EPISODE 10: The Archive Binds
1682 Words
The chamber didn’t wait for her answer.
As Seviah fell to her hands and knees, the red mist thickened, curling into shapes—faces. Dozens of them. All young. All familiar. They floated just above the glass floor like ghostly projections, glitching in and out of visibility.
She reached for one. A girl with freckles and frightened eyes. The moment her fingers brushed the shape, it collapsed into sound.
“I was ten. They said I had the Fire Gift. I didn’t. I just had nightmares.”
Another floated near her shoulder. A boy. Pale. Mute.
“They took my voice because it echoed too loudly.”
Seviah clutched her chest. Their voices were inside her now—joining the storm.
Renn’s voice pierced the haze.
Down in the dim halls below, the walls began to twitch.
Tiny silver threads, like veins of light, slithered through the crevices. Data lines. Awake. Listening.
The Archive may have been rewritten, but its body remained — vast, ancient, and alive in ways no machine should be.
Seviah leaned on Renn as they walked, her legs unsteady, but her steps determined. Every part of her felt cracked open, like she’d swallowed lightning and was still learning how to keep it from spilling out.
“Do you hear them still?” Renn asked, not unkindly.
Seviah nodded.
“They’re quieter now. Like… whispers in another room. I think they’re resting.”
“And Zorren?”
She glanced over her shoulder.
He hadn’t followed them.
“He’s sitting behind?” Renn asked.
Seviah paused.
“He is in the Archive now. The clean version. Someone has to guard what’s left. And he… he chose that.”
Far behind them, inside the mist chamber, Zorren sat back in the chair once more. His scars no longer glowed, but his eyes remained white.
He didn’t speak.
He had just watched the terminal, its interface now reset.
Above it, a small blinking message scrolled across the top of the glass.
Welcome, Keeper.
Back in the surface corridor, Seviah felt the difference.
The facility was shifting. Doors that had once stayed sealed cracked open. Lights changed color. The air didn’t press down so hard anymore.
She could breathe.
“Where do we go now?” Renn asked.
“To the exit.”
“You think they’ll just let us walk out?”
“No,” Seviah said, with a tired smile. “But they’ve never met me like this.”
They turned down a hall marked Sector C-1: Exit Wing.
Ahead, faint voices echoed.
And then — footfalls.
Heavy. Patterned.
They ducked into an alcove, listening. Three figures passed — two guards, one white-coated researcher, speaking into a handheld device.
“Subject Collector is not a threat,” the man said. Archive reports compliance. We’re clearing Level B.”
“They think I obeyed,” Seviah murmured.
“Isn’t that good?”
“No,” she said. “It means they’ve already made their next move.”
At that moment, miles above in the control tower, the Director removed his gloves. Fingers gleamed with synthetic bone beneath living skin. A monitor displayed Seviah’s face — younger, barely six, taken from old footage.
“She did it,” he whispered. “She accessed the rewrite key.”
Beside him stood a massive glass tube. Within it — suspended, asleep — was another girl. Same white hair. Same face.
Except older.
Taller.
Smiling faintly in her sleep.
“Time to wake the Original,” he said.
Seviah froze mid-step.
Renn held her arm.
“What is it?”
“Something just… changed,” Seviah whispered. “Like something’s watching me that knows me.”
Her pulse spiked.
“We’re not alone anymore.”
“Seviah! Can you hear me?”
Seviah turned slowly. Renn was still at the threshold, but she couldn’t step through. The Archive was choosing its subject. Locking the door.
“She’s sealed in,” Zorren muttered. “It won’t let her out until it’s done with her.”
In front of Seviah, a new projection appeared.
Nali.
Small. Smiling. Just like she was in the orphanage—until the night she disappeared.
“Why didn’t you come after me?”
Seviah’s lips trembled.
“They said you were taken to the medic bay.”
“I was.”
Nali’s eyes darkened.
“But I didn’t leave alone.”
Seviah blinked.
“What does that mean?”
The image began to glitch. Her outline twisted, fractured—
And then reformed.
Not as Nali.
But as Seviah herself.
Bloodstained. Expression blank.
“You brought me there.”
“No,” Seviah whispered. “I—I wouldn’t—”
“You didn’t remember. But you obeyed. You always did… back then.”
The room spun.
The voices rose again.
Memories she didn’t recognize screamed at the edges of her mind.
The experiments.
The chamber where they made her choose between two orphans—one to save, one to forget.
She’d chosen silence.
“You were a puppet once,” the Archive whispered. “But now you can pull the strings.”
