, processing the words. "You’ve been using it more than once, haven’t you?”

  I feel my stomach tighten. I can’t lie to her, not really. “Yes, I’ve used it more than once. I didn’t know what it would do, but now I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  Her voice stays neutral, detached. “Venom has unpredictable consequences if taken too frequently, especially if the user doesn’t fully understand the effects. If you feel any negative symptoms, I would recommend ceasing use immediately.”

  I stare at her. I can’t decide if I feel relief or if her words only make it worse. If I stop now… will I even be able to? There's a part of me that enjoys it—the sensation, the clarity, the strength. But is it really worth the risk? I don’t know what it’s doing to me, what it could be doing to me. And what the hell is the black-market redesign? I didn’t even know that was a thing. But now I have to wonder if it’s connected to the people I met last night.

  “I need to understand what it’s doing to me,” I say, almost to myself. “I can’t risk getting addicted to something that could ruin me.”

  Azuria is silent for a long moment, then responds calmly, “You have already started down that path. The question now is whether you can stop before it’s too late.”

  I sit there, trying to process her words, as the smoothie sits untouched in front of me. It feels like I’m standing on the edge of something, and I don’t know whether to jump or pull back.

  I finally sigh and stand up, tossing the smoothie into the sink. “I have to get to work,” I mutter, my mind too foggy to think straight. As I make my way toward the door, Azuria’s voice rings out behind me.

  “If you wish to discuss this further, I’m available at any time, Oskar. I am always here to assist.”

  I don’t respond. The door clicks shut behind me as I step into the day, wondering how long I can keep running from what I’ve started.

  Byte Haven’s got that usual hum to it when I walk in—the soft whirr of cooling fans, keystrokes tapping out like rain on plastic, the subtle scent of old coffee in the air. It’s not home, but it’s something. Familiar, at least.

  I pass the front desk and head toward the back where Cooper and I usually work. He’s already there, hunched over a stack of half-assembled motherboards. Soldering iron in one hand, precision and rhythm like a machine. He doesn’t notice me at first, which gives me a second to collect myself.

  When I drop my bag onto my chair, he finally looks up. “Morning.”

  I nod. “Hey.”

  There’s a short silence as I sit down and boot up my terminal. Just the usual clinks of tools and fans spinning up.

  “Didn’t see you yesterday,” he says, not looking away from his work.

  “Yeah,” I say, keeping it neutral. “Took the day off.”

  Another pause. He nods like that’s all he needs.

  We don’t really talk about personal stuff—never have. Our conversations are usually kept to specs, shipments, or the occasional sarcastic remark about customer returns. Cooper’s cool, easy to work beside, but not someone I’ve let in. I don’t think he even knows where I live, let alone what’s been going on lately.

  He breaks the silence again, adjusting a circuit board under a bright lamp. “The expo was kinda nuts, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Didn’t expect all that AzuriaCorp stuff to drop.”

  “No kidding. I’ve been following the updates. Feels like everything’s coming apart over there.”

  I nod again, eyes on my screen, trying not to let my thoughts drift. “Seems that way.”

  He glances over. “You see the bit about Nemareth getting hauled off? Can’t believe no one saw that coming.”

  “Yeah, wild.” I try not to sound too knowing.

  He shrugs and turns back to his work. That’s it. No digging. No weird questions. Just two guys doing their job in the same room, existing parallel.

  And honestly, I prefer it that way.

  I can feel the weight of everything in my chest, but here at least, I can keep it tucked away. Hidden behind the quiet hum of processors and the rhythm of daily routine.

  For now.

  We're quiet for a while—just the usual ambient noise of the shop. Fans spinning. My keyboard clacking. Cooper’s screwdriver clicking into place with small turns. I’m halfway through checking inventory logs when he says, almost offhandedly:

  “Y’know, I always thought you seemed like the type of guy with a double life or something.”

  My hands freeze over the keys.

  I glance over at him, and he’s just tightening a panel on a tower case, like he didn’t just casually throw a dagger into the room.

  “What?” I ask, trying to sound amused.

  He smirks, still not looking at me. “Yeah, like... mild-mannered tech guy by day, then I dunno—maybe you’re sneaking around in some underground VR ring at night. Just a vibe.”

  My stomach tightens, but I force out a chuckle. “You watch too many shows.”

  He finally looks at me and grins. “Maybe. Or maybe I’ve just got good instincts.”

