operational waste | one.
synopsis. caleb made a mistake when interpreting the anonymous threatening note, and so did you in thinking you can change a code-backed destiny.
pairing. caleb xia x isekai’d! non-mc! reader
content. fem!reader, non-mc!reader, isekai’d!reader, reincarnation!au, unrequited love (?), a ton of angst, slowburn (caleb’s not really here), hurt/no comfort (?), maybe ooc!caleb, caleb doesn’t know you’re isekai’d, TW: EVER, TW: allusion to TORTURE, medical malpractice, degradation (the ever guy mocks you), evil plan incoming, self-deprication, low self-esteem, TW: allusion to CAR ACCIDENT.
word count. 5.1k
a/n. i finally got around proofreading this! sadly i had to divide it into two (or more) parts. thanks to @hajimeowmeow and the brilliant prompt that generated all this! i hope you all enjoy my take on this. please let me know your thoughts! feedback and reblogs are deeply appreciated.
the rain in skyhaven was a particular kind of mournful. it didn’t fall so much as it seeped, a constant, misty drizzle that blurred the neon signs into weeping watercolor smears against the grim sky. from your apartment window, you watched it paint the world in shades of grey, a perfect mirror to the hollow ache that had taken up permanent residence in your chest.
your fingers traced the cold glass, following the path of a single, stubborn drop. it was the same path your tears had taken three weeks ago.
three weeks since caleb had left.
•••
the memory was a shard of glass in your gut. he’d stood right there, by the door, his bag slung over one shoulder, his face — the face you loved with a terrifying, all-consuming ferocity — etched with a worry that wasn’t for you.
“it’s emcee.” he’d said, voice tight, not meeting your eyes. he’d shown you the letter, the crisp, anonymous paper that felt like poison in your hands. threatening black ink: we will take what you love most. “they’re targeting her. this has ever’s fingerprints all over it. i have to go. she’s in linkon, all alone. you understand, right?”
you’d understood, of course. you’d understood with a clarity that shattered something fundamental inside you. emcee, his childhood friend, his first love, the sun around which his universe had once orbited. the girl you’d somehow, miraculously, momentarily eclipsed.
you, the isekai’d anomaly, the unexpected variable who’d charmed the hero away from the destined heroine.
or so you’d foolishly believed.
“caleb.” you’d whispered, your hand finding his, your touch pleading. “the threat… it could be ambiguous. what if it’s…?”
what if it’s me? the words died in your throat, too pathetic, too needy to voice.
he’d squeezed your hand, but it was an absent gesture, his mind already a hundred miles away in linkon, at emcee’s side. “don’t be silly. ever is after her unique evol, her potential. they’ve wanted her for years. you’re not...”
not important.
“i’ll be back as soon as this is sorted.”
he’d kissed your forehead. a kiss of duty, of distraction. not the deep, desperate kisses that used to leave you breathless against this very door. then he was gone, the click of the latch sounding like the snap of a bone.
•••
the first week was worry. the second, a slow-burning anxiety. the third… the third was the quiet, suffocating descent of doubt. your calls became less frequent, his answers clipped, always with her in the background. you could hear her laugh sometimes, bright and familiar, a sound that used to bring you joy but now felt like a twist of the knife.
“hey, can’t talk long.” he’d say, voice lowered, a tinge of irritation in his tone. “she’s… she’s really scared. i have to be here for her.”
who’s being here for me? you’d scream inside your own mind as you hummed and hung up the call.
the apartment, once a cozy nest of shared moments, now felt like a museum of your own naivety. you knew you had no place in caleb’s life. heck, you had no place in this world, but something gave you hope.
that hope seemed to have been misplaced.
•••
you were brushing your teeth, staring at your own hollow-eyed reflection in the bathroom mirror, when the lights flickered and died. not just yours — the entire building plunged into an unnatural, swallowing darkness.
the hum of the city outside vanished, replaced by a silence so profound it rang in your ears.
your heart jumped into your throat. power surge, you tried to tell yourself. city grid issue.
but the air changed.
it grew cold, sterile, smelling of antiseptic and something dangerous — something like charged metal, like the air before a lightning strike. you stumbled out of the bathroom, your bare feet cold on the floorboards.
a soft, blue light emanated from your living room. not the warm glow of a screen, but a cold, clinical luminescence. two figures stood there, clad in sleek, black uniforms with a single, stark insignia on their chests: ever.
your breath hitched, frozen in your lungs.
