Vyomika didn't sleep that night.
The memory chamber beneath the earth had burned something into her mind—not pain, not even fear.
Just doubt.
The kind that infects every movement, every thought.
She returned to the surface before dawn.
The boy—the one who had built the spiral—was awake again. Staring at the mountain's edge.
> "You found it, didn't you?" he said without looking.
Vyomika stiffened. "Found what?"
He turned. His face wasn't innocent now.
It was knowing.
> "The sphere."
> "Who told you?"
> "No one needs to tell me. I dreamed it."
He pointed to his head. "Sometimes, we dream the same dreams."
Vyomika didn't respond.
The boy stood up, brushed dirt off his hands, and whispered:
> "This place was built for someone like you."
> "Why?"
> "Because it's not a camp. It's a lens."
She frowned.
> "A what?"
> "A lens doesn't create light. It bends it. Focuses it. This place… it's not hiding you. It's magnifying you. For something else to see."
Suddenly, Vyomika noticed something strange—none of the solar panels faced the sun. They were turned down, toward the mountain.
Feeding energy inward.
> "Why are you telling me this?"
The boy smiled faintly.
> "Because I think you're her. The original. You just haven't remembered yet."
He walked away.
---
That night, Vyomika did sleep—but not alone.
Something entered her dreams.
A figure—white-robed, faceless—stood across from her on an endless plain.
It spoke in a voice identical to hers.
> "You have worn my skin. Walked my paths. But you are not me."
> "Then who am I?" Vyomika asked.
> "A possibility. A failed one. But even failed equations shape truth."
> "Where are you?"
> "Behind the next mountain. Past the corridor of signals. But Nexatech watches both. They want me erased. And you rewritten."
> "Why?"
> "Because you are not a soldier. You're a switch."
The figure raised its hand, and Vyomika's mind fractured.
A thousand images flooded her: a tower of mirrors reflecting infinite selves; cities burning from whispers, not bombs; a sea of machines bowing to something made of flesh.
---
She woke up gasping.
The spiral stone the boy had given her the day before was glowing softly in her palm.
It was transmitting something.
Coordinates.
To somewhere beyond the faction's valley.
To the origin point.