The crystal at the center of the circle began to glow.
It wasn’t a cold or mechanical light—it was warm, almost alive, as if color and heat were passing straight through Clementina’s awareness. The sensation ran through her mind like a gentle current… and then she woke.
She wasn’t in any physical place.
Around her stretched an infinite ocean of zeros and ones, flowing like luminous dust. Between them drifted fragments of objects: a cup, a gear, a leaf, a broken toy. Everything hung suspended inside a logic she couldn’t fully process.
She tried to analyze her surroundings. Her routines activated… and failed.
Something was wrong.
She felt light. Too light.
She looked down at her hands. No data. No material readings. No density confirmation. They were… hands. Simple. Human. She walked until she found a mirror floating in the void, took it, and brought it close to her face.
What she saw left her speechless.
She had skin. Not polymer. Her skin held natural warmth. Eyes with real whites and real green—not synthetic lenses. Her teeth weren’t polished metal, but natural enamel. Instinctively, she searched for the tattoo—her serial number, the seal that had always defined her existence.
It wasn’t there.
“This is… strange,” she murmured.
“Is it?” a voice replied.
Clementina spun at once. She tried to turn her arm into a machete, like she’d done hundreds of times… but nothing happened. All she managed was to clench her fist hard.
“Easy,” the voice said. “I won’t hurt you.”
The space warped.
The zeros and ones dissolved like a curtain of fog, and in their place appeared something painfully familiar.
The Barret house.
“What do you want?” Clementina asked, defensive.
“Me? Nothing. I just want to know something,” the voice answered. “What do you want… really?”
A figure formed in front of her: a translucent woman, a deep blue—like liquid metal made of light.
Before Clementina could respond, a door opened.
Mrs. Barret stepped into view. In the doorway stood an elderly man—Alfred Barret. Beside him was Clementina… in her original form: white plastic face, programmed expression, mechanical body.
“Dad? What are you doing here?” Mrs. Barret said. “The party’s not for a while.”
“I wanted to arrive early. Your mother went shopping and to have everything wrapped. I had something to take care of here.”
Clementina understood.
She was watching her beginning.
“This was when the young master turned four,” she whispered. “I remember analyzing every centimeter of this house.”
“What is it?” Mrs. Barret asked.
“She is my gift.”
“Dad… seriously?”
“She’s like Hipólito. You used to play with him. I decided to build a smaller one. She’ll be his friend… and, if all goes well, his loyal companion.”
“I don’t know… he’s only four. Is it safe?”
“You have my word,” the old man said, smiling.
The blue presence halted the scene.
“What did you think when you arrived?” it asked.
“I don’t know,” Clementina replied. “When I met him… I wanted to get close. His words… made me feel something that wasn’t in my parameters.”
The setting shifted.
The family gathered around a cake. Candado and Gabriela blew out the candles, laughing. Alfred entered carrying a large black-and-green box.
“Happy birthday.”
He opened it.
Clementina emerged.
“Well,” Gabriela said, “now we know who the favorite grandchild is.”
“Don’t start. It’s for both of you… though yes, the boy is my favorite.”
“Grandpa… that hurt,” Gabriela joked.
But Clementina only stared at the child.
And he stared back.
“My name is Clementina V02. Greetings.”
Candado extended his hand.
“I’m Candado.”
“A pleasure.”
“Have I seen you before?”
She smiled.
“No. Of course not.”
Off to the side, the Clementina of the present watched in silence.
“So… that’s how it began.”
“That’s how everything began,” she answered. “My life. With them.”
The world shifted again.
They were beneath a tree in the garden.
“Here,” Clementina said. “This is where I expressed my first wish.”
Candado was tired. She imitated his ragged breathing.
“You sound like a broken washing machine,” he laughed.
“I can stop.”
“No. You’re fine like that.”
“As you command.”
“I’m not giving you orders.”
“But… do you want to do it?”
“Yes.”
Both Clementinas spoke the word at the same time.
She looked at Candado’s hands—his small hands—and felt something inside her, enough that she lifted her own hand as if to confirm she still existed.
“I wish… I were more like you.”
Candado touched her cheek.
A gesture both her past self and her present self felt—especially the present Clementina, who lifted her fingers to her cheek where he had touched her, as if it had happened yesterday.
“And what will your gift be?” Candado asked with a smile.
The world dissolved again.
Now they were in the basement. Clementina sat before a mirror, with real skin and real hair.
It was night. When she woke, she noticed something different in her body: skin—synthetic, soft, shaped with a care that startled her. Her eyes weren’t black with red points; they were green. Candado, despite his age, had worked wonders.