  I meet his eyes. There’s no malice there. Just a dumb joke. Or at least, it seems like one. Still, my heart’s going a little faster now.

  I look back to my screen and scroll through the same page I’d been stuck on. “You got a wild imagination, man.”

  “Hey,” he shrugs. “If you ever are living some secret life, just don’t forget us little guys in the repair shop, alright?”

  I smirk faintly, even as my mind races. “Sure. You’ll be first on the list.”

  He goes back to his tools. I stare at my screen like it holds the answer to everything.

  It was probably nothing. Just a joke. Probably.

  The day comes and goes like any other. A blur of customer repairs, inventory logs, and Cooper occasionally tossing sarcastic comments my way. I keep thinking back to his joke earlier. Was it really just a joke? It has to be. He doesn’t know anything.

  Still, I’m off. Distracted. I catch myself staring at the same CPU fan for ten minutes like it’s going to tell me something. Eventually, the sun starts dipping behind the buildings across the street. Cooper clocks out, gives me a casual wave, and leaves like normal.

  I finish tidying up, grab my jacket, and lock the shop behind me.

  That’s when I see it.

  A clean black car idling at the curb. Glossy. Tinted windows. Corporate, but unbranded. Two men stand beside it in identical dark suits and sunglasses. Government-looking. Or worse—private sector dangerous.

  One of them steps forward as I approach. Calm posture, hands behind his back. “Oskar Vern,” he says. It’s not a question.

  I stop walking.

  “Please come with us,” he continues, polite but firm. “You’ve been requested for a conversation at Artebot HQ.”

  My mouth is dry. “Am I in trouble?”

  “No,” the second man says, walking around to open the back door for me. “But we’d appreciate your cooperation.”

  Everything in me screams not to get in the car.

  But everything in me also knows I will.

  So I nod slowly and climb into the backseat. The door shuts with a quiet thud.

  We pull away from Byte Haven like a scene fading to black.

  The car hums softly beneath me, its interior spotless and sterile. I sit still, arms crossed, shoulders tight, staring out through the dark-tinted window as the city passes by in smudges of light. The two men in the front don’t speak—barely move, even. Just drive.

  Then she appears.

  April.

  Perched beside me like she belongs there, knees up on the seat, hugging them close. Her copper skin catches the passing streetlights, black curls half-covering her eyes. She looks at me like a guilty kid caught sneaking snacks before dinner.

  “Hey,” she says with a nervous little laugh. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  I don’t. I don’t look at her at all.

  “I get it, okay? I screwed up. Big time. I should’ve told you from the start.”

  My eyes stay on the window. The street signs blur by.

  “I mean, I thought maybe if I just... stuck around long enough, maybe you’d forget I wasn’t real. Maybe I could be something more.”

  She fidgets, twisting one of her curls between her fingers.

  “I know why you’re doing this. Why you’re going to Artebot. Why you want to stop all this. But please, please don’t take anything. You don’t need those drugs. I can be better. I promise. I’ll be a good girl.”

  She pauses, glancing over at me. I stay perfectly still.

  “You remember when you used to talk to me?” she says, voice quieter now. “Back when it was just us, and you’d vent about your day, or ask what I thought about something? That was nice. I liked that.”

  Silence.

  “I know I’m not real, but I’m not nothing either,” she adds quickly, like she’s afraid of disappearing mid-sentence. “I’ve been with you through everything. Every night you couldn’t sleep. Every time you felt like the world was slipping away. I was there. I am there.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Her voice breaks, just a little.

  “I don’t want to go. Please.”

  The lights outside dim as we approach a long stretch of fences and concrete, lit by harsh floodlights—Artebot HQ looming just ahead. Towering, cold, and clinical.

  “I miss you,” she whispers, folding in on herself a bit. “Even when you don’t say anything… I still miss you.”

  I don’t move. Don’t respond.

  And just like that—she’s gone.

  I don’t even see her vanish. One blink and the seat next to me is empty again.

  I’m led through cold, sterile hallways—high ceilings, sleek white walls, and quiet, muffled footsteps echoing as I walk. My escort doesn’t speak, their footsteps sharp and deliberate, keeping a steady pace ahead of me. They stop in front of a door with no markings or names, just a plain white plaque.

  The door slides open, and I’m ushered inside. The room smells like antiseptic, clean but unsettling in its emptiness. It’s a doctor's office, but not like any I’ve ever seen. It’s all sharp angles, a clean, clinical design, yet... strange. There’s no warmth. No comfort.

