The sky above Solistra looked strange today. Too still. No wind, no birds. Just silence.
Harvie followed a quiet path behind the castle. Queen Aureline had told them to rest. But something felt wrong. His chest was heavy.
He didn't tell Edna where he was going.
He walked past old statues and broken gates. The deeper he went, the colder it became. And then—he found it. A hidden door behind a waterfall.
Harvie pushed it open.
A dark stairwell greeted him. The air smelled like rust and magic. Step by step, he went down. His system didn't react. No quest, no warning. Nothing.
At the bottom, he found a hallway of metal and glass. Strange symbols glowed on the walls. The place felt dead. But it wasn't empty.
Inside, there were rooms. Rooms with beds… machines… and people.
Harvie froze.
It was him.
Inside the glass pods were copies of him. Dozens. Hundreds. Some sleeping. Some broken. Some had their eyes wide open, staring at nothing.
> "What… is this?"
He stepped closer. One pod was cracked.
Suddenly, a sound.
CRASH!
Something leaped at him. A blur of movement. Harvie rolled to the side, barely dodging.
The thing looked human—but wrong. Hair wild, eyes glowing red, skin pale. It was him… but twisted. A failed version.
> "You're not me," Harvie whispered.
The creature growled. Then it attacked.
They fought across the lab. The clone was fast—too fast. It didn't feel pain. Harvie was bleeding. He tried to rewind—
Nothing.
The system still didn't work in Solistra.
He had to kill it for real.
The clone pinned him down. Its hands were around his throat. Its eyes were empty, like a doll.
In a flash, Harvie grabbed a broken piece of glass and stabbed it in the chest. Over and over.
The clone twitched… then stopped moving.
Harvie sat there, shaking. His hands red with blood—his own and the clone's.
Then a voice in his head:
> Skill obtained: [Fate Split]
Create one temporary clone that acts freely for 10 seconds. Cooldown: 12 hours.
Harvie breathed hard.
> "So that's what this was… A lab for failed me."
He looked around. Many of the pods were labeled.
> Subject 24 – Erased
Subject 31 – Time Collapse
Subject 44 – Memory Leak
Subject 57 – Escaped
His was labeled too.
> Subject 99 – Live Patch (Chrono's Mistake)
Harvie felt cold inside.
They had been making him over and over again. And all the others had failed.
Only he survived.
Only he made it this far.
But… why?
---
Back at the surface, Edna found him hours later. He was sitting under a dead tree, staring at the stars.
> "Harvie?"
He didn't look at her.
> "There were others… like me. But they didn't make it."
Edna sat beside him.
> "You're still you."
He shook his head.
> "Am I? Or just… another puppet?"
She took his hand.
> "Then let's break the strings."
He looked at her, surprised.
> "What?"
> "I don't care what they made you for. I chose you."
The stars above flickered.
But in Harvie's heart, something steadied. A small warmth in the cold.