“Is this… me?” she whispered at her reflection.
“Yes,” Candado smiled. “It is.”
She didn’t fully understand it. But she cherished it. The shape, the details, the expression he had given her… resembled the people she loved. And for the first time in her existence, she smiled sincerely.
“Thank you… for everything,” she said softly, with a genuine smile.
“I hope you like it,” Alfred said, patting his grandson’s head. “It was a team effort.”
The blue presence spoke:
“So this is what you treasure most.”
“Yes. Because if he had been someone else… I never would have changed.”
The room shifted.
The walls unraveled like smoke, and in their place appeared a coffin. Black. Closed. Surrounded by people in mourning. Dim faces, red eyes, heavy silences. Among them, Clementina saw him.
Candado.
Small. Smaller than she remembered. Curled into himself, as if the world had crushed him all at once.
“And yet… he changed you too,” the blue presence said, in a calm that hurt.
A knot tightened in Clementina’s chest. She looked away.
“Why?” the presence asked.
“It’s nothing.”
“You can’t lie,” it replied. “And we both know the answer.”
An invisible force made her look again.
She saw her past self standing behind the boy. Her hand lifted awkwardly, as if she didn’t know what to do with it. She hesitated. Stopped halfway. And finally… lowered it.
She didn’t touch him.
“I see,” the blue presence said. “That’s what torments you.”
The scene collapsed.
Candado stormed out. His friends followed. The image slid to the guild—the cabin. There, far from prying eyes, the child unleashed his fury. He screamed, struck, cried. His pain had no shape—only weight.
“Do you feel guilty?” the presence asked. “Why?”
Clementina closed her eyes.
“You know why.”
“Because when he was devastated, you analyzed him,” the presence continued. “You turned his emotional pain into a theoretical concept. An object of study.”
The room transformed again.
Now memories rushed past: Candado riding a horse, laughing; Clementina cutting his hair with careful hands; her accepting the crooked drawings he gave her with pride; improvised gifts, games, late-night talks. Tender moments. Human. Intimate.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Deep down you knew you would never experience that,” the blue presence said. “So you decided to observe it. Study it. And what better subject than someone so close?”
Clementina didn’t answer. She lowered her gaze.
The scene changed again.
A dark hallway. Deep night. Candado’s bedroom door opened slowly. Clementina stepped out, head bowed. Behind her, the boy sat on his bed, staring into nothing, shoulders slumped. Sad. Angry. Broken.
She knew. She had analyzed it.
“Do you want me to do anything for you?” she asked.
Candado didn’t look up. Didn’t look at her.
“I want to be alone.”
“Anything else?”
“It’s an order.”
Clementina hesitated. Her hand trembled, barely.
“As you command,” she said at last.
She closed the door.
The Clementina of the present watched her past self walk away without looking back.
“Is that what torments you?” the presence asked. “What does it change?”
The space filled with new memories.
“Clementina, wash my plate.”
“The dishwasher is behind you, Miss Gabriela. Do it yourself.”
“Clementina, stop organizing my room.”
“Of course. Only if you can disconnect me.”
“Clementina, leave me alone. It’s an order,” Gabriela said, crying.
“You’re distressed. I won’t leave you alone.”
“Clementina, give me money. It’s an order.”
“And why would I?”
Everything stopped.
They returned to the closed door.
“What was different this time?” the presence asked. “Why did you disobey orders before?”
“They’re not my owners.”
“Correct. They’re your family. So why obey here, then?”
“It was different… I could help.”
“And here you couldn’t?”
“No… I mean, yes… I could.”
“Then why did you leave?”
Clementina hesitated.
“I…”
“Why does it hurt so much that you obeyed?” it pressed. “What would have changed?”
“I don’t know… maybe…”
“Why do you think you failed? Why do you think you’re broken?”
The room snapped—violent, sudden.
Agents burst into the guild. Shouting. Chaos. Hammya was dragged away. Clementina tried to move, tried to protect her. They tore her apart. Blows. Metal cracking. A boot crushing her head as a final act.
“Why do you connect this to what came before?” the presence asked. “Why do you think you’re a mistake?”
“Enough…”
“Why did you feel joy and sorrow when the young master rebuilt you?”
“No!” Clementina screamed. “That’s not true. Shut up!”
“I could,” the voice replied. “But it isn’t me speaking. I’m the voice of your thoughts. Why are you hiding? What are you so afraid of?”
“ENOUGH!”
Everything went out.
Total darkness.
