CHAPTER 9: THE VIDEO THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST
1556 Words
The video kept playing.
I couldn’t stop it.
Couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t even blink.
Rain covered the screen in blurry streaks while the camera shook violently, like whoever recorded it had been running.
The crashed car looked destroyed.
Metal twisted. Glass shattered. Smoke rising into the storm.
And inside—
Me.
Blood on my face.
Barely moving.
My stomach turned so hard I thought I would be sick.
Then the camera shifted toward Adrian.
He was kneeling beside the wreck, screaming my name.
Not Lena.
Alina.
The sound of it broke something deep inside me.
Because that voice—
That wasn’t the Adrian I knew.
This Adrian sounded terrified.
Destroyed.
Human.
“Turn it off,” Adrian said quietly beside me.
I didn’t listen.
I couldn’t.
The video continued.
Headlights suddenly appeared behind the crash.
A second black car pulled up slowly through the rain.
Four men stepped out.
Black coats. Cold expressions.
The organization.
Even through the shaky recording, I recognized them immediately.
One of the men walked toward my body calmly while Adrian stood up fast.
I could hear the rage in his voice through the storm.
“Stay away from her!”
The man ignored him completely.
Then another voice came from behind the camera.
“Vitals unstable. Transfer window decreasing.”
Transfer.
That word again.
The man beside my body crouched slightly.
And then he said the sentence that made my entire body go cold:
“Take the body. The memories are still active.”
The video ended.
Silence filled the apartment instantly.
I stared at the black screen of my phone, unable to move.
My hands were shaking so badly now the device almost slipped from my fingers.
Nobody spoke.
Not me.
Not Adrian.
The storm outside suddenly sounded very far away.
Like my brain had stopped processing everything except one terrifying truth.
They hadn’t tried to save me.
They had tried to use me.
Slowly, I lifted my eyes toward Adrian.
His face looked pale.
Exhausted.
Like he already knew this moment would eventually come.
“You knew,” I whispered.
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
One word.
Quiet. Heavy.
Honest.
Something inside my chest hurt sharply.
“You let me believe I survived.”
Pain crossed his face immediately.
“You did survive.”
“No.” I shook my head slowly. “That girl in the video died.”
The silence after that felt unbearable.
Adrian stepped closer carefully.
“Lena—”
“Stop calling me that!”
My voice cracked loudly through the apartment.
For the first time since meeting him, I saw real panic enter his eyes.
Not fear for himself.
Fear for me.
I laughed bitterly through tears.
“Which version of me are you even talking to right now?”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” I shouted. “Nobody else here treats me like a real person!”
The words hit harder than I expected.
Adrian looked completely shattered hearing them.
And somehow…
that only made me angrier.
Because if he cared this much—
then why did everything still feel like a lie?
Another memory slammed into me before I could think.
A hospital room.
Dark.
Machines beeping softly.
Adrian sitting beside me with blood on his hands.
His face buried against my fingers while he whispered:
“Please wake up. Please.”
The memory disappeared instantly.
I grabbed the side of the couch for balance.
Adrian moved instinctively again.
But stopped himself halfway.
Like he was scared touching me would make things worse.
“What did you remember?” he asked softly.
I looked at him with tears burning in my eyes.
“You cried for me.”
His expression collapsed completely.
Not dramatically.
Quietly.
Like hearing that memory out loud hurt more than anything else.
“You remember that?”
I nodded slowly.
And suddenly the room felt too emotional to breathe inside.
Because now I understood something terrifying.
Adrian had never stopped loving me.
Not after the accident. Not after the transfers. Not after losing me again and again.
And somehow that made all of this even more painful.
I wiped my face angrily.
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
His voice came out rough.
“Because every time you remembered too quickly…”
He stopped.
I stared at him.
“…what?”
The silence stretched painfully.
Then finally—
“You died.”
The words hit like ice water.
I froze.
“What?”
“The earlier versions became unstable after emotional memory overload.”
I could barely process the sentence.
“What does that even mean?”
“It means your brain started rejecting the transfers.”
