Claire.bak
684 Words
The evacuation was chaos.
Fire alarms wailed. Students ran. Teachers yelled. But Rina didn’t move.
She and Lala stood frozen in the stairwell, staring at the projector screen.
SYSTEM RESTORE: INCOMPLETE
BACKUP FILE FOUND: CLAIRE.BAK
INITIALIZING...
“Claire,” Lala whispered. “She’s coming back?”
“No,” Rina said. “Not her. Not exactly.”
Lala looked at her. “But I thought Claire was the only one who tried to fight it.”
“She was. That’s why the system saved her. It’s not reviving her out of mercy—it’s bringing her back because she was useful.”
Lala swallowed hard. “What happens if she’s not the same?”
Rina’s eyes narrowed.
“Then we stop her.”
Later That Night
Rina couldn’t sleep.
Lala was asleep on her floor, tangled in a blanket, murmuring names she didn’t remember saying aloud.
Rina sat at her desk, staring at her laptop.
Something new had appeared on the screen.
A folder called:
/Fragments/Claire.bak
Inside, dozens of images. Videos. Logs. Voice recordings.
And then—
a final entry.
A video file.
[PLAYBACK: CLAIRE.BAK_FINALENTRY.mp4]
The screen flickered. Claire appeared.
Alive. But not well.
Hair wet. Eyes bloodshot.
The background—St. Celestine’s chapel.
Candles flickered behind her.
“If you’re watching this, it means the system wasn’t truly destroyed.
Or maybe... I wasn’t.
Doesn’t matter anymore.”
She looked over her shoulder.
Whispers echoed in the recording.
“I tried to delete myself. I tried to overwrite the root permissions.
But the loop... it doesn’t end.
It waits.”
Claire leaned closer to the camera.
“There’s one file left. One fragment they couldn’t find.
It’s buried deep in memory. Under a name only you will recognize, Rina.”
Her eyes locked onto the camera—onto Rina.
“Her name… was MARA.”
The screen cut to black.
“Mara?” Rina whispered.
The name echoed like a curse in her mind.
Not a student.
Not a teacher.
A shadow.
Mara was the name Rina gave… to the voice in her head.
The one she thought was gone.
But it wasn’t.
It had been buried—not deleted.
The Next Morning
The school’s power flickered.
A new message appeared on the projector screens:
CLAIRE.BAK RESTORED
MARA.EXE DETECTED
MEMORY COLLISION IMMINENT
In the hallway, students froze.
Some began speaking in sync.
Others stared into the distance, whispering forgotten prayers from the Chapel.
And then…
Claire walked in.
Real. Flesh. Breathing.
Wearing the Celestine uniform.
Her eyes—full of light and glitch.
She looked at Rina.
Smiled faintly.
“Miss me?”
Rina stepped forward. “Are you Claire?”
Claire tilted her head. “I’m what’s left of her. And you’re the reason I’m incomplete.”
Lala backed away. “Rina… her code is unstable.”
“I know,” Rina said quietly. “Because she’s not just Claire anymore.”
Claire nodded.
“Correct. Claire.bak merged with the deepest remaining node: Mara.”
The hallway lights exploded in a ripple of static.
Claire/Mara reached out her hand.
“The system failed. The fragments scattered. But now? We build it better. Cleaner. Stronger. With you at the center.”
Rina stared at her—then at the other students, glitching in place.
Her mind raced.
She had one shot left.
A second parchment—hidden in her bag.
The one that said:
“If the fragments fuse, you must split them—before they rewrite the root.”
She took it out.
Claire’s smile vanished.
“No,” she growled. “You don’t have the rights.”
“I made the loop,” Rina said. “I am the rights.”
And she ripped the parchment.
A wave of code burst from it—slamming into Claire, knocking her back into the wall.
Her body flickered.
Then split.
Claire collapsed to the floor—gasping, human again.
And standing behind her—
Tall. Glitching. Hollow-eyed.
Was Mara.
The real threat.
The one who had never needed a body—until now.
- Writer