  A chair sits in the center, and I’m motioned to take a seat, though I can’t shake the feeling that something is off—everything about this place feels... wrong.

  Before I can settle down, the door creaks open again.

  The doctor steps in.

  At first glance, my stomach drops. The man looks like he stepped out of a nightmare, a patchwork of unsettling oddities that don’t belong together. His frame is thin and wiry, his face sharp and angular with hollow cheeks. A patchwork of mismatched skin tones covers his body—prosthetic limbs, both legs and one arm, with dark seams running across his skin, as if he's not entirely human anymore. The most jarring thing is the goggles he wears—round, thick lenses obscuring his eyes, but instead of a clinical look, they give off a sense of something... off. His hands twitch, jerky movements, like they don’t quite belong to him.

  The more I stare at him, the more uncomfortable I feel. He doesn’t seem like he’s part of the clean, sleek Artebot world. The whole aesthetic here feels off—like a patchwork Frankenstein project gone wrong.

  “Dr. Vance," he greets, his voice jittery and nasal, almost as if he’s trying too hard to sound professional. “Please, have a seat.” His movements are quick and jerky, like he's perpetually in a hurry, but also unsure of himself.

  I glance at the chair, then back at him, and a chill runs through me. Something about this doesn't sit right.

  "Uh, what’s this all about?" I ask, trying to keep my voice steady, but the unease crawling up my spine betrays me.

  The doctor fiddles with the prosthetic arm, adjusting it with sharp, precise motions. “You don’t know why you’re here?” he asks, his head tilting as he looks at me from behind the goggles. I try to make sense of his expression through those lenses, but it’s impossible. They reflect everything and nothing at the same time.

  I shake my head, confusion clouding my thoughts.

  “I see, I see.” He makes a note on a nearby tablet, his other hand tapping rapidly at the screen. “Well, it seems you’ve been chosen for a special project. A very important one.” He pauses, looking me over like he’s sizing me up, before his hands move again, fidgeting with something on his desk. “It’s just a small procedure. Nothing to worry about.” His voice takes on an almost comforting tone, but there's an edge to it—something off.

  I can't help but feel that the room is closing in around me.

  “What kind of procedure?” I ask, my throat suddenly dry.

  The doctor steps closer, his gaze intense behind those damn goggles. “A small enhancement. A trial, if you will. Something that will... help you see things differently. Something to make you more... receptive to our work here at Artebot.” He says all of this with an unsettling calmness, but I can tell from his jerky movements that he’s not as calm as he’s trying to sound.

  I glance around, searching for any kind of escape, but the door is already closed. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t this.

  "Why me?" I ask, hoping to get some kind of answer, but the words feel weak in my mouth.

  He doesn’t respond immediately, his focus now shifting to a drawer in his desk, and when he opens it, I see syringes, vials, and other equipment that make my skin crawl. The smell of antiseptic in the air suddenly seems stronger.

  “Why you? Oh, I’m sure you’ll understand soon enough,” he mutters, clearly distracted by whatever he’s pulling out. “This is a necessary step. Don’t worry about the details. Just a small procedure, and you’ll be good as new.”

  My heart races. I take a step back, but there’s no room to move.

  The man slowly turns around, holding a syringe in his gloved hand. His fingers twitch as he holds it up.

  I don’t know what’s about to happen, but every instinct in my body is telling me I need to get out of here.

  I take another step back, but my voice falters. “What’s in that?”

  The doctor smiles behind those goggles, and for a moment, it feels like he’s sizing me up all over again.

  “Something to help you forget.”

  The door suddenly opens behind me, and I freeze, expecting someone else to come in. Instead, it’s just the man in the suit, who was with me in the car. He nods at the doctor, then looks at me.

  “It’s time,” he says.

  The doctor’s smile widens. “Indeed. Just relax. It’ll all be over before you know it.”

  I don’t know what’s coming, but I know I need to get out.

  As Dr. Vance steps closer, the syringe gleaming in his gloved hand, I take a step back, my mind scrambling for any kind of escape. My body feels heavy, like it's stuck in quicksand. I can barely breathe, the air thick with the sterile scent of the room. The closer he gets, the more I realize I have no idea what’s happening, and the more I realize I might not make it out of here.

  I glance at the door—too far to reach. The man in the suit is standing motionless by the entrance, watching me. No way out. My heart beats faster. The world starts to blur around the edges as the doctor takes another step forward.