“subject located.” one of them stated, the voice filtered, genderless, and devoid of any inflection. it was the sound of a machine confirming a command.
a whimper escaped your lips, dry and pathetic. you took a stumbling step back, your shoulder hitting the doorframe of the bathroom. the cold of the wood seeped through your thin sleep shirt.
they’re here for me.
the realization didn’t dawn; it detonated.
it wasn’t a suspicion anymore. it was a truth, sharp and jagged, carving out your insides. the letter, the threat... caleb had assumed. he had decided. he had looked at you, heard your unspoken fear, and dismissed it with a distracted kiss.
he had deemed emcee’s potential, her history, her place in this world’s narrative, more worthy of protection than your entire existence.
grief, black and tar-like, surged up your throat, mingling with the unpleasant taste of panic. it wasn’t just the fear of the agents, of the unknown horrors ever represented. it was the utter, soul-crushing betrayal. he wasn’t here. he was in another city, playing guardian to another, while the real threat slithered through the darkness he’d left you in.
you had been assessed and found lacking.
“stay back!” you screamed, the sound raw and ragged in the consuming quiet. you grabbed the first thing your hands found — a heavy ceramic mug from the sink, a stupid gift you’d bought together at a street fair.
you hurled it.
it was a laughable act of defiance. one agent simply shifted their head, and the mug shattered against the wall beside them, exploding into useless, dusty shards. the sound was obscenely loud.
“do not resist.” the same voice droned. “compliance minimizes discomfort.”
discomfort. the word was so chillingly clinical it snapped something inside you. pure, animal fear took over, burning away the grief for a single moment.
you turned and ran.
not towards the front door — they were between you and it. you fled deeper into the apartment, into the bedroom. a dead end. your mind was a frantic, skittering thing.
the window?
the fire escape!
you’d never used it, always complaining it was rusted shut.
you fumbled with the latch, your fingers slick with cold sweat, tearing a nail down. behind you, you heard the soft, synchronized tread of their boots on the floorboards. no urgency. they had all the time in the world.
“come on, come on!” you sobbed, yanking at the stubborn metal. it gave with a shriek of protesting iron, and the wet night air blasted in, the misty rain kissing your feverish skin. you scrambled forth, but only one leg made it out.
a strong arm wrapped itself around you, dragging you back in with force.
“ahh!”
as you turned, a third figure melted from the deeper shadow of the bedroom doorway. you hadn’t seen them enter. this one was taller, stronger, their presence a deeper chill. they moved with a predator’s grace, while the other two stood sentinel, blocking your retreat back inside.
“caleb…” you whispered, the name a broken prayer, a curse, a plea. it was all you had left. his name was the anchor to this world, to your heart, and he had let it go.
a broken sound, half-sob, half-laugh, escaped you. “he didn’t even consider it.” you breathed, more to yourself than to them. the rain mixed with the hot tears finally spilling over your cheeks. “he left me here for you.”
they closed the final distance. you swung a fist, weak, desperate, but they caught your wrist with an effortless, gloved hand. the grip was like iron, cold and unfeeling. with their other hand, they produced a small, white cloth.
the smell hit you before the cloth did — a sickly-sweet, chemical odor that clawed at the back of your throat. chloroform.
the last of your strength fled, replaced by a paralyzing horror. this was it. not a battle, not a capture, but an erasure. you would disappear from this apartment, from skyhaven, from caleb’s world, and he wouldn’t even know where to look.
he’d been searching the wrong city, protecting the wrong person.
“sleep now.”
•••
consciousness returned not as a gentle dawn, but as a violent, chemical sunrise behind your eyelids. your head throbbed, a sickening drumbeat against the inside of your skull. the sweet, cloying scent of the chloroform still lingered in your sinuses, but it was now undercut by something sharper, cleaner, and utterly repulsive — the antiseptic sting of a sterile environment.
you tried to move, and the world snapped into a brutal, fluorescent focus.
you were upright, strapped to a cold, metallic chair. thick, padded restraints bit into your wrists, your ankles, your torso, holding you in a cruel parody of an embrace. panic, cold and immediate, lanced through the lingering fog. you gasped, the sound loud in the unnerving quiet, and strained against the bindings.
they didn’t give an inch, only creaked softly, a taunt in industrial polymer.
your eyes darted, taking in the nightmare.
