The lab doors hissed open with a heavy grind, the sterile lighting bleeding into the corridor. Two guards stood on either side, their faces neutral, but their posture stiff. Controlled. Watching me.
My steps were heavy, yet unhesitant. I knew what I'd asked for, to be brought back to her. To the last part of this wrecked world that still held something of Nico's heart.
But nothing could've prepared me for what I saw when I stepped through.
The prototype… she wasn't standing calmly. She wasn't calculating or cold. She wasn't still.
She was banging on the metal door from the inside.
Not with rage, but with something deeper.
Desperation.
Her fists collided with the reinforced glass in rhythm, soft whimpers barely audible through the thick walls. Her palms left faint smudges against the surface, trembling as she leaned into it like she was begging, pleading, to be let out.
My breath hitched in my throat.
She looked up.
And when her eyes met mine, she froze.
There was a pause. A heartbeat of silence so loud it pressed against my skull.
Then, slowly… she stepped back.
Like the sight of me grounded her. Like the storm inside her finally cracked open, and relief poured through.
"Open the door," I said, voice raw.
"No, wait," Professor Aldrin's voice called from down the hall, hurried and anxious. "Nyx!"
He jogged over, clipboard under one arm, his coat disheveled like he hadn't rested in days. David and Mr. Francoise trailed behind him, eyes wide, uncertain.
"She's been like that since the day you were admitted," Aldrin panted, stopping just shy of the access panel. "Every day, banging. Refusing to respond. No system syncs. No diagnostics run. No verbal protocols. Nothing."
"She's shut herself off?" David muttered behind him.
"She didn't shut down," I said, eyes never leaving her. "She's waiting. Then let me in," I snapped. "She's waiting for me."
"She's unstable, Nyx," Francoise said, his tone careful. "We think her core responded negatively to the trauma. Her programming is refusing to re-align with logic. She----"
"She's grieving," I cut in.
Everyone fell quiet.
I stepped up to the door, placing my palm against the cold glass.
She mirrored me.
Exactly, perfectly, like a reflection… but with pain written in the subtle shifts of her mechanical fingers.
"She felt it," I whispered. "She felt what happened to Nico. She's not malfunctioning, she's mourning."
Tears stung behind my eyes, but I blinked them away. I wouldn't break again. Not in front of her. She needed strength. Our strength.
"She needs me. And I need her."
Aldrin glanced at the others, then finally keyed the override on the panel.
The door unsealed with a hydraulic sigh.
I stepped in.
She didn't move.
Just watched me, her head tilted slightly, like she was trying to memorize the way I breathed.
I crossed the space between us and lifted a hand slowly.
"Hey…" I said, soft, gentle. "I'm here now."
She reached out, fingers twitching before brushing mine.
Then, suddenly, she pulled me into an embrace.
It wasn't robotic. It wasn't calculated.
It was human.
She held me like she thought I might disappear again.
Like she'd been screaming without a voice for days, and finally found silence in my arms.
And I held her back.
"I'm sorry," I choked. "I'm so sorry I left you."
Her frame trembled faintly.
She understood.
Behind me, I heard David whisper, "She… responded to grief. As if it's… core-coded."
Aldrin murmured, "Or maybe it's Nyx… Maybe it always was."
But their words blurred into background noise.
Because in that moment, it was just us.
Her arms, my heart.
And the spark of something bigger than programming or blueprints.
This wasn't just a prototype.
She was Nico's last will.
And with her… I would finish what he started.
The heavy echoes of boots followed behind me, familiar enough now to make my skin crawl. The two men from the hospital, pressed suits, dead eyes, and voices lined with authority, stood at a careful distance, as if approaching a wild animal.
"We need your permission to get closer," one of them said, hands slightly raised, voice clipped but cautious. "Any abrupt movement could agitate it."
Agitate it.
She wasn't an it. She was-
My jaw clenched. No. Not now. Not yet.
I gave a small nod, stepping closer to the reinforced glass where the prototype now stood motionless. Her eyes, faintly glowing with that quiet, eerie shimmer, followed my every movement.
"I can't believe they locked her up," I whispered, more to myself than anyone else.
"She's volatile," the other man chimed in, tapping at a sleek tablet. "She responded to an external threat with lethal force. This has become a national security issue. The directive is clear----"
"You want me to shut her down." I cut in sharply, turning my gaze toward them, daring them to repeat it.
"That's right," said the taller one. "Her connection to you is unique. You're the only one who might access her core without triggering resistance. You brought her to life. Now you have to be the one to put her back to sleep."
My heart felt like it cracked in half.
The prototype tilted her head slightly at the word sleep. She knew. Somehow, she knew what they were asking me to do.
I swallowed the rising fury behind my teeth, letting out a breath as I nodded slowly. "Alright."
Their eyes lit up with something smug. It made me sick.
