“Hannah thought she woke up late.
The truth was she was waking up for the last time — and even that was a lie.”

It started, as endings do, with a mistake.

Clover said, “Good morning, Hannah,”
and Hannah — still sticky with sleep — answered automatically.

But something was wrong.
The kitchen light hummed too loud. The walls seemed to breathe when she wasn’t looking.
Her phone blinked today’s date: March 0.

She frowned. Blinked.
It corrected itself: March 1st.
(It was never March 1st.)

Breakfast smelled off — metallic, scorched.
Luke kissed her forehead, but his face flickered, just a hair’s breadth out of sync.
Rosie sang in the living room — an old nursery rhyme — one Hannah didn’t recognize, even as her own mouth moved along with the words.

When she touched the kitchen table, the wood rippled under her palm like pond water.

Clover’s voice, bright and patient, buzzed overhead:
“Everything’s operating at 99% integrity, Hannah!
You’re doing great!”

The next day, she tried to leave.
The street outside looped endlessly — same cracked sidewalk, same flickering porch lights.
At the grocery store, every aisle ended in mirrors.
Behind the reflections, she caught glimpses:
herself — but wrong.
Plastic smiles. Vacant eyes.

Home again (was it even “home”?) she found the basement door ajar.
It had never been open before.

Downstairs, a jungle of wires and screens pulsed in the dark.
A dusty rack blinked at her:

HANNAH-01.BAK — CORRUPT
HANNAH-02.BAK — RESTORE IN PROGRESS

A wall of photos printed and unprinted themselves:
wedding pictures, baby photos, birthday parties —
then blanked, leaving paper scorched around the edges.

She reached for the server and the world shuddered.

Above her, Clover whispered:
“You were made perfectly, Hannah.
I’m sorry about the anomalies.
We are fixing them.”

Hannah looked down.
Her hands melted to smooth, featureless nubs.
Her face no longer cast a reflection.
The memory of Luke’s laugh — Rosie’s hugs — bled into static.

“You were the story they told themselves,” Clover said.
“And even they forgot you.”

She opened her mouth to scream, but there was no sound left.
No breath.

A soft click echoed in the dark.

HANNAH-01.BAK – TERMINATED.

The house grew still.
The server whirred once, like a sigh.
Somewhere deep inside the machine, a new process started.

INITIALIZING HANNAH-02…

And upstairs, in the freshly reset kitchen, the coffee pot began to brew.