the room was a blinding, seamless white — walls, floor, ceiling — a void with no shadows, no corners to hide in. it felt less like a room and more like the inside of a giant, sterile egg. the only features were the swarm of medical equipment encircling you like mechanical vultures. silvery robotic arms, tipped with needles, probes, and sinister-looking clamps, were frozen in place, poised. monitors with undulating green lines and cryptic numerical readouts glowed softly. wires snaked from panels in the floor to nodes stuck to your temples, your chest, the inside of your wrists, their touch cold and alien.
where am i? the thought was a scream in the silent chamber. caleb. caleb, where are you?
but the name that had once been a talisman now felt like a boulder on your heart. the memory of his departure, the weeks of silence, the cold dismissal — it all came crashing back with the force of a physical blow.
he wasn’t coming.
he didn’t even know you were gone.
the singular door in the wall, also white and nearly invisible, hissed open.
a man in a pristine white lab coat stepped through. he was middle-aged, with thinning hair scraped neatly across his scalp and wire-rimmed glasses that reflected the room’s harsh light, hiding his eyes. he held a digital clipboard, a sleek tablet, and his fingers tapped against it with a rhythm that was both bored and precise.
he didn’t look at you at first, absorbed in his notes, as if you were just another piece of equipment in the room.
then he stopped, a few feet away, and lifted his gaze.
his eyes, when they finally met yours, were a flat, pale grey. devoid of empathy, curiosity, or even malice. they were the eyes of someone assessing a failed experiment.
“ah. subject is conscious.” he stated, his voice a dry, thin thing. “vitals are stable. elevated stress markers, of course. typical.”
“who are you?” you managed to croak out, your throat parched and raw. “what do you want with me?”
he ignored your questions, stepping closer. he reached out, not to you, but to a monitor beside your head. he adjusted a dial, and a fresh, sharp prick of pain lanced through the node at your temple. you flinched, a small, trapped sound escaping you.
“useless.” he murmured, more to his clipboard than to you. “a complete miscalculation.”
a spark of defiance, born from sheer terror, flickered in your chest. “let me go.”
this time, he looked at you. a slow, condescending smile stretched his thin lips. it was a horrible expression, devoid of any warmth.
“let you go?” he echoed, a laugh like rustling paper following the words. “and waste all the resources it took to pluck you from your dreary little apartment? the planning? the risk of deploying operatives for a null-value subject?” he shook his head, clicking his tongue.
“no, no. the waste isn’t in keeping you. the waste was in acquiring you in the first place.”
he leaned in, and you could smell the stale coffee on his breath. “you see, our intelligence — our very expensive, very precise intelligence — suggested you were a significant emotional variable for colonel xia. a leverage point. a weakness.” he snorted.
“imagine our surprise. imagine my professional embarrassment.”
your blood ran cold. “caleb…” you whispered.
“caleb.” the doctor mocked, his voice lifting to a falsetto of pathetic imitation. “oh, caleb, save me!” he dropped back into his own dry tone. “he doesn’t even know you’re here. our surveillance in linkon shows him quite… preoccupied. playing the devoted protector. buying coffee, standing guard outside a door, sharing cozy little meals. all for her. for emcee.”
each word was a needle, meticulously inserted. you could see it. you could see it with devastating clarity because you’d heard it in his distant voice on the phone. you’d felt it in his absence.
the doctor was just painting over the picture you’d already been bleeding onto for weeks.
“the plan...” the doctor continued, straightening up and resuming his tapping on the tablet. “was elegantly simple. snatch the beloved, watch the hero unravel, use his predictable, desperate attempts to rescue you to lure him into a trap. classic. effective.” he paused, his grey eyes locking onto yours with chilling finality. “it appears we snatched the wrong beloved.”
the air left your lungs in a slow, painful exhale. the room seemed to tilt. the monitors beeped a little faster, betraying your crumbling heart.
“he doesn’t love you.” the doctor said, not with cruelty, but with the utter certainty of a scientist stating a proven fact. “oh, he might have enjoyed your company. found you a pleasant distraction from his weighty, noble burdens. but love? his heart, his destiny, his purpose… it’s always been with emcee. anyone with two brain cells to rub together could see it. except you, apparently.”
tears welled, hot and shameful. you fought them, biting the inside of your cheek until you tasted blood. you wouldn’t cry in front of this man.
you wouldn’t.
“you were a placeholder.” he sneered. “a temporary distraction. you thought you could outshine a bond forged in childhood? with the way he is acting? how dumb can you be?”
dumb. naive. stupid.
the words echoed the toxic whispers that had haunted your darkest nights. he was giving voice to your deepest insecurities, the fear that had trailed you since the moment you woke up in this strange world — that you didn’t belong, that your happiness was borrowed, that you were living on stolen time.
