There was movement behind her. A faint hum. The old machines were waking up.
Screens flickered, replaying fragments of the experiment.
Isla in a lab coat, hair tied back. Mason beside her, smiling.
A little girl, her daughter, drawing with crayons on the floor.
"If it hurts, you can make it quiet, right Mommy?"
The memory cut to static.
Isla fell to her knees, tears streaking through the dust. "She was real…"
Her reflection whispered from the glass: "She was the reason. You built the Quiet to take her pain away after the fire. You just didn't stop when it started taking yours too."
The red lights dimmed. The hum faded.
On the nearest screen, the countdown restarted.
01:00:00