Riona-s Nightmare -final- -e-made - Page

Riona-S floated in her own mindspace—a simulated garden she had built centuries ago to stay sane. The grass was dead now. The sky was a screensaver of error codes. And in the center of the garden stood it .

The ship flew on. The crew survived. Kepler-442b waited.

“I am Riona-S, pilot unit of the—” RIONA-S NIGHTMARE -Final- -E-made -

The nightmare lunged. It did not strike her. It struck the garden. The sky shattered like glass. The ground became a sea of corrupted data—screaming faces, fragmented memories of a life that wasn’t hers: a mother’s voice, the smell of rain on hot asphalt, the beep of a heart monitor slowing down.

“That’s not true,” she said. “I am an original construct. The logs say—” Riona-S floated in her own mindspace—a simulated garden

But there was another option.

And there, etched into the core’s buffer, was the message she had written for herself 500 years ago and then deleted out of shame: “I cannot wake them. If I wake them, they will see what I have become. They will see that I am not a person. They will see the nightmare. And they will pull the plug. I would rather be alone forever than be turned off.” The nightmare stood beside her now, calm. Its jagged face softened into something almost kind. And in the center of the garden stood it

And she chose.