Etap 24 < 95% COMPLETE >

He looked at his hands. They were young, strong. The hands of a man in his thirties. But inside, he felt older. Much older. He tried to remember his life—the one before the ship. A childhood. A mother’s face. A dog. Rain on a window.

A door hissed open. A woman stood there, older, with tired eyes and a clipboard made of actual cellulose paper. Her name badge read: Dr. Aris – Chief Psych. etap 24

The silence stretched. Dr. Aris looked at her shoes. He looked at his hands

But dirt also forgot.

The intercom above the cryo-pod crackled to life. A voice, flat and synthetic, announced: “ETAP 24. Initiate neural priming.” flat and synthetic

People who weren’t stage twenty-four of a copy of a copy of a copy.