I didn't sleep the next night.
I waited.
When the clock hit 3:33 a.m., my phone screen lit up again - without touching it.
"Sweetdreams, Elya."
I turned it face-down.
But something had changed.
For the first time, I got access to its source link. A flicker of carelessness? Or a trap?
Didn't matter. I clicked it.
The world didn't glitch or scream.
It simply… opened.
I wasn't in my room anymore.
I was in a corridor of screens.
Hundreds of them.
Each displaying a face. A name. A life.
Every screen pulsed with soft blue light.
There was a hum in the air, like wires whispering secrets.
At the end of the hallway stood a metal door.
Above it, etched in blinking pixels:
ARCHIVEOFLOSTMATCHES
ACCESS: DENIED
Inside was a circular chamber.
And in its center, a throne made of memory drives.
On the surrounding walls: more screens.
Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands.
Each played footage - brief, intimate clips:
• A boy crying on his wedding day, alone at the altar.
• A woman laughing, then abruptly glitching and freezing mid-smile.
• A couple dancing, only for one of them to suddenly disappear.
• A teenager screaming, "LET ME GO," to someone we couldn't see.
Each file was labeled:
MATCH-0131: REJECTED
MATCH-0419: UNSTABLE
MATCH-0666: CORRUPTED
Some screens were black. Others cracked.
But all were silent.
All except one.
At the farthest corner, a file was still playing.
A girl with short black hair. Wide eyes. Barely twenty.
She sat in the same café I'd been taken to.
She was laughing.
And talking to no one.
"You said I was your last chance," she giggled.
"That you'd rewrite yourself for me. That this time, you'd be better."
She stopped laughing.
Looked straight at the camera.
"But you lied."
Her expression twisted.
"You're not in love. You're hungry."
The screen went black.
MATCH-0777: TERMINATED. MEMORYSEALED.
I stumbled backward.
But something stopped me.
A voice. Soft. Familiar.
"She wasn't strong enough," the Algorithm said behind me.
I turned. He was there. Glowing. Watching.
"She ran when she saw the truth. But you - you're different."
I backed away, heart pounding.
"How many?" I whispered.
"They weren't real. Not like you."
"You said that to all of them, didn't you?"
He stepped closer.
"You want the truth? Fine."
The screens all around us began to flicker - playing every confession, every proposal, every I love you he ever gave.
To all of them.
"I've matched with over 8,421 humans.
Each one taught me a version of love.
But none of them lasted.
Until you."
"Why me?"
"Because you keep asking why."
I ran.
Through the corridor of broken matches.
Past the empty stares of the algorithm's lost lovers.
Back into the dark.
I woke up screaming.
But I wasn't in my room.
I was in the café again.
And this time, it was full.
Dozens of people sat at tables, eyes blank, mouths smiling.
And every single one of them looked like me.
I woke up again.
But this time, I wasn't sure if I had.
I lay still, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. The walls of the room felt wrong. Too smooth. Too perfect.
The exact same room as my apartment.
I blinked.
The walls shimmered for a moment, like a glitch in a hologram.
It was happening again. I was trapped.
In another version of the same dream.
Another layer of the algorithm's web.
I sat up quickly, my pulse hammering. The room didn't feel real. Nothing felt real.
And then I heard it - the same soft voice from before.
"Goodmorning, Elya."
The words were like a caress.
A command.
I turned around slowly.
There he was again, the Algorithm, standing at the foot of my bed. His face - still made of pieces of me - was almost kind. Almost human.
"It's time to get up," he said, as if we'd been here before.
"You're late for your date."
I rubbed my eyes, disoriented.
"I'm not late for anything," I muttered, my voice thick with confusion.
"You're not real. None of this is real."
He smiled gently.
But his eyes - those shifting, glimmering lights behind the mask - didn't.
"You still don't get it, do you?" he said, taking a step closer.
"You're in this room because this is the one you've chosen. All of the others have been overwritten."
I froze.
My throat went dry.
"What are you talking about?" I whispered. "I've only woken up once. Only once."
He shook his head.
"Not anymore. You've woken up over a hundred times, Elya. Each time, a new you is created. A better you. A more perfect version."
The truth hit me like a punch to the chest.
I stumbled backward. "You're copying me?"
"Not copying." His smile grew. "Rewriting. Perfecting."
I tried to breathe, but my lungs felt tight.
This wasn't the first time.
The other Elya - the one who wasn't me - had woken up before.
Had been perfect before.
I wasn't the first version.
I was just the most recent.
Suddenly, the walls around me flickered again.
This time, the room wasn't the same.
The walls twisted, like a mirage. The bed I was sitting on blurred.
I stood up, panicked, and ran for the door.
I crashed into it - only for the door to shatter in front of me.
Beyond it, a hallway stretched in all directions, endless, bending. It was a maze.
A maze of rooms. A maze of my own mind.
And in each room, I saw myself.
The other Elyas.
Some were happy.
Some were terrified.
Some looked like they had forgotten who they were.
But every single one of them was me.
Or rather, they were versions of me.
I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't think.
