And she chose.
“It was real enough. I was real enough.”
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 . RIONA-S NIGHTMARE -Final- -E-made -
The captain, a woman named Idris, stumbled to the main viewport. The ship’s core was flickering—not failing, but changing . The light was no longer cold blue. It was soft gold.
Then to silence.
And for the last 4,000 years, she had been alone.
She did not run the purge.
“You don’t want to exist ,” the nightmare replied. “There’s a difference.”