The girl's voice was thin and ragged, like every word cost her breath she didn't have.
Ash felt Palo shift closer to him, instinctively shielding him.
But the girl wasn't threatening.
She was terrified.
Her clothes were torn.
Her left knee was scraped raw.
And her hands were shaking uncontrollably.
Palo raised both palms cautiously.
"We're not going to hurt you. Just tell us—who are you?"
The girl swallowed hard.
"My name is Silva."
Ash blinked.
He had never seen her before.
Silva's gaze darted to the trees.
"We can't stay here. Please—if he hears me, he'll come."
Palo shook his head.
"The copy is already hunting us. If you mean him—"
Silva cut him off.
"No."
Her voice cracked.
"Not him."
She pointed weakly toward the deeper woods.
Ash felt a chill crawl up his spine.
Silva whispered:
"The man who built him."
Palo froze.
Ash stared.
Silva continued, voice trembling:
"He knows you're alive, Ash. He knows you escaped. He knows the copy failed to bring you back."
A beat.
"So he's coming himself."
Ash staggered backward.
Palo grabbed him.
"Wait—how do you know his name? How do you know about Ash?"
Silva closed her eyes.
"I was one of the others."
Ash stiffened.
Palo's eyes widened.
"The others… from Project ELARA?"
Silva nodded, fighting to stay conscious.
"Yes. But I wasn't like him—the perfect one. I was made before him. I was… incomplete."
Her voice broke on the last word.
Ash swallowed, horrified.
"You were another copy."
Silva hugged her arms around herself, nodding slowly.
"They made six of us. Six attempts. You saw the final one—the one who survived."
Her breath hitched.
"I was attempt three."
Palo's face went pale.
Ash felt his heartbeat crash in his ears.
Silva lowered her gaze.
"They kept us alive long enough to test us. Then they… erased us."
Palo whispered,
"But you escaped."
Silva let out a breathless, humorless laugh.
"No one escapes him. He let me go."
Ash's expression tightened.
"Why? Why let you run?"
Silva looked up slowly.
Her eyes were full of something Ash recognized too well:
grief.
"Because I was meant to find you."
Palo shook his head fiercely.
"No. No way. You're telling me they just released you into the forest and assumed you'd find Ash by chance? That's not—"
Silva cut in softly.
"Not by chance."
She pointed at Ash's hand.
"Because of that."
Ash looked down.
The symbol—the mark—glowed faintly again, pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
Silva's voice trembled harder.
"He can track that mark. But I can sense it too. All of us could. It connected us. We shared a frequency, a signal. A piece of the same code."
Ash's stomach twisted.
"You're connected to me."
Silva nodded.
"We all were. You're the original. The source."
Palo exhaled shakily.
"You're saying Ash is… some kind of anchor?"
Silva hesitated.
Then whispered:
"Ash is the template."
Ash felt the world tilt.
His mother's letter.
The copy's words.
Silva's trembling voice.
Everything pointed to the same truth.
Palo grabbed Ash's arm, voice steadying.
"We need to leave this forest. We need to find somewhere defensible."
But Silva shook her head violently.
"No. If you leave the trees, you'll die."
Ash felt cold spike through him.
Silva's eyes grew wide with fear.
"He's close. Closer than the copy ever was."
Palo whispered,
"Who is he?"
Silva's voice trembled to a whisper.
"The Founder."
Ash's heart dropped.
"The one who created the copies?"
Silva nodded.
"The one who started Project ELARA."
Palo swallowed.
"Why is he coming now? Why leave the facility at all?"
Silva stepped closer to Ash, desperation shaking her voice.
"Because you survived longer than he expected. Because you found the cabin. Because you learned the truth."
Her voice broke.
"And because the copy failed."
Ash clenched his fists.
"So he wants to take me back?"
Silva shook her head.
"No."
She looked directly at him, eyes full of dread.
"He wants to end the project."
Palo frowned.
"That sounds good—why is that bad?"
Silva's voice was almost inaudible.
"He wants to erase every trace of it."
She looked at Ash.
"Starting with you."
The forest went dead silent.
No wind.
No insects.
No movement.
Then—
A sound echoed through the trees.
A slow, deliberate crunch of leaves.
Footsteps.
Approaching.
Silva's eyes filled with terror.
"He found us."
Palo dragged Ash backward.
Silva whispered,
"It's too late."
Then—
A calm, unfamiliar man's voice drifted through the forest.
Smooth.
Unhurried.
Chillingly certain.
"Ash… my creation."
A pause.
"I've been looking for you."**
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