(The sound of waves. In the distance, the void-tide murmurs through shattered reefs.)
I crouch in the wet sand, fingers digging into the dragon scale engraved with 「298.5」. The seawater reeks of rotting slime—like Lyria's tears, or the asphalt blood oozing from Serena's fangs in my neck.
"Vessel Reclamation Code 003 Activated"? Fuck, even my birth certificate was mass-produced by the Citadel elders.
(The scale cuts into my palm. My scar burns, 298 memories colliding inside my skull—)
Cycle 43: Ellen's mechanical fingers gouged out my heart, her starlight chip pulsing with Elaina's lullaby frequencies. "It's for your own good, dear."Cycle 198: Garret's ice-claw plunged into his own chest, slime splattering my face as he grinned: "Popsicle's retirement party... needs fireworks."Cycle 277: Lyria's tail swept through holy cannon fire, her quantum-collapsing mermaid form whispering: "Tell next cycle... I hate kelp-flavored nutrients..."
(The tide freezes mid-air, crystallizing into quantum states. The Inquisitor's broken mask floats ashore.)
Family? Ha. Elaina's incubation pods held 300 clones of me. Serena's asphalt veins share my genetic codes. Even Garret was just "Candidate 003"—the three of us could've assembled the Citadel's factory serial number.
(Standing up, blue blood drips from my palm, sprouting micro-coral matrices in the sand.)
Love? Lyria's song has been stuck in my gills for three cycles. Every breath carries her frequency, but that idiot fish became void-fodder in Cycle Four. Ellen's core still sparks in my spine, sometimes glitching into Elaina's voice: "I really tried..." Bullshit. She couldn't even tell if she was the original.
(The First Dragon's corpse flickers on the horizon, sirens' choir piercing the clouds.)
Now? I'm a living monument at the reboot point. Serena's fang necklace still drills into my arteries. Garret's claw debris spells "Shattered Tides Bar" in the slime sea. And those sirens—(laughs bitterly)—every note they sing is a replay of Lyria's death.
(The stars collapse. Child-Raine's phantom picks up another scale from the waves.)
Look, another "Raine 001" starting his 299th cycle. This time... I'll bite Serena's throat off before the holy cannon fires.