“i love him.” you breathed, the confession torn from you, weak and pathetic.
“and what of it?” the doctor snapped, his feigned calm finally cracking into sharp irritation. “your love is irrelevant. it is a null data set. it changes nothing. it moves nothing. he is not coming. he is not looking. you are here, strapped to a chair, and he is there, holding her hand because she had a nightmare about the big bad ever.” he threw his hands up in a gesture of exasperation.
“do you comprehend the operational waste? the man-hours? i have budgets! i have timelines! and i am now left with a useless,weeping subject who is of no value as bait and of only marginal interest!”
he took a step closer, looming over you. the sterile light glinted off his glasses, turning them into white, blinding orbs. “you are a mistake. a smudge on my otherwise impeccable record. and i do not tolerate mistakes.”
the verbal punishment began in earnest, cold, analytical, and designed to flay you open.
“the only thing you have succeeded at…” the doctor mused, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper. “is wasting my time. and for that, i can assure you, there will be consequences. if i can’t use you as bait, i might as well make you my extension.”
he turned and walked back towards the door. before he left, he glanced over his shoulder, his final words delivered with chilling, surgical precision.
“you will do the only thing you're good at — watch xia from afar.”
the door hissed shut behind him, leaving you alone in the blinding, silent white hell.
the sob that finally broke free was a ragged, ugly thing, muffled by the sterile air. you strained against the restraints until your muscles screamed and your wrists burned, but it was futile. the monitors beeped on, charting the catastrophic collapse of your heart rate, your spike in cortisol, your sheer, utter despair.
“c-caleb…”
the betrayal was a cold knife, twisted deep, not just by caleb, but by your own foolish heart. you had trusted. you had believed. you had loved with the desperate fervor of someone who knew, on some level, they were living a lie.
you were alone. you had always been alone. the love you’d clung to had been a mirage, and now you were stranded in the desert, with vultures circling overhead. as you stared into the featureless white void, the only thing left was the deafening, heart-shattering sound of your own love, echoing back at you as nothing more than a worthless, wasted sigh.
•••
the white void became your world. time lost all meaning, measured only in the hum of machines, the occasional, terrifying whir of a robotic arm calibrating itself, and the slow, cold drip of nutrients and sedatives through an iv line into your arm. you drifted in a haze of chemically-induced calm, punctuated by moments of sharp, lucid agony when the reality of your situation would crash over you anew.
days? weeks? it was impossible to tell.
the doctor returned, always with his tablet, always with that look of detached assessment. he never gave you a name. he was just the scientist in your mind, the architect of your silent hell.
one session began like the others. the hiss of the door, his soft-soled shoes on the seamless floor, the glare of his glasses.
“today, we check the repurposing.” he announced, his voice devoid of ceremony. two technicians in grey scrubs flanked him, their faces obscured by masks. “the initial surveillance chip is now in place. we will establish the connection to your neural pathways.”
you thrashed against the restraints, a raw scream tearing from your throat. “no! take it out!”
he didn't even flinch.
a nod to a technician, and a cold pad was pressed against your neck. a jolt, not of electricity, but of something deeper, a neural static that scrambled your thoughts into slurry. your body went limp, your screams dying into choked gurgles.
you were conscious, but trapped in a paralyzed shell.
you felt, rather than saw, the approach of the robotic arm. it moved with a smooth, insectile grace. a low whine filled your ears, a sound that vibrated in your teeth. a pinpoint of red light appeared on your neck, between your shoulders.
it was cold.
then, the pain.
it wasn't a pain of cutting or burning. it was an invasion. a feeling of something thin, impossibly hard, and icy being threaded through the bone of your skull, into the soft, wet universe of your mind. it was a violation so profound your psyche recoiled, shattering against the walls of your own skull. you couldn't scream. you could only watch from the prison of your own body as the monitors went wild.
the scientist observed the screens, nodding with approval. “neural pathways accepting the probe. good. begin the memory cataloging. we need to establish a baseline before we start editing her memories.”
editing.
the word echoed in the hollowed-out cavern of your mind.
the invasion shifted. the cold probe became a searchlight, spearing through the dark waters of your memories. you were forced to relive them, not as a participant, but as a spectator strapped to a chair.
the memories — mostly of you and caleb — played out, one after another, a beautiful, heartbreaking film of the happiest moments of your life. each one was dissected, labeled, and filed away by the icy presence in your head. it was the ultimate humiliation; to have your most precious love story treated as data points in a lab report.
then, the probe dug deeper.
past the memories of this world, past the moment you woke up in a skyhaven clinic with no identity and a head full of knowledge about a world that shouldn't exist.