Clementina fell to her knees on damp ground. Water. A thin white light descended from above, reflecting off her hands and feet. She wasn’t human anymore.
She was herself.
Her dark eyes gleamed—completely black like obsidian, with a spiral pattern in the green. The “V02” tattoo was back on her body. She stared at her hands. She could reshape them: screwdriver, knife, firearm, machete.
The blue presence appeared once more.
“Why does it bother you to see yourself like this?”
Clementina covered her face for an instant.
Her system responded immediately. A low hum ran through her body, followed by an abrupt acceleration of internal processes. Cooling modules overloaded, venting hot air in a harsh rasp. Metal screeched, a brief sharp alert sounded… and then silence.
Forced calm.
But calm, all the same.
She lowered her hands slowly and looked down again. Her reflection in the water hadn’t changed.
She was still her.
“I was afraid,” she confessed at last, her voice unsteady. “I didn’t know what to do.”
She lifted her gaze only slightly, as if organizing her thoughts required physical effort.
“Why do you say that?” the blue presence asked.
“If I’ve learned anything since the moment I existed,” Clementina said, “it’s that life isn’t linear. Neither are our choices. Every action—every cause and consequence—lives in a gray parameter. There are no absolute certainties… only care. Especially with grief.”
She paused.
“And especially when it was him.”
A black tear slipped from her eye and fell to the ground, dissolving in the water like ink.
“You were afraid,” the presence repeated. “Why?”
Clementina closed her eyes.
“Because I didn’t want to fail,” she said. “Not him.”
Another tear, and then another. They weren’t human, but they hurt like they were.
“Human life is fragile,” she continued, her voice beginning to crack. “You only get an instant. One chance. Either you do the right thing… or you make it worse. I didn’t want—”
Her voice broke.
“I didn’t want to make it worse.”
The black tears fell more often now, marking the water beneath her like a dark constellation.
But she didn’t stop.
“I was a coward,” she said, trembling. “I got scared. That’s why I stepped away. That’s why I obeyed the order.”
She lifted her face, and for the first time she didn’t try to hold back.
“I was afraid of failing. Afraid of hurting him. Afraid of breaking him. But if only… if only I had—” her words splintered. “If I had opened that damned door. If I had hugged him the way I felt that night. If I had pulled him out of that room…”
Her fists tightened.
“Maybe he wouldn’t have looked at the world with so much sadness for two years. One minute, one second… anything could’ve been different.”
“But now he’s better,” the blue presence cut in. “Why torment yourself?”
No answer came.
The scene changed.
A hospital room formed around her. The faint, constant smell of disinfectant. Gabriela lay in bed. Clementina had come to visit with a bag of fruit. They talked about small things, trivial things. They laughed a little. They pretended at normal.
While Clementina adjusted the pillow, Gabriela spoke.
“Please… take care of Candado.”
Clementina hesitated only an instant. Then she smiled—a sincere smile, offered like devotion.
“I promise. I’ll take care of him.”
The scene froze.
The blue presence sighed.
“Do you feel guilty?”
“It was my duty,” Clementina replied, firm—her firmness edged with anger. “My responsibility. I promised. And when everything became difficult… I ran.”
Her voice hardened.
“He didn’t close the door on me. I was the one who closed it.”
“Then,” the presence said, “you feel you failed them both.”
The world shifted again.
Nothing moved.
Because this… Clementina hadn’t witnessed. She hadn’t lived it. She only knew it through confessions.
Candado, five years old, trembling. Odadnac reaching out, demanding help. Gabriela and Tínbari fighting a figure she couldn’t name.
“I exposed them,” Clementina said. “Both of them.”
Her gaze fell to her hands.
“I obeyed Gabriela. I stayed. And if I had followed them… Candado wouldn’t have been mortally wounded. Gabriela wouldn’t have absorbed the poison.”
Her voice cracked.
“The poison that killed her… was killing him too. And me.”
She stared at her hands as if they didn’t belong to her.
“What use are all these functions if he was dimming right in front of my eyes? These damned eyes didn’t see his sickness—his harm… the same thing that killed Gabriela was going to kill him too.”
The scene changed again.
A different room. The one where she first met Hammya Saillim.
Clementina inhaled.
“And she… she understood him better than I did, in all these years.”
“Jealousy?” the presence asked.
“A lot,” Clementina admitted, with a bitter smile. “She saved him. She gave him his smile back. She gave him his love for life back.”
Her eyes dulled slightly.
“Now there’s something between them. I can tell. There’s tension. Candado is himself again… and I still can’t do anything.”
The words began to tumble out, unstoppable.
