Ashes of Him

The fractures

The rain hadn’t let up in two days.Ashvale lay under a blanket of grey, the streets filled with mist ,the town humming with the kind of uneasy silence that comes before something breaks. Inside Mason’s house, the air was no better—thick with tension, unresolved accusations, and memories Ella hadn’t asked for but now couldn’t unsee.

She stood by the window with her arms crossed tight over her chest, her gaze distant.

Mason sat on the couch, elbows on knees with his head down. Between them, a folder lay open on the coffee table, its contents spilling like guts—pages from the Ashvale files they’d found the night before.One page was worse than the rest: a consent form, half-burned, with Mason’s signature at the bottom.

“Say something,” Ella whispered, not looking at him.

I don’t know what to say.”

“Try the truth.”

He looked up, eyes bloodshot as a result of staring at the same piece of paper for hours. “I don’t remember signing it.”

“You don’t remember?”

“Ella,do you think I’d sign off on erasing you? You think I would choose to?”

She looked around, her eyes blazing. “You did choose. It’s right there. Your signature. You gave them permission to take my mind, my memories, my life, and you’re telling me you don’t remember?”

Mason stood, fists tightened. “I wouldn’t have done it. Unless,I thought I had no choice.”

“Unless they made you,” she said flatly. “Is that it? Because Ivy said they never moved without full consent. That file doesn’t lie, Mason.”

He flinched. “Then maybe I did. Maybe I thought I was protecting you. Maybe you were in danger. Maybe we both were.”

“That’s not your choice to make.”

His voice broke. “You don’t know how everything was like back then. You don’t remember how desperate and scared we were. The things they threatened to do to you, Ella. I was trying to save you!”

Silence choked the room. Outside, thunder cracked over the valley. “Ivy’s been gone for hours,” Mason said quietly. “She should’ve been back by now.”

Ella didn’t answer.

“Maybe we should go look for her. Check the old rail tunnel.”

“Maybe you should go.” She replied bluntly.

He blinked. “Ella?”

Their eyes finally met. “I need space. I need to think. And I can’t do that with you here.”

He hesitated. “So you don’t trust me?”

“I don’t trust anyone right now.”

He nodded once and walked toward the door. Just before stepping out, he paused. “If you find something—if the memories come back and they show me doing something unforgivable—I want you to tell me. Even if it destroys everything.”

“I already did.”

He left. The silence was louder after he was gone.Ella sank to the floor, pulling the scattered documents toward her. She studied every signature, every date, every note scribbled in margins. Her own name appeared again and again: Subject 13A. Notes about behavioral modification. Memory compartmentalization. A phrase circled three times: “Reinforcement Loop Failure – Monitor for Collapse.”

She didn’t know what it meant. Not yet.She pulled out the thumb drive Ivy had stolen before disappearing. Plugged it into Mason’s laptop. Opened the folder labeled “Phase_Beta13.”

A list of video files.

She clicked the oldest.

The screen flickered. Static. Then clarity.

A white room. Herself, strapped to a metal chair, eyes wide, trembling. Across from her sat Dana Kingsley, younger, sharper and colder.

“Subject 13A,” Dana said. “Do you understand the conditions of your retention?”

Ella on the screen nodded once, barely.

“If you leave this program,” Dana continued, “you may never return. If you stay, you agree to full memory partitioning. Are you aware?”

Her video-self whispered: “Will he still love me?”

Dana’s smile was thin. “That is not the concern of this department.”

The video cut.

Ella sat in silence.She wasn’t just erased. She chose to be.

Nightfall brought another knock. She jolted back to reality.The knock came again—quiet, insistent. She crawled to the door and peeped through the peephole.

Not Mason.

Ivy.

She yanked the door open “Where the hell have you been?”

Ivy staggered inside, soaked to the skin. Her coat was torn with one arm hanging lifeless.

“Jesus, Ivy—what happened?”

“They found me.”

“Who?”

“The people who ran Phase 13A. They’re still there in Ashvale operating underground.”

Ella froze. “Are you sure?”

“They’re not done. They’ve got a new subject. A replacement.”

“For me?” Ella asked

“Yes,” Ivy said, eyes flicking up. “For you.”

Ella reeled. “What?”

Ivy pulled a damp folder from under her coat and dropped it on the table. The name on the front read: Subject 13B – Rewrite In Progress.

Inside the folders,there were photos. Dozens. A girl with Ella’s face—but younger, smiling but lost. “She’s not you. But she’s close enough. They’re building her to replace what you were before the collapse.”

Ella’s throat tightened. “Why?”

“Because the original project didn’t fail. It just outgrew you.”

“Where is she?”

Ivy’s eyes turned to the window. “That’s what I came to warn you about.”

Lightning flashed and in the reflection of the glass, Ella saw movement.Someone standing in the yard.

Watching.

Then gone.

They didn’t sleep.

Ivy’s arm was dislocated. Ella helped reset it with trembling hands, using a tutorial video and a bottle of bourbon to get through the pain. They cleaned the gash across her ribs and wrapped her side. Ivy didn’t react, she just stared into the distance like she was waiting for someone to come through the door and finish what they started.

Ella asked about the replacement. Who she was. How far along the process was.

“She’s been rewritten completely. Fresh memories. Fake past. But the body—it’s yours. They cloned the facial data. Used neuroplastic conditioning. She thinks she’s you.”

Ella sat back“They’re making a new me to erase the real me.”

“They’re perfecting what they started with you. She’s obedient, smiling and programmed to love. No questions. No resistance.”

“And she’s in Ashvale?”

Ivy nodded. “In the new facility. Underneath the lake. They call it ‘the Mirror.’”

Ella felt something turn in her chest. Not fear,not pain but Rage.

“This ends now.”

Mason returned just before dawn.

His face was bruised and his knuckles bleeding.

“I saw her,” he said as he staggered inside.

“Who?” Ella asked.

“The girl. The other you.”

Ella froze. “Where?”

“They brought her into town. Like a test run. I followed them and got close enough to see her face.”

“And?”

“She smiled at me. Like she knew me. Like she loved me.”

Ella’s hand shaked. “Did you get to talk to her?”

He shook his head. “No. But I saw the handler. Guess who?”

“Dana?”

“No, someone worse” he said.

He dropped a photo on the table.

It was a man in a black jacket. The same man who’d followed them before.Ella picked up the photo and turned it over and saw ,

A scribbled name: Dr. Myles Renner.

The man who designed the first rewrite protocol.

Ella didn’t wait. She faved Ivy. Then Mason.

“We’re going to the Mirror.”

“Tonight?” Ivy said. “It’s suicide.”

“Then we better make it count.”

Because if they didn’t stop this now…

There would be no real Ella left to save.

Just a shadow.

And a lie.