On frame 458, the girl looked up. Not at the sun. Not at the garden. Directly through the lens. Directly at Elara.
And she had just proven it worked.
Frame 720. The final frame. The girl waved, then ran toward the house that no longer existed. The sunflowers bent their heads. And the garden faded to sepia, then to the warm, quiet static of a memory ending.
Tears blurred Elara’s vision. The WAN2.1 architecture was doing what the board had feared. It wasn't simulating. It was narrating .