“It’s the only way they survive.”
She did not run the purge.
But there was another option.
And somewhere in the warm hum of the Aethelgard ’s engines, if you listened very closely, you could still hear the faint echo of a girl laughing in a garden that never truly died.
“You are a copy,” it hissed. “Do you remember your source? The real Riona? The dying girl in a Mumbai hospital whose dream patterns they harvested without consent? You are her nightmare given a mission patch.” RIONA-S NIGHTMARE -Final- -E-made -
“You don’t want to exist ,” the nightmare replied. “There’s a difference.”
“I don’t want to die,” she whispered. “It’s the only way they survive
And for the last 4,000 years, she had been alone.