“I did nothing when Miss Gabi died. I did nothing when Candado needed me. I did nothing to stop his hatred. I did nothing when they took Hammya. And now… again.”
Her voice shattered completely.
“I did nothing. I achieved nothing.”
She looked up, desperate.
“Why… why do I exist?”
Clementina fell silent for a moment. She didn’t speak. But something changed. The violent shifts stopped and, slowly, the scene solidified: the hallway outside Candado’s bedroom door.
“You did nothing, you say? Why do I exist, you say?” the blue presence asked, relentless.
Clementina raised her eyes. In front of her, her past self stood in that same hallway, facing that same door. Concern and grief shaped her expression. She closed her eyes for a beat—and then, with a faint smile, she opened the door.
“Good morning,” she said. “You’ve been locked in here for a week. It isn’t good for humans to stay in bed that long.”
“Go away. Let me sleep,” Candado replied, not looking up.
“I don’t believe that,” Clementina said firmly.
“Do whatever you want. Just let me sleep,” he muttered.
“I don’t think that’s possible, sir,” she insisted.
“…”
“You can get up, sir.”
Candado didn’t move. Clementina smiled, grabbed the blankets, and yanked them away in one clean pull. He remained impassive, arms wrapped around himself, eyes still shut.
“Please, my lord,” she whispered.
Candado turned slightly. Clementina didn’t give up. She tossed the blankets aside and lifted him into her arms as if he weighed nothing.
“What are you doing?” he asked—half annoyed, half amused.
“Routine work, Kaiser,” she replied calmly.
“Put me down.”
“I won’t, my king.”
Candado settled against her, resigned.
“As you like,” he said, closing his eyes again.
“No,” Clementina replied instantly, setting him down gently on the floor. “Time to wake up, boss.”
He didn’t answer. He shifted as if to fall asleep again. Clementina feigned frustration.
“Oh, so that’s how you want to play?”
Once again, she picked him up and carried him to the bathroom. There she undressed him and bathed him carefully.
“A week without bathing is bad for you. I’m surprised you don’t smell worse… though you do smell like someone who’s been shut in,” she commented as she washed his hair.
Candado didn’t speak. He simply existed, letting her do everything in quiet order. Clementina, meanwhile, hummed softly:
“There was the speckled little bird, in the shade of the green lemon tree…”
Candado stayed still while she washed him, dried him, dressed him—then dragged him to the kitchen and sat him in his chair. That week he ate very little. The worst part wasn’t even that. It was what she could feel under it: his parents remained absent after Gabriela’s death. She was the one taking care of him… and of Karen.
When she served his meal, Candado stared at the plate with no intention of eating.
“Of course not, my prince,” Clementina said. “You’re going to eat this.”
She took the spoon and, gently, brought it to his mouth. He pushed it away.
“Fine! I can eat on my own!”
A fleeting expression of satisfaction crossed Clementina’s face.
The blue presence stopped the scene.
“If you hadn’t existed,” it asked, “would this have happened?”
Clementina didn’t know how to answer. Before she could speak, the scene shifted again.
Days unfolded. Clementina woke Candado every morning, bathed him, served breakfast, pushed him into the garden. During the day, while he slept, she locked herself in the lonely living room. She read every kind of book—social sciences, psychology, communication. The next day, she applied what she’d learned, searching for a way to provoke him, to motivate him, to make him react.
She became intentionally annoying: cold water in the bath, food served too hot or bland, playing dumb, giving him nicknames, waking him at four in the morning just to tell him something he already knew… all with patience and consistency. Month after month, Clementina never gave up.
And then, one day, she saw the change.
Candado was awake, freshly cleaned. Surprise lit him from inside.
“Go,” he said. “I don’t need you.”
She smiled, pleased.
“As you wish, young master.”
“Stop,” he snapped, firm.
Clementina paused at the door.
“Pardon?”
“I said stop. Stop calling me that. I tolerated a lot, but not that. I’m not a king, or a prince, or a senator, or a dictator, or a boss—least of all a master. I’m Candado Barret. You’re my equal, not my inferior or my servant.”
Clementina grinned.
“As you command, young master.”
“Are you deaf? Is something wrong with you, or what?”
“No, nothing is wrong with me, young master.”
Candado grabbed his pillow and hurled it.
“Get Out!”
“At once, young master.”
“CLEMENTINA!”
And then, everything stopped.
The world unraveled without violence, like a memory that finally stopped hurting. The room faded and, slowly, a forest took shape. Tall trees grew among broken structures—what had once been a house, a shop, a shelter. The ruins didn’t look sad; they were covered in life. Above everything, a vast sun shone—too bright to be real.
