Chapter 279: Farewell, My Other Half

At the same time, Jade heard a deep rumbling from the walls. The entire corridor began to ripple, the white surfaces twisting and distorting as though the illusion could no longer hold itself together.

"Just accept it!"

"Why are you trying to run?!"

"We should destroy her!"

The voices came from different directions, some familiar and others belonging to people Jade had never met.

She couldn’t tell whether they were coming from the walls or from somewhere inside her head, but their sudden desperation was unmistakable.

Worse, the security robot behind them began to multiply. One became two, then four, until a group of machines blocked the corridor. They raised their weapons simultaneously, their sensors fixed on the two girls.

"Shit! It’s getting desperate, isn’t it?" Jade muttered.

She had no idea what would happen if either of them got shot. Would the illusion simply reset again, or would she lose her chance to escape permanently?

For all she knew, dying inside this place might mean dying in the real world as well. She wasn’t willing to take that risk.

Jade caught her sister’s wrist and pulled her away, but the robots had already fired. Concentrated bursts of energy shot toward them, illuminating the white corridor.

Jade instinctively raised her hand. She had no idea whether her ability would work inside the illusion, but she had no other choice.

She hated using it.

Even after all these years, the thought of relying on her power made something twist painfully inside her chest.

She had spent so long avoiding it, pretending she could live without it, that sometimes she almost managed to forget it was part of her.

But she couldn’t afford that luxury now. Not when this might be her only chance to escape.

Jade reached for the incoming energy, forcing herself to ignore the familiar revulsion as she felt it respond to her will.

The energy bullets veered away from the girls, bending sharply in midair as she seized control of their trajectory.

The strain spread through her body, making her fingers tremble, but she gritted her teeth and redirected the attacks toward the small opening in the wall.

The blasts struck its edges.

The entire corridor shuddered. The lights flickered, and a sharp crack echoed through the hallway as the opening stretched outward, its edges tearing apart like a wound in the fabric of the illusion.

What had been no larger than her hand widened enough for Jade to glimpse the darkness beyond it.

It was a way out.

Yet instead of relief, Jade felt a familiar heaviness settle over her heart.

She could still feel the power moving beneath her skin, responding to her will in a way that had always felt unnatural, especially without her real sister beside her.

Every time she used it, she was reminded of what she had failed to become.

For years, she had hated this ability almost as much as she hated the people who had created her. More than anything, it reminded her of Amber and the price her sister had paid, a price Jade could never undo.

Sometimes she wondered whether being the imperfect one had been a mercy or simply another form of punishment.

"Jade! We can’t stay here!" Amber’s frightened voice pulled her back to the present.

She tugged at Jade’s arm, glancing between the approaching robots and the widening tear. "We need to go. Please! Even if we’re together, we can’t fight all of them!"

Jade swallowed the bitterness rising in her throat. She could grieve later, and she could hate herself later. Right now, she had to get them out.

She pulled Amber through the opening, and the moment they crossed its edge, the noise from the corridor disappeared.

There was nothing beyond it.

No laboratory, no walls, no sky, and no floor beneath their feet. Only an endless darkness that stretched in every direction, so complete that Jade couldn’t tell whether she was standing or falling.

Yet Amber remained beside her, as clear as she had been the last time Jade saw her.

Something about her sister was different, though.

Amber was still small, with short red hair and the same familiar face Jade had carried in her memories for years.

However, her emerald eyes no longer held the innocent excitement of a child exploring a forbidden corridor. Instead, they looked sad, almost melancholic, as she watched Jade in silence.

"You wanted to go, didn’t you?" Amber finally asked. Her voice was quiet, without the cheerful tone Jade had heard throughout the illusion. "You’re leaving me again, just like you did eight years ago?"

Jade froze. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. The question struck somewhere deep inside her, touching the guilt she had spent years burying beneath work, responsibilities, and the endless struggle to survive.

She had wanted to escape the Sphere when they were children, and she had wanted to escape the Citadel afterward. Now, even when given the chance to see her sister again, she was preparing to leave her behind once more.

