When Death Isn't the End

THE VAULT OF ME

CHAPTER 20

I didn’t tell my mother I was going.

I waited until she’d fallen asleep, until the creak of the hallway was drowned out by the low whir of the generator outside and the distant hum of rain drumming against the windows. Then I dressed—black hoodie, black jeans, sneakers with quiet soles—and slipped out the back.

The air smelled of wet soil and burnt diesel. My bag felt heavier than usual. I wasn’t sure what I’d packed—a bottle of water, the hard drive, a power bank, a pocketknife I barely knew how to use—but it all felt necessary. Like I was walking into a place where logic wouldn’t protect me.

I took a bike from the neighbour’s rusted rack. It had a flat back tire and brakes that squealed like a warning, but it would get me there. The city peeled away behind me as I rode through old roads and flooded shortcuts, heart thudding in sync with every push of the pedal.

By the time I reached the outskirts, the sky had split open.

The maternity hospital stood like a skeleton. Windows shattered. Paint peeling. The fence curled like rusted wire around a secret. I left the bike at the back and pushed through the opening behind the main block—exactly where the archive listed Site E.

It was easy to miss. Just a steel hatch tucked beneath a collapsed stairwell, the kind you’d mistake for a generator pit. But the moment I touched it, I knew.

There was power underneath.

And something else.

Something awake.

I pulled out the crowbar I’d stolen from the tool shed two days ago—not thinking, just moving—and pried the hatch open.

The air that rose to meet me was cold. Sterile. Too clean for somewhere long abandoned.

A single rusted ladder led down into the dark.

I climbed.

Every rung echoed.

Every breath tightened.

Then—light.

Faint, flickering strips along the ceiling. Emergency backup, maybe. But enough to see.

Enough to find the sign on the wall:

AETHER UNIT – SITE E. Authorized Entry Only.

My pulse pounded.

I moved carefully through the corridor, the floors humming faintly beneath my feet. There were sealed doors along both sides, most of them locked with blinking red panels, but one further down flickered green.

I pushed it open.

Inside was a lab.

Bare. Quiet. Not as dusty as it should have been.

A long desk sat against the far wall, empty save for a row of monitors—each one black, except one.

A login screen.

No keyboard.

Just a small sensor pad.

I stared at it.

And it stared back.

Then I reached out—and without warning, the screen blinked, and the words "Hello, Jasmine." lit up in green.

I jerked back.

The screen changed again.

"You’ve come further than most."

Then: "Would you like to remember now?"

I didn’t know who I was answering.

But I whispered: “Yes.”

A low hum filled the room.

Then one of the screens lit up, showing a slow-moving video: footage of a long hallway. Security timestamp in the corner. 2021.

Two figures walked down it—one in a white lab coat, the other… me.

But not me.

She had my face. My walk. My height.

But she moved like a puppet.

And when the camera zoomed in on her eyes—they were empty.

The lab coat turned. A woman. Her face grainy but familiar.

My mother.

She was talking to the girl.

To me.

Saying words I couldn’t hear.

Then she stepped aside.

And the girl walked into a room labeled CHAMBER 5.

The video cut.

The screen changed again.

VOICE FILE – “GLORIA_LOG_FINAL”

I clicked play.

My mother’s voice filled the lab. Calm. Controlled. Tired.

“This is Gloria, lead neuromodification specialist, Project K-Variant. Subject 11A has now entered final phase. I repeat—subject has entered final phase. The memory graft is incomplete. There is still contamination from the original host. But there is no time. The committee has made their decision. She will be deployed as-is.”

My throat tightened.

“If you're hearing this, Jasmine… then something failed. And I’m sorry. I never wanted you to know like this.”

I couldn’t move.

“They lied to me too. About the purpose. About the candidates. About the field tests. I thought we were treating trauma. Repairing broken minds. But what we did… what I did… it was erasure.”

She exhaled shakily.

“The night you went missing, you were taken here. You were split. The version of you I got back wasn't whole. You were quiet. Numb. And then the dreams started. The names. The slip-ups. Like two scripts overlapping. That’s when I knew—the memory scrub didn’t work.”

Silence.

“If you find this place, don’t trust anything with a green light. Green means active. It means they’re still watching. Still recording. If you see your own face in a room you don’t remember being in—leave.”

The file ended.

I stood frozen.

All this time, she’d known.

Not just about the project.

About me.

I reached for the hard drive, connected it to the terminal, and started copying everything. Logs. Videos. Notes. I didn’t care how long it would take—I needed proof.

The progress bar ticked slowly.

And then, somewhere deeper in the unit, a door clicked open.

Footsteps.

Not mine.

I slammed the drive shut and yanked the cord free.

Heart hammering, I ducked under the desk.

A shadow passed the glass.

Then stopped.

Silence.

And then—low, deliberate knocking on the doorframe.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

I held my breath.

Then a voice.

Smooth. Too familiar.

“Jasmine… I know you’re in here.”

The door creaked open wider.

He stepped inside.

Tall. Dark coat. Face partly hidden by the flicker of the emergency lights.

But I saw enough.

The man from the footage. The one holding the metallic device.

The one who’d shown up near other disappearances.

He smiled.

“You really shouldn’t have remembered.”