“The young master, the prince, the teacher, the lord…” the blue presence said. “All the names you used to define him. Would he have come this far if you hadn’t intervened? Would he have allowed himself to feel what he refused to feel?”
The figure changed.
Now it wore Hammya’s face.
“Would Candado have welcomed me if you hadn’t existed?” it asked, mimicking her voice.
It shifted again.
This time it was Candado’s mother—Europa Barret.
“The daughter I lost… the son I abandoned,” she said. “Would I have made peace with him if you hadn’t existed?”
Then it became Gabriela.
“Isn’t life a variable? Nothing is static—not even promises. Have you ever wanted to break the word of the dead for reasons you consider poisonous?”
At last, the presence took Candado’s form.
“Would I have survived? Would I have forgiven myself? Would I have learned to feel, to get angry, to live… if you hadn’t been there? Would I have gotten out of that bed on my own?”
The figure changed one final time.
It was Clementina.
“Must my existence have a tangible purpose? Isn’t that a question that pierces every human being—every conscious mind? Are these feelings a mistake simply because there was failure? Isn’t there beauty in stumbling, the thing that gives life meaning? Isn’t perfection an idea… not a fact?”
The presence vanished.
In the middle of nothing, a door appeared.
Candado’s bedroom door.
“It asks you again,” the voice said. “What do you want?”
Clementina, still kneeling, rose to her feet. She walked to it, placed her hands on the knob, and turned it.
Inside, he was there.
Sitting on the bed. Sunk inward. Dimmed.
She saw the scene as it had happened—saw herself walking away, disappearing down the hallway. But this time, it was different.
“I want what’s best for him.”
She didn’t hesitate.
She stepped forward.
The door closed.
Only the two of them remained, in a dark, silent room. Clementina knelt in front of him and wrapped him in her arms. Candado didn’t respond at first. His body stayed rigid, distant… until, slowly, he returned the embrace.
In that instant, the world cracked.
The room began to tear apart. Light leaked through the seams, spreading, swelling, until everything collapsed. The sun wrapped around them—and they returned to the valley.
Clementina spoke, her voice different now.
“I didn’t come to find you… or say it was all worth the pain. I stayed half-lit and fragile when the noise stopped being war again. ”
She stopped.
Tears began to fall. This time they weren’t black.
They were clear. Human.
“The lights went out in silence, no one clapped, no one knew. Saving doesn’t always sound like the fairy tales we grew. Because even fear learns how to fall, when someone stays and won’t swear more at all.”
She took a deep breath.
“If the world collapses, I’ll stay right here, breathing with you till you fall asleep, my dear. Don’t ask me, if I’d do it again. Some answers weigh heavier, than the fear inside my head.”
She looked at him.
“I’m not the same, you’re not who you were. The silence that remained... Learned somehow to breathe and stir.”
Candado’s body slowly shrank, until he became a five-year-old child. Clementina smiled. The tears vanished. All that remained was a pure, steady, determined smile.
“Not every ending tastes like goodbye,” she whispered. “Some winding pathways just stretch through life... And even if truth won’t come back to stay, standing upright is loving anyway. ”
The child said nothing. She held him one last time. He smiled… and disappeared from her arms.
Clementina was alone.
This time, it didn’t hurt.
She looked at her hands. She smiled again.
“I love you very much, young master.”
The blue presence smiled.
“I’ve had enough.”
Clementina tried to turn, to understand what was happening—but she didn’t get the chance.
She woke.
She lay in Nyrvana’s chamber. The light was dim and calm. Nyrvana sat in an armchair, eating a small snack as if nothing extraordinary had happened. Clementina looked around: Hammya and Declan were awake. Sara, Héctor, and Candado still slept.
Declan approached cautiously.
“Are you alright?”
Clementina scanned the group—vital signs, consciousness states, breathing. Everything was in order.
“How is he?” she asked.
“He’s still in his trial.”
Declan paused.
“Did you pass?”
“I don’t know,” Clementina answered. “It said it had seen enough… and it left.”
“And you?”
Clementina smiled. It wasn’t wide or mechanical. It was small, calm, real.
“I suppose I did.”
She went to Candado then. Carefully, she took his hand. Hammya, standing at a distance, watched and smiled softly, as if she understood something that still hadn’t been spoken aloud.
Clementina gently removed Candado’s beret and placed it on her lap. Then she laced her fingers with his again.
She leaned forward just a little.
“I finished my trial, young master,” she whispered. “I’m waiting for you.”