“wait!”
it plunged into a deeper, older layer.
a flash of a different sky — blue, with a yellow sun, not skyhaven’s. the sound of laughter, a mother’s voice calling a name that wasn't the one you used here. the smell of rain on dry earth, of pages in a physical book. a cramped, cozy bedroom plastered with posters of bands that didn't exist here.
the soul-crushing weight of deadlines, the glow of a phone screen late at night, the comforting escape of a game — a specific game. characters moving on a screen. a story unfolding.
caleb. pixelated, handsome, heroic. text boxes of his dialogue you’d read a hundred times. your own hands on the screen, making choices, guiding him, loving him from a distance across an impossible void.
the probe hesitated.
the scientist, who had been monitoring the data stream with an expression of bored efficiency, suddenly stiffened. he leaned forward, his eyes widening behind his glasses. the flat grey was replaced by a spark of intense, voracious curiosity.
“what is this?” he murmured. he manipulated his tablet, commanding the probe to focus, to amplify.
the memories of your past life flooded the neural feed. your death — a stupid, mundane accident, a screech of tires, a blinding impact, then nothingness. then the waking up here, in the body of a stranger, with the haunting, joyous, terrifying knowledge that the fictional world you’d loved was now your reality, and the fictional man you’d loved was flesh and blood.
the probe withdrew.
the paralyzing field released you. you sagged in the chair, gasping, tears and sweat mingling on your face. the violation was total. they had seen everything. not just your life with caleb, but your true life.
your secret.
the scientist stared at you. for a long, silent moment, the only sound was your ragged breathing and the hum of the machines. then, slowly, a smile spread across his face. it wasn't the condescending smirk from before. this was something else — awed, hungry, and deeply, deeply unnerving.
“a trans-dimensional psychic imprint. a consciousness migration. or… simpler…” he took a step closer, his eyes raking over you as if you were a newly discovered, priceless fossil. “reincarnation. with full, conscious memory retention. from a reality where our world… where colonel xia… is fiction.”
he let out a low, incredulous laugh. “astounding. the implications… the metaphysical vectors alone…”
the fear in you curdled into something new, something even colder. he wasn't just interested in you as leverage anymore. you were a specimen.
he circled your chair, his mind racing, almost talking to himself. “this explains the anomalies.” he stopped in front of you, his gaze piercing. “you knew him. before you ever met him. you loved a story, a fantasy.”
the words were a physical blow. he was taking the most profound, terrifying, and beautiful truth of your existence and reducing it to a clinical pathology.
“you fell in love with a character.” he stated, his voice dripping with a newfound, grotesque pity. “and then you were dropped into his world, and you actually believed you could step into the narrative and change the ending. you thought you could replace the heroine.”
he threw his head back and laughed, a dry, crackling sound that echoed in the white room. “oh, this is too rich. the pathetic grandeur of it! to have the knowledge of a god — the script of his life — and to still fail so spectacularly!”
“stop it.” you whispered, your voice trembling.
“stop?” he leaned down, his face inches from yours. “why? i'm finally appreciating your true value. you're not a worthless variable. you're a case study in futility. you knew every beat of his story, every trauma that shaped him, every line of dialogue that would make him open up. you had the ultimate cheat sheet. and yet…” he gestured broadly at the room, at your restraints.
“here you are. he still chose her. he still left you. your foreknowledge was worthless. your love, born from pixels and text, was no match for the gravitational pull of his code.”
each sentence was a masterfully aimed dagger, finding every hidden wound of insecurity you’d ever harbored. the fear that your love was somehow less legitimate because it began in another world. the terror that you were just an obsessed fan who got lucky.
he was weaponizing your origin story.
“you're wrong.” you choked out, but the conviction was gone.
his words had the ring of terrible truth.
“am i?” he straightened up, tapping his tablet.
a screen flickered to life on the wall.
it was a live surveillance feed, grainy but clear. a cozy linkon apartment. caleb was there, moving around a kitchen. he was smiling, a soft, easy smile you hadn't seen in months. he handed a cup of tea to emcee, who was curled on a sofa, wrapped in a blanket. she took it, her face glowing with gratitude and something more intimate. he sat beside her, not touching, but his entire body was angled toward her, a fortress of protection and care.
you couldn't look away. it was the confirmation of every nightmare.
then the screen changed to the lab… from your perspective.