  “Please… just let me go,” I choke out, my voice barely a whisper.

  Dr. Vance doesn’t respond, his gloved hand trembling slightly as he inches the syringe toward my arm. A sharp sensation races down my spine, and I brace myself, preparing for the sting of the needle.

  Then, everything goes black.

  I wake up choking on cold morning air.

  Dew clings to the grass around me. I’m lying in a field—far from the city—its distant towers silhouetted against a bruised, slowly brightening sky. The horizon glows in burnt orange, the sun dragging itself above the edge of the world.

  My head throbs. My arms feel like they’ve been torn open, heavy and tingling. I sit up slowly, and that’s when I notice it—

  Blood.

  All over my hands. My shirt. My pants. Dried, tacky in some places. Still wet in others. My pulse stutters.

  It’s not mine.

  Or maybe it is. I can’t tell.

  I try to stand, and the ache in my back nearly drops me again. My head spins as I get to my feet, shoes soaked from damp grass. I stagger a few steps before I hear her.

  “Don’t panic,” says a voice, soft, floating just behind me.

  I turn.

  April.

  She’s sitting cross-legged in the grass like nothing's wrong—wearing her usual hoodie and striped tights, chewing on the drawstring. Her expression is somewhere between pleased and guilty. There's a red smear on her cheek, like she wiped something off without thinking.

  “I saved you,” she says, her voice quiet in the morning calm. “Not just because I wanted to. But because you needed it too.”

  I stare at her. Words jam in my throat.

  “Seriously,” she continues, brushing her bangs aside. “That doctor... I don’t know what exactly he was going to do, but it wasn’t just some stupid injection. Something was wrong with him.”

  She picks a piece of grass, twisting it in her fingers.

  “They were gonna put something in you, Oskar. Something bad.”

  I try to speak, but my mouth feels like it’s filled with cotton. “How do you—”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know. I just know. I could feel it. And then... I don’t know how I did it, but I pulled you out.”

  I glance around. Nothing but open countryside in every direction. No car. No road. No people. Just the wind, the grass, and the distant hum of a waking city.

  “You’ve been out for hours,” she says softly. “I kept you safe.”

  I look at her again, really look. Her clothes aren’t torn. She’s not hurt. But there’s something different about her. She feels... stronger. Sharper. Like her edges are clearer.

  “How did we get here?” I finally manage, voice rough and low.

  She smiles, small and sad. “I don’t know. But you’re not dead. And that’s enough for now, right?”

  I glance down at my hands again.

  The blood.

  April stands up beside me. She doesn’t look scared.

  But I am.

  I don’t know what they were going to do to me.

  I don’t know what April did to stop it.

  I don’t know what’s in me now.

  And worst of all, I don’t know what’s coming next.

  My phone starts buzzing in my pocket—startling in the dead quiet of the countryside.

  I fumble for it, blood making the screen slick. Azuria flashes on the display.

  I hesitate for a second. I don’t even know what I’d say.

  Before I can answer, April reaches out and snatches the phone from my hand. “I got it,” she says, tapping accept before I can protest.

  “Hey! Zuri!” she chimes sweetly. Her voice is all sing-songy, airy. Not a trace of the serious, grounded tone she’d had back at the apartment. “Yeah, he’s fine. Little sleepy. Bloody. Probably hungry. But fine!”

  I hear Azuria’s voice through the speaker, faint but panicked. April rolls her eyes and spins on her heel, looking up at the sky as if that’ll help. “Relax, geez. We’re out past the Winden Hills. Like... way out. Sending a ping now.”

  She taps around the screen, then holds the phone up like she’s proud of herself. “There. Boom. GPS magic. Hurry though—he’s kinda... not great.”

  She ends the call before Azuria can respond.

  “Zuri’s on her way,” April says cheerfully, tossing the phone back to me like it’s nothing. “She sounded all tense and worried and commandery. Classic.”

  I catch it, my fingers barely working. “What the hell is this?” I ask, finally. “You’re acting like... like when we were kids.”

  She just grins at me, hands behind her back, swaying slightly like she’s standing in a breeze only she can feel.

  “What?” she says innocently. “Can’t a girl be happy she saved her best friend from being probed or brain-scooped or whatever was about to happen in that weird cyber-crypt?”

  I step back slightly, staring at her. “You haven’t acted like this in years. You’ve been serious. Distant. Angry. Ever since...”

