CHAPTER 12: THE MAN I WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO REMEMBER
1280 Words
The station doors slammed shut behind us.
A metallic echo rolled through the tunnels like a warning.
Eva didn’t slow down.
Neither did I.
We ran through the narrow maintenance corridor, the black box still pressed tightly against my chest like it was the only proof I wasn’t losing my mind.
Behind us, distant voices echoed through the station.
“Seal all exits!”
“She’s inside!”
My legs burned, but I kept moving.
Not because I was strong.
Because fear was pushing me forward.
Eva suddenly pulled me into a side corridor and pressed me against the wall.
“Don’t move,” she whispered.
Footsteps passed just meters away.
Slow.
Controlled.
Professional.
The kind of footsteps that didn’t belong to normal people.
They belonged to hunters.
I held my breath so hard my chest hurt.
After a few seconds, the footsteps faded.
Eva exhaled quietly.
“We’re not safe yet,” she said.
“I already noticed,” I whispered back.
She gave me a quick look.
A faint hint of something almost like respect passed over her face.
“Good. That means you’re adapting.”
“I don’t want to adapt,” I replied instantly.
Eva didn’t respond.
She just turned and continued walking.
We moved deeper underground until the station noise disappeared completely.
The air became colder.
Heavier.
Almost like the walls were absorbing sound.
Finally, we reached a small sealed door marked with faded letters:
CONTROL ROOM — ACCESS RESTRICTED
Eva pulled out a thin metal card.
She swiped it.
The door unlocked with a soft click.
Inside was darkness for a second.
Then emergency lights flickered on.
The room was old.
Dust everywhere.
Broken screens.
Flickering monitors showing static images of train lines that no longer worked.
Eva stepped inside first.
“Close it,” she said.
I did.
The lock engaged with a heavy sound.
For the first time since running, silence finally surrounded us.
But it didn’t feel peaceful.
It felt temporary.
Like the world was holding its breath before collapsing again.
I leaned against a table, trying to steady my breathing.
“Who are they really?” I asked.
Eva didn’t answer immediately.
She walked to one of the broken monitors and stared at it like she was thinking too hard.
“The organization has many names,” she finally said. “But the real one is Lazarus Division.”
My stomach tightened.
“Lazarus…”
The name again.
Always coming back.
Eva nodded.
“They stopped being a medical project a long time ago.”
She turned to me.
“Now they rebuild people instead of saving them.”
I looked down at the black box.
“And me?”
Eva hesitated.
“You are their most successful reconstruction.”
The word hit harder than I expected.
Reconstruction.
Not person.
Not woman.
A process.
A product.
I swallowed.
“Why me?”
Eva stepped closer slowly.
“Because your original brain responded to emotional memory retention in a way no one else ever did.”
I frowned.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does to them,” she said. “They saw you as the key to permanent consciousness transfer.”
My chest tightened.
“So I was an experiment.”
Eva didn’t deny it.
That silence hurt more than words.
I opened the black box slightly without thinking.
The flash drive inside glinted under the flickering light.
“What’s on this?” I asked.
Eva looked at it immediately.
Her expression changed.
“That… should not exist.”
My heart slowed.
“What do you mean?”
She stepped closer.
“Give it to me.”
“No,” I said instinctively.
Eva stopped.
We stared at each other for a moment.
Then she sighed.
“You don’t understand what’s inside that drive.”
“Then explain it.”
She looked away for a second.
Then back at me.
“It contains the original memory core of Subject Alina Vale.”
My hands tightened.
“Original… core?”
Eva nodded.
“The unaltered version of your mind before reconstruction cycles began.”
My throat went dry.
“So everything I’ve been remembering…”
“Fragments,” she interrupted. “Incomplete fragments.”
My heart started beating faster.
“And the full truth is inside this?”
“Yes.”
Silence filled the room.
Heavy.
Almost suffocating.
Then suddenly—
A faint sound came from outside the control room.
A door opening somewhere in the corridor.
Eva reacted instantly.
“They’re here.”
My blood turned cold.
“How?”
“They tracked the locker access.”
Footsteps.
Closer now.
Eva grabbed my arm.
“We don’t have time.”
“Time for what?”
She pointed at the flash drive.
“Plug it into the system.”
I looked at the broken monitors.
“You want me to do what?”
“Recover your core memory before they erase it again.”
My stomach dropped.
“Again?”
Eva nodded.
“They don’t just capture subjects.”
“They reset them.”
A loud metallic bang echoed outside.
The door.
They were already trying to break in.
Eva moved fast, forcing open a panel under one of the old terminals.
“Do it now!”
My hands were shaking.
I stared at the flash drive.
If I did this…
I might remember everything.
Everything.
Even things I wasn’t ready for.
Another bang hit the door.
Harder.
The lock started to c***k.
My breathing broke.
Then—
I plugged it in.
The monitors flickered instantly.
Static exploded across the screens.
A low humming sound filled the room.
Eva stepped back.
“Brace yourself,” she whispered.
The screen in front of me suddenly lit up.
A face appeared.
My face.
But not the one I knew.
Older.
Calmer.
Stranger.
And then—
My own voice echoed from the speakers.
“If you’re seeing this… then they failed to erase me again.”
My knees nearly gave out.
The voice continued.
“I am Alina Vale. Version Zero.”
Eva whispered behind me:
“Zero…”
The screen flickered again.
The version of me on the monitor looked directly forward.
Like she could see me.
Like she was waiting for this exact moment.
“You are not Lena,” she said.
“You are not Version Three.”
“You are what remains when all versions fail.”
A pause.
Then the most terrifying sentence yet.
“And Adrian… is not who you think he is.”
The entire room went silent.
Even the banging outside seemed to fade for a second.
My breath stopped.
“What… does that mean?” I whispered.
The screen flickered violently.
Then the face changed slightly.
Like the memory itself was unstable.
And then—
A new image appeared behind her.
Adrian.
But not the Adrian I knew.
This version looked younger.
Colder.
Wearing a Lazarus identification badge.
My world stopped completely.
“No…” I whispered.
Eva’s voice behind me was low.
“You needed to see it.”
I shook my head slowly.
“That’s not him.”
But even as I said it…
I felt something inside me break.
Because the way he stood.
The way he looked at the camera.
It wasn’t unfamiliar.
It was just… forgotten.
The voice from the screen returned.
“Adrian was never just your protector.”
“He was your handler.”
Silence.
Then:
“And the reason you keep dying…”
The screen flickered violently.
“…is because he is the one resetting you every time you remember too much.”
The control room door exploded open behind us.
chapter 13 coming soon.............
- Writer