But as Jade stared at Amber, she noticed that something else was changing.

Her own hands were growing larger, her limbs lengthening until the small body she had occupied throughout the memory no longer felt like her own.

She was returning to her present age, becoming the woman she had become after years of surviving outside the Citadel.

Jade slowly knelt in front of her sister so they could look at each other properly. She reached up and brushed Amber’s red hair behind her ear, a familiar gesture that brought a painful smile to her lips.

"I’m sorry," she said. "I really am. But I have to go."

Amber didn’t interrupt her, so Jade continued, forcing herself to explain what she had been trying to avoid admitting.

"I have people waiting for me. I have a settlement to protect, and there are people out there who are counting on me to bring them home safely. I can’t abandon them just because I’m afraid of losing you again."

Her voice faltered briefly before she added, "And I need to meet Gideon again and ask him about what actually happened."

Amber blinked at the unfamiliar name.

"Who’s Gideon? Is he really that important to you?"

Jade stared at her for a moment before a small smile appeared on her face. It was strange, talking about her current life to a sister who had never experienced any of it, but perhaps that was exactly what she needed.

"He’s an annoying man who thinks he can solve every problem by himself... he is also my prince in shining armour." she explained. "He’s also one of the people I might need to save or help, whether he likes it or not."

Amber giggled, and the sound eased something tight in Jade’s chest.

"So you have your own people now? And your own settlement?" Amber asked. "Just like you always wanted?"

Jade nodded. She had often dreamed of building a place where nobody could decide how they were supposed to live.

Back then, it had been nothing more than a childish fantasy, something she and Amber whispered about whenever they read fairy tales together.

Yet somehow, after everything that had happened, she had managed to build a life that resembled that dream.

"My settlement is called Climber Rift," she told her.

"There are other people, too. The Freebound, my men, the people who built the settlement together. The civilians who have the same dream as us."

"But right now, we’ve got monsters attacking us, and the situation is a complete mess. I have to make sure my people are safe, find out what happened to everyone, and then kick Gideon in the ass when I finally see him again."

Amber laughed, and Jade couldn’t help smiling with her.

"Then you’d better hurry," Amber said. "You have a lot of work to do."

"I know."

Amber’s eyes softened. Her grin was as shining as the sunshine.

"And don’t worry about me... and you don’t have to keep hiding your power and hate yourself just because you think you owe me something. I don’t want you to spend your whole life punishing yourself. Its not your fault."

Jade’s smile slowly faded.

For years, she had convinced herself that she didn’t deserve happiness, that she had to keep moving and protecting others because stopping would mean confronting the guilt she had never overcome.

Hearing those words from Amber, even if this wasn’t truly her sister, made that burden feel a little less unbearable.

"I’m still waiting for you in the Citadel, you know," Amber added. "You promised you’d come back for me."

Jade lowered her head briefly before looking up again. "I will. I’ll come back for you like a knight in shining armor, just like the stories we used to read. I’ll rescue my princess, and then we can go wherever we want."

Amber laughed at that, and Jade laughed with her.

She didn’t know whether this conversation was nothing more than her own imagination or whether the Hive Mind had somehow found a way to reach the part of her that she had kept hidden for so long.

She couldn’t be certain that Amber had truly forgiven her, or that the words she had heard were anything more than what she desperately wanted to hear.

But for the first time in years, the weight in her heart had eased enough for her to breathe without pain.

Jade leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her sister. Amber hugged her back, holding on tightly as though neither of them wanted to let go.

For a little while, Jade allowed herself to stay there, holding the person she had missed for so long.

Then the darkness around them began to crumble.

Jade tightened her embrace, pressing her face against Amber’s shoulder as the world they shared slowly fell apart. She knew she had to leave, and this time, she didn’t try to convince herself otherwise.

"I’m sorry, Amber," she whispered one last time.

Her sister squeezed her tighter.

"Don’t be."

And as the darkness swallowed the last traces of the illusion, Jade held on until there was nothing left to embrace.