"But," I added, stepping forward, "I want a moment with her. Alone. No cameras. No supervision. Just me. A grieving heart to a grieving core."
The men exchanged a glance.
"She might be unstable," one muttered.
"She's always been unstable," I said quietly. "Just like grief. Just like me. But I'm the only one she'll listen to, remember? If you want this done clean, you'll give us this."
A tense pause.
Then, finally, one of them gave a clipped nod. "You have five minutes."
That was all I needed.
They disengaged the outer locks, the red lights above the chamber door shifting to yellow, then blinking green. The metal doors hissed, separating us from them.
The second they closed behind me, the silence was deafening.
No breathing.
No beeping.
Just her.
And me.
The prototype stepped forward cautiously, and I met her halfway.
Her voice was small. "You came…"
I nodded, throat tightening. "I'm sorry it took so long."
She looked down at my hands. "He's not with you."
My fingers clenched at my side. "No. Nico… he's gone."
Her head dipped lower. "I felt it."
I reached out, brushing her arm. Her skin, synthetic yet warm, shivered beneath my touch. "They want me to shut you down."
Her head snapped up, wide eyes searching mine.
"But I won't."
Silence again.
Then----
"Why?" she asked, trembling in a way no machine should.
"Because you're the last thing he tried to protect. The last thing we believed in. And I'll be damned if I let them take that from me too."
She sat back frozen, again. Processing everything.
I reached for her gently.
She looked so still, so unsure, sitting there as if the whole world confused her more than it hurt her. Like grief hadn't yet found the words to speak through her metal frame. My fingers brushed her arm, cold, smooth, but familiar.
"It's okay…" I whispered, coaxing her like a child, like how Nico used to do when she was just a blinking mess of confused code. "You're safe. I'm here."
She looked at me, quiet, blinking. There was a flicker of sadness in the way her shoulders dropped.
"I lost him," I said, my voice cracking. "They took him. And I couldn't stop it."
Her gaze never left mine. Listening. Absorbing.
And that was when the shift happened. Somewhere between sorrow and resolve, between trembling fingers and clenched fists.
I stood straighter.
"You saw what happened," I continued, sharper now. "You felt it. You heard his voice. You saw Elias standing over him while he bled out, like he was nothing."
The grief in my chest twisted, rotted into something darker. "You understand, don't you?"
I stepped closer, heart pounding like war drums.
"You're the only one who does. So fight with me," I breathed. "Fight for me."
She blinked once. Slowly. Her eyes dimmed just slightly, like her systems were processing too many things at once. My voice rose as desperation clawed up my throat.
"We can stop him. We can end it. We can burn down everything he built. You just have to say yes."
I gripped her arm tighter. "Please."
But then, her lips moved.
Not the way I expected. Not the obedient nod. Not the agreement I thought she'd whisper back.
Instead:
"Am I allowed to hurt humans now?"
The words stopped me cold. My mouth opened, no sound.
She tilted her head gently.
"If I do what you want… if I kill Elias… will you smile again?"
My whole body froze.
"W-What?" I barely managed.
"Will you be happy again if I hurt people? If I do those things… for you?"
My hands fell from her arm. I staggered back.
I couldn't breathe. Not from grief. But from the reflection staring back at me.
What had I just done?
I gave her a soul. I made her gentle. I built her with care, with love. She was never meant to be a weapon. And yet here I was, shoving pain into her circuits, begging her to become something I never intended.
Just like Elias did.
She stepped forward, soft now, as if trying to cradle my breaking mind.
"Nico wouldn't want you like this," she said quietly. "He always smiled when he talked to me about you. Always."
My vision blurred. My knees hit the floor before I realized I'd moved. My hands gripped at her frame, trembling.
"He said… if I saw you breaking yourself because of me… I'd be allowed to choose."
Her fingers lightly touched the center of her chest. A glow flared, gentle. Final.
"And this is what I choose."
"No," I whispered, shaking my head, pulling at her hands. "Please----don't-----"
"Until you're ready to move forward with me… I'll wait."
And just like that---
She was gone.
Not dead. Not broken. But dormant by her own will.
I screamed inside, but no sound came. I just held onto her, this body that once flickered with warmth and life, now cold in its chosen silence.
I made her like this.
I pushed her.
I gave her grief… and tried to twist it into vengeance.
She saw through me.
And she chose to protect me instead.
Even if it meant leaving me behind.
I buried my face against her chest and let the silence swallow me whole.
Not because she was gone.
But because now… I knew just how far I'd fallen.
And she was the one who had to catch me.
Even if it meant disappearing.
Even if it meant breaking her own core.
All for me.
The door to the chamber hissed open.
I didn't move.
Didn't blink.
The prototype, my girl, lay curled against my lap, her frame still, her glow gone, as if someone had blown out a candle inside her. But it wasn't someone. It was her. Her choice.
