The Name Hidden In Blood.
1391 Words
The hallway felt colder after that.
Elena could still hear the words echoing inside her head.
If the memory procedure fails, eliminate her.
Every step she took through the archive building now felt unreal, like the ground beneath her feet no longer belonged to the same world she had walked into earlier that night.
Someone tried to erase her memories.
Someone planned to kill her if it failed.
And somehow, everyone around her had continued living normally while she spent five years trying to piece herself back together.
The unfairness of it made her chest ache.
Damien walked beside her in silence.
Neither of them spoke for several minutes as they moved carefully through the dark corridors. The building seemed endless now, old shelves and forgotten rooms stretching endlessly beneath flickering emergency lights.
Rain battered the windows violently.
The storm outside was getting worse.
Elena wrapped her arms tighter around herself as another cold breeze slipped through the cracked hallway windows.
Then suddenly Damien stopped walking.
She almost walked into him.
“What?”
He glanced toward the staircase ahead.
Voices echoed faintly downstairs.
“They’re blocking the main exit,” he said quietly.
Elena swallowed slowly.
Of course they were.
Nothing tonight had gone right since she entered this building.
Her eyes drifted toward the black folder still tucked beneath Damien’s arm.
The photographs inside replayed endlessly inside her mind.
ERASE.
That word alone was enough to make her stomach twist painfully.
Who decides to erase a person?
Who decides someone deserves to disappear completely?
And worse
why her?
Another flash of memory hit suddenly.
A woman crying.
Hands gripping Elena’s shoulders tightly.
“You should’ve stayed gone.”
The image vanished instantly.
Elena pressed her fingers against her temple.
“Damn it…”
Damien looked at her immediately.
“The headaches again?”
She nodded slightly.
“They’re getting stronger.”
His expression darkened subtly.
Like that answer bothered him more than it should.
“We need to get out of here,” he said quietly.
Elena almost laughed bitterly.
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
For the first time, a faint look of amusement crossed his face.
Small.
Brief.
But real.
And somehow, seeing it startled her more than his coldness did.
Because it changed him completely.
For a second he looked less like the untouchable heir everyone feared and more like an actual person.
Then the expression vanished again.
“We’ll use the west exit,” he said calmly.
“You know this building well.”
“It used to be part of the old academy grounds.”
Elena frowned slightly.
“Used to?”
Damien started walking again.
“Most students don’t even know this archive building exists anymore.”
Something about that statement unsettled her deeply.
If the building was abandoned, then why were people still protecting the files inside it?
The deeper they moved through the hallway, the quieter everything became.
No voices.
No footsteps.
Only the distant sound of thunder.
Elena’s heartbeat slowly began settling again.
Until they reached the end of the corridor.
Then both of them stopped instantly.
A man stood waiting near the exit door.
Tall.
Dressed completely in black.
His face partially hidden beneath the shadows.
But the moment Elena saw him, fear crawled violently down her spine.
Not because she recognized him.
Because some part of her did.
The man looked toward them calmly.
Like he had expected them to arrive.
“Well,” he said softly. “This is unfortunate.”
Damien moved slightly in front of Elena immediately.
Protective.
Instinctive.
The stranger noticed.
His gaze shifted between them slowly before something almost like amusement crossed his face.
“That explains a lot.”
Elena’s pulse quickened.
“Who are you?”
The man ignored her question entirely.
Instead, his attention remained fixed on Damien.
“You shouldn’t be involved in this.”
Damien’s voice turned dangerously cold.
“Move.”
The stranger sighed softly.
“You really don’t remember anything, do you?”
Silence filled the hallway instantly.
Elena looked toward Damien.
His expression remained unreadable, but tension had settled sharply through his shoulders now.
The man smiled faintly.
“That’s probably for the best.”
Then his eyes shifted toward Elena.
And the smile disappeared immediately.
“You were supposed to stay forgotten.”
The words hit like ice.
Elena forced herself to hold his gaze despite the fear building inside her chest.
“I’m tired of hearing that.”
The stranger studied her silently for several seconds.
Then slowly, he reached into his coat pocket.
Damien reacted instantly.
“Elena, get back.”
Everything happened too fast after that.
The man pulled out a small silver object.
Not a weapon.
A syringe.
Elena’s blood ran cold.
The stranger moved forward calmly.
“We can still fix this,” he said quietly.
Fix.
The exact same word from the video.
Something inside Elena snapped suddenly.
Fear turned into anger so quickly it surprised even her.
“You erased me,” she whispered.
The man stopped.
For the first time, uncertainty crossed his expression.
Elena took a slow step forward despite Damien trying to stop her.
“You erased my life. My memories. My existence.”
The pressure inside her chest grew heavier with every word.
“Why?”
The hallway fell silent except for the storm outside.
The stranger’s eyes darkened slightly.
“Because you saw something you were never supposed to see.”
Elena’s heartbeat slowed painfully.
“What did I see?”
The man looked at her quietly.
Then after a long pause, he answered.
“The night your family betrayed you.”
The world seemed to stop.
Elena stared at him numbly.
Her family?
Before she could process the words fully, Damien stepped forward sharply.
“That’s enough.”
The stranger looked almost disappointed.
“You really don’t remember her.”
Something dangerous flickered through Damien’s expression then.
Not confusion.
Anger.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
The man smiled faintly again.
“Someone who helped bury the truth.”
Then suddenly the emergency lights above them shut off completely.
Darkness swallowed the hallway.
Elena heard movement instantly.
Fast footsteps.
Then Damien grabbed her arm hard.
“Run.”
The command snapped her back to reality immediately.
The two of them ran down the hallway as voices exploded somewhere behind them.
“Stop them.”
Flashlights cut through the darkness violently.
Elena’s heartbeat pounded painfully as they turned another corner.
The archive building suddenly felt like a maze.
Every corridor looked identical.
Every shadow felt dangerous.
Behind them, footsteps grew louder.
Damien pushed open another side door quickly, pulling Elena inside just before flashlight beams swept across the hallway again.
The room they entered was small and freezing cold.
Old records covered the walls from floor to ceiling.
Elena struggled to steady her breathing.
“What did he mean?” she whispered.
Damien shut the door carefully before looking toward her.
“What part?”
“My family betraying me.”
His silence answered too much.
Elena’s chest tightened instantly.
“You know something.”
Damien looked away briefly.
And that alone terrified her.
Because Damien Blackwood did not look away from anything.
Finally, he spoke quietly.
“Five years ago, the Vale family announced your death privately to a few elite families before your disappearance became public.”
Elena felt sick.
“What?”
“There was never a funeral. Never an investigation. They buried the story before anyone could question it.”
The room suddenly spun slightly around her.
Her own family declared her dead.
Not missing.
Dead.
Tears burned unexpectedly behind her eyes, though she refused to let them fall.
“No,” she whispered weakly. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Then why would they do that?”
Damien’s expression darkened.
“I think they were afraid of what you knew.”
Silence filled the room again.
Heavy.
Painful.
Elena slowly leaned back against the wall, trying desperately to breathe normally.
Everything she thought she understood about her life was collapsing piece by piece.
Then suddenly another memory hit.
Clearer this time.
A man’s voice shouting violently.
“She cannot remember what happened in that room.”
Elena gasped sharply.
And for the first time
she remembered blood on her father’s hands.
- Writer
