Dahlia stared at her door.
White. Clean. Sterile. Too clean. It looked like a surgical theater—one she'd worked in countless times before, one that had once felt like sanctuary. Now it looked like judgment.
It didn't open. It waited.
The others had already begun stepping through their own doors. Some with reluctance, others with grim resolve. Jonah had gone first. Silent. Head bowed. As if he'd known exactly what would be waiting for him on the other side. Elian had paused longest, murmured something no one could hear, and vanished through a digital shimmer that looked like a thousand faces fracturing.
Val's door had pulsed with a low hum—like it breathed darkness—and she entered without looking back.
But Dahlia… hesitated.
Her fingers hovered near the handle.
Was it a test? A trap? Or something worse—something honest?
She stepped forward.
The door opened the moment her skin touched it.
---
Light.
So much light.
She blinked, shielding her eyes. Then gasped.
She was standing in an operating room.
Exactly as she remembered it.
The tiles were pale seafoam. The overhead surgical lights hummed faintly. Every tool was laid out precisely, the air smelled faintly of iodine and latex—and she knew this moment.
Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. Literally.
This was the day.
The day her patient died.
---
The figure lay on the table.
Male. Mid-forties. Critical cardiac trauma.
Dahlia remembered every second.
The staff was frozen. Like mannequins. The monitors beeped steadily, ignoring the urgency they were supposed to warn.
This wasn't just memory.
This was reenactment.
Her hands moved without command, guided by muscle memory and guilt.
She took a scalpel.
Made the incision.
Blood flowed.
Her assistant stood to the side—gazing at her, lifeless.
Her heart raced. The same panic. The same miscalculation. The clamp hadn't held. The retractor had slipped. She'd hesitated—just one second too long.
But now…
The retractor didn't slip.
Her hand was steady.
The incision was clean.
The heart still pulsed.
"What…?" she whispered.
The patient was still alive.
She had a chance to save him.
But something in her chest tightened.
Was this a second chance—or a lie?
---
A voice echoed—familiar and alien.
"You didn't kill him."
She turned.
A woman stood across the room, dressed identically to her, but older. Tired. Hair grayer. But the same. Not just similar—her.
Older. Wiser. Hollow.
"You told yourself it was your fault," the reflection said. "Because that was easier than the truth."
Dahlia dropped the scalpel. It clanged on the floor, cold and final.
"What truth?"
"That you couldn't save everyone. That medicine is a system. That perfection is a myth. That people die even when you do everything right."
She shook her head. "No. I panicked. I flinched."
"You're not a god," the voice said. "You're a human being with limits. The guilt isn't about what you did. It's about who you thought you were."
---
Dahlia staggered back. The light dimmed.
The room blurred around her, spinning into abstraction.
Words floated in the air like data.
DOCTOR. DAUGHTER. FAILURE. GOD COMPLEX. DETACHMENT. CONTROL.
They spun faster, weaving into a lattice above her head.
Then: CONFESSION ACCEPTED.
A pulse of warmth flooded through her.
She fell to her knees.
Tears burned down her cheeks—not for the patient, not for the mistake.
But for the release.
She hadn't cried when he died.
She hadn't cried in ten years.
But now, as the chamber dissolved into soft white haze, Dahlia sobbed like a child. Not in shame—but in relief.
---
When the light cleared, she was standing in a corridor.
The others were arriving, one by one, through their doors.
Jonah looked shaken but lighter. Elian had tears dried on his face. Val didn't meet anyone's eyes, but she walked like someone who had survived something no one else could understand.
Adrian stood at the end of the hallway, waiting.
Behind him: a final set of stairs.
Above it: a door of shimmering silver.
"No more lies," he said.
"No more walls."
Jonah stepped forward. "Then what's next?"
Adrian's voice was low, almost reverent.
"Judgment."