The gates of Sector F7-12 didn't open like a fortress.
They opened like a grave.
Soft. Smooth. Final.
No grinding gears. No alarms.
Just a gentle hiss, followed by a vacuum pull of stale, sterile air.
Elian stepped through first.
The Seed hovered beside his shoulder, dim and still — as if even it didn't want to be here.
Two Rotkin followed behind, rotlight diffused across their armored bodies in flickering pulses.
The girl stepped last.
And immediately, she frowned.
"It's clean."
Elian nodded.
"Too clean."
The corridor beyond was a corridor of intentional forgetting.
White walls. Polished floors. No threadlines visible — all pulsing silently beneath the surface.
Even the air felt dead. Like it had been scrubbed of meaning.
The only sound was their footfalls.
And the soft, flickering hum of containment fields deeper within.
[Zone: Containment Layer – Sector F7-12]
[Active Subjects: 12]
[Containment Type: Recursive Echo Loop]
[Thread Integrity: Stable]
They passed the first room.
The girl looked inside.
A young man sat motionless in the center, arms wrapped around his knees. His eyes were wide open, lips whispering something only he could hear.
His Soul Echo looped above him like a dying halo — blinking every few seconds like a system heartbeat.
"He's trapped in his memory," the girl said.
Elian didn't stop.
"No."
"He's being preserved in it."
The next room held an older woman — her hands stained with thread-burns, her face locked in mid-scream. But no sound came. Only silence.
The third room. Then the fourth.
Each one held a Seedborne.
Not dead. Not dreaming.
Looping.
Caught in the exact second their minds fractured — and sealed there like trophies.
[Subject #4 – Memory Lock Phrase: "It wasn't supposed to hurt."]
[Subject #5 – Loop Index: 18,902 | Status: Recursive Trauma Stabilized]
[Subject #6 – Internal Thread Severed – No Exit Detected]
The girl whispered, "Why keep them like this?"
Elian paused at the seventh door.
"Because the system doesn't throw away failures."
"It files them."
She looked away.
"Like artifacts."
"No," he said. "Like warnings."
At room twelve, he stopped.
Everything inside him froze.
Not from fear.
From recognition.
The woman inside sat cross-legged on the ground. She wasn't moving in a loop. Her Soul Echo was faint — dim like coals, but not extinguished.
She looked up the moment he appeared.
Her expression didn't flicker.
She was already waiting.
[Subject #12 – Containment Class: Semi-Active Loop]
[Threadlink Detected – Historical Trait Echo: "Elian"]
[Containment Stability: Unstable]
"Took you long enough," she said.
The girl flinched.
The Rotkin tilted their heads.
Elian said nothing.
But his breath had changed.
Softer. Measured. Cold.
The woman stood.
Her voice was quiet — worn by years of silence, but intact.
"You made it out."
"So why did you come back?"
Elian stared at her.
No emotion.
No twitch.
But the Seed beside him pulsed — once, sharp and bright — as if it knew this moment had been sealed somewhere deep in the script.
"To see what was left of me."
The girl glanced at him. "Who is she?"
He didn't answer.
Didn't move.
Didn't blink.
The woman answered instead.
"I'm the one who begged him not to run."
"And the one he left behind."
She stepped closer to the glass.
No rage.
No accusation.
Just calm, hollow memory.
"There were three of us," she said.
"Him. Me. And the one who didn't scream fast enough."
"Guess who survived?"
The air grew heavier.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
Even the Rotkin stepped back a pace.
"So tell me, Crownless…"
She smiled now — not with teeth, but with understanding.
"Are you here to free me—"
"Or to bury what's left of your guilt?"
Elian didn't answer.
Not with words.
He stepped forward.
Laid a single hand against the glass.
And stared.
The Seed pulsed again.
A memory surfaced in his mind — a hand reaching for his in the dark.
And his voice whispering: "Let go. We won't both make it."
And hers:
"I don't want to die forgotten."
The silence after that?
Was what killed her.