The room suddenly felt cold again.
“And what happened after that?”
Adrian looked away.
That terrified me immediately.
“Adrian.”
His voice dropped lower.
“The memories destroyed them from the inside.”
A sharp pain exploded behind my eyes instantly.
Another flash.
Me screaming.
Hands grabbing my arms.
Bright white lights.
Voices shouting:
“She’s remembering too much!”
I gasped loudly and stumbled backward.
The memory vanished violently.
My breathing became uneven.
Adrian looked terrified now.
“Lena, listen to me carefully—”
“No.”
I shook my head repeatedly.
“No, no, no…”
The apartment suddenly felt unreal.
Like I was standing inside someone else’s nightmare.
“How many versions were there?”
Adrian stayed silent.
My stomach dropped.
“How many?”
His voice barely came out.
“Three.”
The world stopped.
Three.
Not one.
Not two.
Three.
I stared at him in horror.
“The first died after the accident,” he whispered. “The second survived six weeks.”
My chest hurt so badly I could barely breathe.
“And me?”
Adrian looked directly into my eyes.
“You’re the third.”
Silence.
Absolute silence.
I felt disconnected from my own body.
Like reality itself had cracked open beneath my feet.
Three versions.
Three lives.
Three deaths waiting to happen.
Another memory surfaced slowly this time.
Not violent.
Not painful.
Just sad.
Me sitting beside Adrian on a rooftop at night.
City lights below us.
My head resting on his shoulder.
And my own voice whispering:
“If they erase me one day… promise you won’t let them turn me into a copy.”
The memory disappeared gently.
And suddenly tears filled my eyes again.
Because that girl—
The original me—
had known this would happen.
I looked at Adrian carefully.
“You promised me something, didn’t you?”
His expression tightened immediately.
“You remember that?”
“You promised not to let them keep doing this.”
He looked broken.
“I tried.”
That answer destroyed me.
Not because it sounded weak.
Because it sounded true.
He really had tried.
And failed.
The thought hurt more than anger.
Then my phone vibrated again.
Both of us froze instantly.
Unknown Number.
Another message.
This time only one sentence appeared:
“You deserve to know what Adrian did after the second death.”
My chest tightened immediately.
Adrian’s face darkened the second he read it.
“Don’t open anything else.”
“Why?”
“Because someone is trying to make your restoration unstable.”
I laughed softly through tears.
“You mean more unstable than finding out I’ve already died twice?”
His expression hardened painfully.
“This isn’t a game.”
“Then stop treating me like a fragile experiment!”
The words echoed through the apartment.
Adrian suddenly stepped closer.
Closer than before.
Close enough that I could see exhaustion in every part of him.
“You think I’m hiding things because I don’t trust you?” he asked quietly.
His voice shook slightly.
“I’m hiding them because every version of you that remembered too much…”
He stopped breathing for a second.
“…ended up begging me to let them die.”
The room went silent.
I stared at him.
And for the first time—
I realized Adrian wasn’t haunted by my death.
He was haunted by my suffering.
Another memory flashed violently.
Me lying in a hospital bed.
Weak. Pale.
Adrian holding my hand while crying silently beside me.
And my voice—
Barely audible—
“I don’t want to wake up like this again.”
The memory disappeared.
I nearly collapsed from the emotional weight of it.
Adrian caught me this time before I could fall.
And unlike before—
I didn’t push him away.
Because suddenly all the missing pieces were finally becoming clear.
This wasn’t a love story that got interrupted by death.
This was a love story trapped inside death over and over again.
I looked up at him slowly.
His arms tightened carefully around me like he was terrified I would disappear.
“Adrian…”
His eyes met mine instantly.
And for one terrifying second…
I remembered everything.
The accident. The experiments. The pain.
But most of all—
him.
The way he loved me.
The way he stayed.
The way he kept choosing me even after watching me die again and again.
Tears slid down my face quietly.
Then I whispered the one thing that made Adrian’s entire expression fall apart.
“You should have let me go the first time.”
- Writer