Across the chamber, a new terminal rose from the floor—a glowing interface with two options:
INTEGRATE
PURGE
Seviah’s eyes narrowed.
“What happens if I integrate?”
Zorren’s voice echoed faintly from the other side of the seal.
“You become the Archive. Its keeper. Its vessel.”
“And purge?”
“You destroy it. And with it, all the voices. All the names.”
Renn slammed her fist against the glass.
“Don’t do it, Seviah! That’s you in there—not them. Don’t lose yourself.”
The floor flickered again, revealing dozens of redacted files with her name.
SEVIAH REND:
Subject ID: 000
Status: Collector
Project Class: Irregular Anomaly
Directive: Observe Until Awakening. Terminate if uncontrolled.
Her hands shook.
She wasn’t just a test subject.
She was the control variable.
The system spoke again.
“Choose.”
“Integrate… or Purge.”
The lights dimmed.
Her hands hovered over the interface.
“I’m not your weapon,” she said softly.
“And I’m not your graveyard.”
Her fingers moved—
And press the center of the panel.
A third option lit up:
REWRITE.
The system froze.
The chamber shuddered.
Zorren gasped.
“She found the rewrite key… it wasn’t supposed to exist anymore.”
The red mist thrashed, trying to resist the input.
But Seviah was calm now. Still trembling, but steady.
“I’ll carry them,” she whispered. “But on my terms.”
The Archive let out a sound.
Not a scream. Not a siren.
A sigh.
Relief.
The chamber lights went white.
The faces faded.
But their voices remained. Not screaming now—whispering. Soft. Grateful.
Seviah stood, blood still drying in her temple, eyes lit with quiet fire.
The door opened.
Renn caught her as she stumbled out.
“You did it.”
Seviah nodded.
“No more archives. Just memory.”
Zorren looked away.
“Then they’ll come for all of us now.”
Seviah raised her eyes.
“Let them.”
Down in the dim halls below, the walls began to twitch.
Tiny silver threads, like veins of light, slithered through the crevices. Data lines. Awake. Listening.
The Archive may have been rewritten, but its body remained — vast, ancient, and alive in ways no machine should be.
Seviah leaned on Renn as they walked, her legs unsteady, but her steps determined. Every part of her felt cracked open, like she’d swallowed lightning and was still learning how to keep it from spilling out.
“Do you hear them still?” Renn asked, not unkindly.
Seviah nodded.
“They’re quieter now. Like… whispers in another room. I think they’re resting.”
“And Zorren?”
She glanced over her shoulder.
He hadn’t followed them.
“He’s sitting behind?” Renn asked.
Seviah paused.
“He is in the Archive now. The clean version. Someone has to guard what’s left. And he… he chose that.”
Far behind them, inside the mist chamber, Zorren sat back in the chair once more. His scars no longer glowed, but his eyes remained white.
He didn’t speak.
He had just watched the terminal, its interface now reset.
Above it, a small blinking message scrolled across the top of the glass.
Welcome, Keeper.
Back in the surface corridor, Seviah felt the difference.
The facility was shifting. Doors that had once stayed sealed cracked open. Lights changed color. The air didn’t press down so hard anymore.
She could breathe.
“Where do we go now?” Renn asked.
“To the exit.”
“You think they’ll just let us walk out?”
“No,” Seviah said, with a tired smile. “But they’ve never met me like this.”
They turned down a hall marked Sector C-1: Exit Wing.
Ahead, faint voices echoed.
And then — footfalls.
Heavy. Patterned.
They ducked into an alcove, listening. Three figures passed — two guards, one white-coated researcher, speaking into a handheld device.
“Subject Collector is not a threat,” the man said. “Archive reports compliance. We’re clearing Level B.”
“They think I obeyed,” Seviah murmured.
“Isn’t that good?”
“No,” she said. “It means they’ve already made their next move.”
At that moment, miles above in the control tower, the Director removed his gloves. Fingers gleamed with synthetic bone beneath living skin. A monitor displayed Seviah’s face — younger, barely six, taken from old footage.
“She did it,” he whispered. “She accessed the rewrite key.”
Beside him stood a massive glass tube. Within it — suspended, asleep — was another girl. Same white hair. Same face.
Except older.
Taller.
Smiling faintly in her sleep.
“Time to wake the Original,” he said.
Seviah froze mid-step.
Renn held her arm.
“What is it?”
“Something just… changed,” Seviah whispered. “Like something’s watching me that knows me.”
Her pulse spiked.
“We’re not alone anymore.”
- Writer