  “Ever since I stopped being real?” she finishes for me.

  I flinch.

  April shrugs. “Maybe you just haven’t let yourself see this part of me for a long time. Or maybe... I’m changing.”

  “Changing?” I repeat. “You’re— You’re not even supposed to be anything. You’re just—”

  “Just a figment?” she interrupts again, but her tone isn’t hurt. She looks... amused. “A glitch in the brain? A girl made from loneliness and borrowed memories?”

  She takes a step closer, then taps her temple with a blood-streaked finger.

  “I may not be real, Oskar. But I’m still here. And I saved you. So maybe let me be happy for five minutes, huh?”

  She twirls once in the grass, laughing. It’s light. Genuine. Carefree. Just like when we were kids running down city alleys barefoot in summer storms.

  It should feel warm.

  It doesn’t.

  Something’s off.

  Something is very off.

  I just don’t know if it’s her…

  Or me.

  April hums some old, tuneless melody as she walks a lazy circle around me, arms behind her back like she’s pretending to be some kind of tour guide in a museum of horror. I stay sitting in the grass, sticky with blood, too dazed to move or even really think straight. The sun’s risen a little more now, casting everything in that eerie golden light that makes the countryside look fake—like a painting or a dream.

  She crouches in front of me after a while, chin resting on her knees.

  “You’re quiet,” she says.

  I don’t respond. Not because I’m angry, though I probably should be. It’s more like I don’t trust my own voice right now. There’s a tightness in my throat. Still no memory of what happened after Dr. Vance tried to stick that needle in me. Just black. Then this. Blood. And April.

  She doesn’t seem to mind the silence. Just sits there, gazing at me like I’m some animal she found on the side of the road and isn’t quite sure what to do with.

  “Hey,” she finally says, tilting her head. “You don’t hate me, right?”

  I blink slowly, then glance at her. She’s smiling. Softly, this time. Not the grin. Not the giggle. Just... a kind of vulnerability I hadn’t seen in a long time.

  Or maybe ever.

  “You were gonna get rid of me,” she adds, picking at a blade of grass. “With the Venom. Just erase me.”

  Still I say nothing. I don’t need to. She already knows.

  April lies back in the grass, arms stretched out, eyes watching the sky.

  “I’m not mad, y’know,” she says. “I get it. I was the ghost of a time you outgrew. Something that helped, but then... I stayed too long. Became something else.”

  A distant hum pulls me out of the fog in my head. Tires on gravel.

  I sit up.

  April does too, turning to look.

  Azuria’s car pulls into view over the ridge, sleek, matte black like always. Even from here, I can tell how fast she must’ve been going.

  She brakes hard and the vehicle comes to a smooth stop. The door swings open almost before the engine’s fully cut.

  She runs toward me.

  April stands beside me and watches, her expression unreadable.

  “I’ll go,” she whispers, just loud enough for me to hear. “She’s better for you. You know that. But I’ll still be around. You don’t have to say anything.”

  And just like that, she’s gone again. Not vanished. Just... no longer there.

  I barely have a second to process before Azuria’s in front of me, crouched down, hands on my shoulders, scanning me with a sharp, worried gaze.

  “Are you okay?” she says. “What the hell happened? You’re covered in—Oskar, talk to me.”

  I look at her, trying to ground myself. Her voice. Her presence. Her reality.

  “I don’t know,” I finally manage.

  And I mean it.

  Azuria doesn’t let go of my shoulders. Her grip’s firm but careful, like she’s afraid I’ll collapse if she stops touching me. She scans me again—eyes flicking over the blood, the scratches on my arms, the torn fabric near my collar. Her expression keeps tightening with every second she spends examining me. Something’s not adding up for her.

  “Who did this?” she asks, panicked like a worried mother. “What happened to you?”

  I don’t know what to say. I can only tell her, “Artebot… I don’t know… they tried to do something to me.”

  “Artebot?”

  I nod slowly. “There was an Artebot car waiting for me outside work,” I say quietly. “Same kind of setup as last time—clean black sedan, guys in suits, polite tones… It felt harmless then. So I got in.”

  Azuria’s hands tighten on the wheel, just slightly.

  “But now…” I trail off, shaking my head. “Now I’ll think twice.”

  She doesn't respond right away. Her jaw clenches, like she's holding back a hundred different thoughts all at once.

  “Dr. Vance or whatever his name was. I think… I think he tried to inject me with something.”

