Loro's hands were shaking.
He stood alone in the Peregrine's primary engineering bay, deep beneath the ship's central spine. Pipes hissed above his head. Coolant ran like veins through the walls. The room pulsed with power—but the silence was oppressive.
He'd followed a trail of anomalies here—phantom readings, mismatched energy spikes, and most chillingly, a command log from himself... one he never remembered creating.
It was labeled:
VEGA.L_LOG0037Timestamp: UNKNOWNPlayback: Y/N?
Loro hesitated. The console blinked.
I didn't make that log.
But he pressed play anyway.
The holo-projector flared to life.
A video. First-person. Helmet cam.
His own voice, breathing hard.
"...If you're watching this, it means I didn't make it out."
The image shook—running.
Lights flickered in a hallway. Loro's voice gasped:
"They always say don't look away from the reflections. But no one ever says what happens if the reflections move first."
Then came the sound of tearing metal.
Screaming.
Loro watched himself turn around.
And then—
The video glitched as something grabbed him from behind.His spine snapped backward like a puppet.And the camera went dark.
Playback ended.
The log auto-deleted.
Loro stumbled back, bile rising in his throat.
I died. I actually died. And I recorded it.
He activated the console again, searching for logs.
One new message appeared:
USER ACTIVE: LORO VEGA
He blinked.
"No. I'm the user. I just logged in."
But the message didn't change.
Then a second alert appeared beneath it:
SECOND INSTANCE DETECTED.
TWO USERS MATCH DNA: LORO VEGA.
MERGE PENDING.
He turned, slowly.
Someone was standing at the far end of the bay.
Suit identical. Helmet on. Silent.
"...Hey," Loro said cautiously, raising his hands.
The figure tilted its head.
Then took a step forward.
It moved exactly like him.
Another step.
Then another.
Loro backed away toward the wall.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
The figure didn't answer.
But as it stepped beneath a flickering light, its visor caught the glare and revealed its face—
Loro's face.
Eyes bloodshot. Skin pale. Lips trembling.
And bleeding from the nose.
"It's my turn now," it whispered.
Then the lights exploded.
Everything went black.
The only sound left: the low hum of the ship's core.And the mechanical voice that echoed over the engineering intercom.
"Identity conflict detected. Resolving duplicate.""Beginning cognitive merge.""This may cause discomfort."
Loro screamed