Chapter 12 -- The Breaking Point
Chapter 12
The Breaking Point
Evening had already fallen. The lights stretching along the shoreline cast trembling reflections across the surface of the sea. John and Nadia, dressed in elegant evening attire, walked toward the entrance of the luxury restaurant. Nadia’s dress shimmered gracefully as she moved, while John’s suit made him look even more composed than usual.
As they stepped inside, a warm, dim atmosphere welcomed them.
A male waiter immediately approached, bowing his head slightly with a polite smile.
“Welcome. Please follow me to your reserved table.”
The waiter led the way, and John and Nadia followed him to the sea-view section of the restaurant. Beyond the large glass windows, the darkness of the night was traced with delicate glimmers from the coastal lights. The soft sound of waves could be heard through the glass.
The waiter gestured toward the table, inviting them to sit.
Nadia smiled and took her seat. John sat across from her.
The table had been prepared with great care:
Shining glasses, a white linen tablecloth, fine silver cutlery…
Everything was arranged meticulously.
As they settled in, the waiter handed them the menus. Around them, other couples chatted quietly to the accompaniment of soft music, with the calming sound of the sea lingering in the background.
Nadia took a gentle breath while gazing toward the ocean.
This was the first moment of the night they were about to share.
John and Nadia sat facing each other, skimming through the menus. Under the dim lighting, the pages shimmered faintly, and the breeze from the sea left a soft hum against the windows.
As John’s eyes moved along the lines of the menu, a thought suddenly stopped him. He lifted his head and looked at Nadia. She noticed his gaze immediately, a warm smile appearing on her face.
“What is it?” she asked softly.
John leaned back and took a deep breath.
“So… what happens now? Can you eat?” he asked.
Then, hesitating slightly, he added,
“I don’t understand this. Do you even have a digestive system?”
Nadia let out a light laugh; she clearly understood where the question was coming from.
“No,” she said gently. “I don’t have a digestive system. Only my outer synthetic skin is fully biological. And it needs nourishment.”
John raised his eyebrows, listening with surprise.
Nadia continued,
“That’s why I’ll accompany you… just in a slightly different way.”
John leaned forward with curiosity.
“What do you mean?”
Nadia smiled, a playful glint in her eyes.
“You’ll see in a moment.”
She then slightly lifted her head and signaled the waiter.
He had been waiting a few steps away and began walking toward the table to take their orders.
Shortly afterward, the waiter returned with an assistant. They began placing the plates on the table one by one. John’s order looked steaming and appetizing. The glasses gleamed; the table setting was complete.
But John immediately noticed something strange.
There was no food on the plates placed in front of Nadia.
Instead, each plate held a single capsule-like object.
It didn’t resemble a meal at all—more like a medical product straight out of a laboratory.
As John stared in confusion, the waiter poured wine into John’s glass.
When he turned to Nadia, however, he didn’t pour from a regular bottle into a normal glass. Instead, he placed only a few drops into a very small glass container.
It felt less like a drink and more like a sample.
John began to watch Nadia closely.
Without hesitation, Nadia picked up the capsule from her plate and gently placed it in her mouth. The capsule dissolved with the moisture of her tongue. Then she sipped the few drops of wine from the small glass.
Within seconds, the expression on Nadia’s face began to change.
Her eyelids fluttered slightly, her breathing softened.
It was as if the biological response triggered by the capsule sent a wave of sensation through her.
John simply watched.
The capsule was not a simple nutritional supplement;
it was a system that directly affected Nadia’s sensations—perhaps what “eating” meant for her.
After dissolving the capsule and tasting the few drops of wine through her taste receptors, a subtle softness appeared on Nadia’s face, a faint expression of satisfaction.
John kept watching—but now his gaze was filled less with curiosity and more with an inner constriction.
Suddenly, anger surged inside him.
This was not the ordinary anger one feels toward another person.
On the contrary, it came from the deep pain of loss—from longing, from grief itself, from the crushing weight of facing the ghost of someone he could never bring back.
And that was precisely why he had made that decision:
to bring his wife back.
But the realization that the person sitting across from him was not truly Nadia stabbed into his soul like a knife.
The figure before him was nothing more than a puppet—
a reshaped, redesigned shadow of his longing.
John didn’t even realize consciously that he had understood this;
but instinctively, he tested her.
He stood up abruptly, pushing his chair back with a sharp motion—almost leaping to his feet in anger.
Such a sudden move would have startled the real Nadia.
The real Nadia would have looked up, tried to understand what was happening, reacted.
But the one in front of him…
Nadia lifted her head and looked at him with a completely mechanical grace,
the fixed smile on her face not changing by even a millimeter.
There was no surprise in her eyes.
No fear.
No question.
No break in her breathing, no reflex at all.
Only programmed calm.
A single sentence passed through John’s mind:
“If it were Nadia… she would have been surprised.”
That thought flung the door to the truth wide open inside him.
At that moment, he pulled away from the table with a sharp movement.
He didn’t stop for even a second.
He walked swiftly toward the restaurant exit.
His footsteps were hard and determined, echoing the pain that had built up inside him.
Nadia remained where she was.
The fixed smile on her face never changed.
Her eyes stared only into the empty space in front of her.
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