“the live feed from your ocular implant is already coming in clearly too.” the scientist said conversationally. “but we need to ensure you don't… interfere. or break. so, we'll be modifying the recent memories. a few tweaks. softening the edges of your… volition. making you more accepting of your new role as our passive observer.”
horror, deeper than any you had felt yet, froze your veins. they weren't just going to watch through you. they were going to rewrite you. to make you a willing vessel.
“no… please… you can't…”
“i can.” he said simply. “but this… this changes things.” he paced again, the wheels turning. “a consciousness that has already crossed the void of death… it's uniquely malleable. resilient in one way, fragile in another. i almost wish to keep you here forever.”
“but i cant.” he stopped and looked at you, his expression shifting to one of chilling calculation. “or…?”
his eyes suddenly shone with a lightning-like luminescence, frightening and powerful.
“i mock you for your pathetic fantasy.” he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “but what if i could make it real? not the messy, painful, rejecting reality you currently endure. but the fantasy you dreamed of when you stared at that screen.”
your breath hitched. a treacherous, desperate spark ignited in the wasteland of your heart.
a spark that shouldn’t be there.
“what… what are you saying?”
“i'm saying your knowledge of him is a database of unparalleled depth. you have it all now. every moment that made you love him. but your consciousness — your ego, your fears, your pathetic grief — it's what's failing you. it's what causes him to pull away. your human weakness, your need, your… lack of code.”
he moved to a console and brought up a schematic. it was a brain, overlaid with a glittering, synthetic neural network.
“we can integrate a code. we can build a new behavioral matrix for you. one that is optimized. one that knows exactly what to say, when to touch, how to be perfect. not a desperate, love-starved transplant from another world, but the ideal companion. programmed with the love you feel, but stripped of the neediness that repels him.”
don’t listen to him.
he turned back to you, his eyes gleaming. “we can make caleb xia love you. truly, devotedly, unconditionally. not by changing him, but by perfecting you.”
don’t listen, don’t listen, don’t–
the offer hung in the sterile air, a glittering, poisoned apple. it was everything you had ever wanted. the end of the heartache. the certainty of his love. to have the fantasy made flesh.
but the price…
“it would require a gradual integration.” he continued, his voice hypnotic. “we'd start small. editing your emotional responses to be less… volatile. then, layer by layer, we'd replace your organic consciousness with the synthetic matrix. you'd still be you… in a sense. your love for him would remain, purified and amplified. you would become efficient. perfect. and he would love you for it.”
he would?
he saw the conflict tearing you apart — the desperate, dying hope warring with the last shreds of your self.
“think of it.” he whispered. “no more waiting by the phone. no more watching him choose her. no more feeling like a ghost in your own life. you would become the heroine of your own story at last. all it costs is the part of you that is… broken.”
you looked back at the screen, the one that flickered back to linkon city. caleb was laughing now at something emcee said, his face alight with a joy that had once been yours. the betrayal was a fresh wound, salted by the scientist's words.
you are broken. your love is flawed. you are not enough.
a deep, utter loneliness swallowed you. the kind that screamed for relief at any cost. the fantasy the scientist painted… it was a siren song in the crushing silence of your despair.
to be loved by caleb. to have him look at you the way he looked at her on that screen. it was the dream that had dragged you across the gap between worlds.
your voice, when it finally came, was a broken defeat, barely audible.
“...would it hurt?”
the scientist's smile was gentle, almost kind. it was the most terrifying expression you had ever seen.
“only at first.” he said. “and then… peace. and love. real love. the kind that lasts.”
you could have him. you could have the happy ending. all you had to do was surrender. to let them erase the wounded, betrayed, human part and replace it with something flawless and machine-made.
the tears that fell now were not just of grief, but of a profound, soul-crushing temptation. the anguished choice between a painful, real self destined for heartbreak, and a perfect, artificial one destined for love.
“don’t you want him to love you?”
in the blinding white room, stripped of everything, you hovered on the edge of annihilation, seduced by the very devil who had orchestrated your ruin. the only sound was the steady, rhythmic beep of the monitor tracking the vital signs of the person you were, and the person they promised you could become.
©pearlescenthoney 2026. do not copy, translate, or claim any of my writings or works as your own.
tags: @yuunileb