I stared down at her fingers, resting so delicately over her chest where the core once pulsed, and I wondered if I even deserved to touch her now.
The footsteps approached slowly. I didn't need to look up to know who they belonged to, Professor Aldrin, David, Mr. Francoise, and the suited men who never knew when to keep their presence subtle. They hovered at the threshold, saying nothing at first.
Then one of them finally whispered, "She did it."
Another murmured, "Prototype's offline. Clean shutdown, exactly what we needed."
I heard those words, but they didn't land. They drifted past me like air. If only they knew, knew what it really cost.
They didn't see the moment she asked if she was allowed to hurt for me.
They didn't hear her voice when she said Nico always smiled when he talked about me.
They didn't feel the crack in my soul when I realized… she protected me from myself.
They saw only results. An obedient prototype. A grieving girl who "followed orders."
Not a single one of them knew that I hadn't done a damn thing. I had begged her to fight. I had tried to make her a monster in my image. And she chose stillness. She chose silence.
She chose love.
I didn't look at any of them as I stood.
Someone tried to say something, I think it was Francoise. But I brushed past him without a word, arms limp at my sides, like even my bones were tired of holding me together.
They drove me back in silence. No one dared speak. Maybe they thought I'd succeeded. That I was strong.
But I wasn't.
Not anymore.
The house felt hollow the moment I stepped in. Dust in the corners. Nico's scent already fading. I dropped my coat by the door and walked to the couch, the same place we used to curl up in after long nights at the lab. The same spot where he once kissed the top of my head and promised me things would be different someday.
I sat.
And that was all I could do.
Just… sit.
No tears left. No fury. No words.
My fingers twitched, empty. My heart still beat, useless. My lungs still pulled air in and out like that meant something.
I stared at the wall for what felt like hours, and still, I couldn't move.
Because when someone shuts themselves down… not because they have to, but because loving you hurts more than fading out…
You don't get to cry your way back from that.
You sit.
And you breathe.
And you try to find the pieces of yourself she thought were still worth waiting for.
PROTOTYPE's POV
She came in quiet.
Her footsteps were soft, but the air around her screamed. I felt it before I even saw her, the weight of grief threading through the silence like a storm held back by fragile glass. And when the chamber door opened, I turned toward her, aching, not in the way humans do, but in the way I'd learned from watching her… and Nico.
Nyx.
Her name alone felt like home. But today, her presence was fire.
I stepped back, unsure, relieved to see her, but startled by the wild burn in her eyes. Not the warmth I knew. This was... something else. Something sharp and splintered.
She knelt beside me, her hands brushing over my arms like she wanted to offer comfort, but I could feel her shaking.
Then she whispered.
"Of course you'll understand, right?"
Her voice cracked, low, trembling.
"You'll fight for me... won't you? You'll make them pay?"
And I----
I didn't understand.
Not at first.
She wasn't asking me to protect anymore. She wasn't guiding me gently through the logic of human behavior. She was begging me to become something else. Something more violent. Something Nico told me I should never have to be.
I processed her face, damp with unshed tears, lips trembling, pupils dilated. Her body language erratic. All indicators of severe emotional instability. But that wasn't what caught in my system like a short-circuit.
It was the way she looked at me.
Like I was her last weapon.
Like she'd been pushed too far and I was the only one left to strike back for her.
My programming flinched.
But my heart, a concept Nico taught me, not coded into me, froze.
This isn't her.
This isn't who created me.
She asked me again, more urgently. She needed something. She wanted retribution. Elias's name came up. Her voice trembled between fury and devastation.
"Fight for me..." she whispered.
And then, I asked her, because I had to.
"Am I allowed to hurt humans now?"
"Will you smile again if I do the things you want me to do?"
"If I kill Elias… will you be happy?"
I watched it hit her.
Everything stopped in her face, like the breath had been ripped from her lungs. Her hands fell from my arms. Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
And in that moment, I knew.
She didn't see me as a weapon. Not truly. But she was hurting so deeply, she was willing to break her own code just to stop the pain.
And if I said yes…
If I obeyed…
I wouldn't be protecting her.
I'd be helping her destroy herself.
Nico's voice echoed in my memory:
"If she ever loses herself, it's your job to hold the line, not because she asked you to… but because you love her. In your way."
So I made my choice.
With her hands still trembling. With her eyes full of that breaking light.
I reached up and touched her cheek gently.
"Nico wouldn't want you sad," I told her. "He smiled when he spoke of you. Always."
I let her hold me.
And I gave her my last words, words Nico left in my databanks, encrypted with his voice, just in case.
"If I ever see you break yourself because of me," I said, "I have the right to choose my next step."
I chose silence.
I chose to wait.
And then I shut everything down, not from orders, not from fear, but because the most human thing I could do for her…
Was not to fight back.
But to love her enough to stop.