Memory of Others

Chapter 7: The Forbidden Memory Core

An encrypted message was sent at 3:03 AM. A time when no one is around, no traces left – Anna knew that the Central City’s AI surveillance system was often the most obscure during this hour.

She received no response. But just three minutes later, a covert command appeared on the data board:

“The path to the Memory Core is open. Window: 1 hour. Each step – do not look back.”

The White Archive – also known as Level 0 – is a place where no one has the right to set foot without direct orders from the World Government. This is where memories that have never been encoded, never altered or filtered, are kept. Raw, painful, original fragments of the mind – too dangerous to be used, but also too real to be erased.

Anna moved through an anonymous subway line, the train door unmarked. When she arrived, there were no guards. No soldiers. No protective AI. Just a single white door, with a single line of text:

"Welcome, bearer of the final piece."

She shivered.

Inside was not a data warehouse, nor rows of cold servers as Anna had thought. It was... a garden.

Trees. Light. The smell of damp grass and the sound of the wind. A place that could not exist in this technological world.

In the middle of the garden, there was a child sitting with their back turned, scribbling on the ground with their hands.

Anna stepped closer. Her heart raced.

— “Who are you?”

The child did not turn around. But a voice echoed – not from its mouth, but from within Anna's mind.

— “I am what you have forgotten. What they took away. I am the Core.”

— “The Core of memory?”

— “No. I am you, before you were pieced together from many fragments.”

Anna sat down, facing the child.

— “Why do you call me ‘sister’?”

— “Because you are stronger. You have lived. I have not.”

Anna placed her hand on the child's shoulder. And at that moment, the images in the garden shattered. Everything around her broke apart like glass. She fell into a pitch-black space, where all versions of her stood: Anna from the experiments, Anna who failed, Anna who rebelled, Anna who quietly accepted, and...

Sofia.

They all looked at her.

A voice rang out – no longer Elric's voice, but a voice synthesized from her own:

“You have reached the Core. But to keep it, you must choose: Either hold onto the true memories and lose everything you have lived. Or reject it, and continue to be the being you wish to be.”

She looked around.

If she held onto the true memories – she would know from the beginning who she was, who had once loved her, who had betrayed her, who had turned her into a copy. But in return, all memories of the present – the years of freedom, the decisions, the emotions she had gained after the escape – would vanish.

An image appeared before her. It was her mother. A woman with black hair, a gentle face, holding little Anna as a child, whispering:

— “Your name is... Emma. Not Anna. I’m sorry...”

The memory touched her heart like an electric shock.

She burst into tears.

But then, Anna – or now Emma – withdrew her hand from the core of memory.

— “Thank you for showing me who I once was. But I am not that child anymore.”

— “I will disappear if you refuse.”

— “No. You will live within me. But I – will decide who I am.”

And the light in the dark space lit up once more.

Anna stood there alone. The other versions had vanished. The core of memory disappeared – not because it was destroyed, but because it had been accepted.

She stepped out of the White Archive. The sky outside was still murky, as if nothing had changed.

But within her, everything was different.

She was no longer Anna – a tool for receiving memories. No longer a product of Elric Duong. No longer a victim.

She was Emma – the one who carried all layers of memory, who knew the past, chose the present, and stepped toward the future.

An identity that could not be replicated.

A person – truly.