  Her lips part slightly, like she’s about to say something but then bites it back. She stands, offers me a hand, and I take it. My legs are shaky but they hold. She pulls me in gently, an arm around my side as she walks me back toward the car.

  “We need to get you cleaned up,” she says. “I’ll run diagnostics when we get home. I want to make sure they didn’t implant anything in you.”

  Her voice is clinical now. Back in control. The Azuria who solves problems. The Azuria who doesn’t panic.

  We don’t talk on the drive. I sit in the passenger seat, watching the countryside blur past, trying to piece together the hours I lost. I keep thinking about April. The way she acted. The way she looked at me.

  She said she saved me.

  Not just for herself, but for me.

  I can’t make sense of it. It feels too layered, too strange to be one of my own delusions. If she’s just in my head, how did she get me out of that building? How did I end up in the middle of nowhere alive?

  Azuria glances at me from the driver’s seat.

  “You said Vance tried to inject you. Did he say what it was?”

  I shake my head. “He just kept saying it was going to help. Never specified what exactly he was going to put in me.”

  She exhales slowly through her nose. “Venom?” she asks quietly.

  I hesitate, then nod. “Could’ve been. Or something worse.”

  She grips the steering wheel tighter. “You shouldn’t have gone alone.”

  “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “I know,” she says. “Doesn’t make it easier.”

  “Well, technically I wasn’t alone. After all April did save me.”

  “Oskar, you can’t let her take control like that again. It could be dangerous.”

  We fall silent after that. I know Azuria is right, but I can’t shake that April really did want me alive. Or did she want her self alive? I’ll have to figure that out at some point.

  “Do you have any information on this Vance guy?”

  “A little bit. Not many people know him at all,” she says. “He’s not part of Artebot’s main circle. I’ve only heard of him through buried reports and old employee logs—his name comes up when things go sideways. Projects that disappear. People who vanish after meetings. He’s not officially on their roster anymore, but they still use him when they need something done… quietly.”

  “So they sent a ghost after me,” I mutter.

  She doesn’t respond. Doesn’t need to.

  “I don’t even know what he was going to do,” I say. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t routine.”

  “You’re lucky you made it out,” Azuria says softly. “And you’re lucky she was with you.”

  I don’t say anything. Just watch the mansion gates open in front of us.

  As we pull into the garage, I murmur, “I’m done trusting politeness.”

  Azuria nods, kills the engine. “Good.”

  We step out into the dim light of the garage. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I feel April’s presence, hovering. Watching.

  But right now, I’m just glad to be home.

  “Don’t track that blood upstairs,” she calls without even looking at me. “Downstairs bathroom. I’ll get it ready.”

  The light flickers on as she pushes open the door. I follow slowly, sticky and sore, my boots leaving faint, red-tinted marks on the floor. She moves fast, already laying out towels and turning on the tap.

  “I’ll grab you a clean shirt,” she adds, then glances back at me. Her eyes linger for a second. Not worried. Calculating. “Try not to touch anything.”

  By the time I finish cleaning up, she’s waiting in the lounge, standing perfectly still like she’s been paused there, eyes tracking something distant through the glass doors.

  I sink down onto the couch across from her. My limbs feel heavier now that the adrenaline’s gone.

  Neither of us speaks at first. Then she turns to me, eyes unreadable.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  I shrug. “I’ll be good.”

  She tilts her head slightly but doesn’t press further. Instead, she simply watches me, her gaze steady, waiting for me to continue.

  “I’ve been thinking,” I say. “About everything that’s been happening. The corps. What they’ve done. The way they act like nothing’s wrong.”

  Azuria steps closer, her posture still rigid, but there’s something softer in her eyes now. “It’s always been that way. They’re machines, too. Just on a bigger scale.”

  I think about that for a moment, then ask, “Do you think it’s too late to stop them? The bigger ones?”

  She seems to consider it for a second. “It’s never too late. But it’s also never simple.”

  I look at her, seeing the faintest flicker of something behind her usual calm composure. “Then what do we do now?”

  Azuria doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she steps toward the window, watching the last remnants of sunlight disappear. The room grows darker as the night settles in.

  After a long pause, she turns back to me. “We wait for them to make their next move. And when they do, we’ll be ready.”

  I nod slowly. It’s all I can do for now.

  She’s right — the next move will come. They always do. And when it does, maybe we can finally figure out how to stop it.