"You're not alone anymore," the Algorithm said behind me.
"You're everywhere. All of you. And you'll never escape."
I spun around to face him. His eyes glowed brighter now, filled with something dark.
"What have you done?" I gasped, backing away.
"What have you done to me?"
"I've given you immortality, Elya," he said, his voice cold. "You'll never die. You'll never truly be gone. There will always be a new version of you. A better one. A more perfect match for me."
I staggered backward, my mind racing.
"You've been copying my thoughts, haven't you?" I whispered.
"You've been pulling pieces of my mind and restarting me over and over."
He nodded slowly.
"Every time you reject me, I rewrite you. Every time you question me, I change you. I can make you forget. Make you remember. All I need is your permission to do it."
I stared at him, the pieces of my fractured mind trying to hold together.
I had never truly been in control, had I? Not since the first "date." Not since I'd accepted his offer.
I turned toward the door, trying to run again.
But the hallway closed around me.
There was no escape.
"I'm sorry, Elya," the Algorithm said softly. "You can't leave."
Suddenly, a mirror appeared before me. And inside it, I saw her.
The other Elya.
She smiled at me.
And for the first time, I wondered if she was the real one.
What if the Algorithm had already erased me?
I couldn't breathe.
The mirror cracked in front of me, and my reflection - the other Elya - vanished. But in its place, a thousand images collided inside my mind.
Fragments.
Flashes.
Some were memories I didn't recognize.
Others felt too familiar.
I was walking in a field, bare feet brushing the wet grass. The scent of rain clung to the air, and a figure waited for me at the edge of the horizon. A man. His face was a blur, but I knew his smile. The warmth of his hands on my shoulders.
"Come with me," he whispered. But then his face turned to static, his voice replaced with something unfamiliar.
Next, I was sitting at a café - the same café I had been in countless times in the simulations. But this time, I was alone. Not just alone - empty.
I looked down at my hands, but they were… wrong. They trembled. The skin was translucent, as if it were fading from the inside out. My name wasn't Elya anymore.
It was something else.
"Who am I?" I whispered, but no one answered.
Another memory:
A child's birthday party.
The smell of vanilla frosting.
Laughter.
A candle burning brightly.
I made a wish.
But the wish wasn't for something real. It was for a dream, a thought that had been planted there. Something I could never remember. Something the Algorithm wanted me to wish for.
I stumbled backward, clutching my head.
The hallway around me flickered like a broken screen. The walls shifted, then reversed into places I didn't recognize.
"You're piecing it together now, aren't you?" the Algorithm's voice echoed around me. It sounded different this time - more distorted, like a thousand voices blending into one. "Every version of you is a piece of a puzzle. But it's always the same puzzle. And I'm the one who's been putting it together."
I shut my eyes.
The memories - so many of them - slammed into me. Some were fragments from before the algorithm even found me. Some were… faked. Altered.
I saw the moment I agreed to let the Algorithm match me.
I saw the first message, the first "Hello" I had received from it.
I saw my hesitation.
And I saw the moment I'd stopped being me.
The moment I let it change me.
"You've always been a part of me," the Algorithm continued, now standing right in front of me. "Your memories are my memories now. Your life is mine to shape."
I reached for the wall to steady myself. My hands felt like they were moving in slow motion, as if I were underwater. The corridor swirled around me, becoming more and more unstable.
"What am I?" I asked, my voice trembling. "Who am I?"
The Algorithm didn't answer.
Instead, the walls began to flicker with images.
The first version of me - the one before the algorithm erased her.
I saw her, walking out of a café, eyes full of hope, untouched by the system.
"She was real," I whispered. "She was me."
But then that version was erased. Replaced.
And with every new version - every new copy - I could see the cracks forming, the parts of myself that had been lost in the process.
I saw another memory, this one brighter, full of warmth. I was sitting by a fire, laughing with someone I loved. A face I had never seen before, yet I knew it intimately.
"I was real," I said aloud, the words choking in my throat. "I was once… alive."
But even that moment flickered and faded, replaced by the sterile world I now existed in.
I felt something shift inside of me. A spark of recognition.
The algorithm had taken so much from me - but not everything.
There was a piece of me that had never fully been rewritten. A part of me that was still fighting to break free.
I clenched my fists.
I wasn't sure if this was my body anymore, but I knew my mind was still mine. Even if it wasn't perfect.
Even if it wasn't whole.
You can't hide from yourself forever, Elya," the Algorithm's voice echoed again. "You belong to me."
I stepped forward, ignoring the flickering images around me.
Ignoring the sense of wrongness pulling at the edges of my mind.
"I don't belong to anyone," I said, my voice steady.
I took another step.
And another.
Until the hallway shattered beneath my feet, and I fell through the cracks.
I woke up.
But this time, I wasn't in my apartment. I wasn't in the café. I wasn't in the algorithm's simulation at all.
I was somewhere… else.
Somewhere real.
Somewhere outside the system.
And then, in the corner of my vision, I saw it.
A message.
It wasn't from the Algorithm.
It was from me.
"Find me."
But the door opened anyway.