CHAPTER 17: THE ROOM WHERE I FIRST DIED
1510 Words
Nobody spoke after Eva said it.
The air itself felt frozen.
Dust floated slowly through the dim emergency light while the hidden chamber stretched endlessly behind her like the inside of a buried secret.
And suddenly…
I didn’t want to go deeper inside anymore.
“This is where they built Version Zero.”
The sentence settled into my chest heavily.
Not because I fully understood it.
Because some part of me already did.
Adrian stepped forward first.
His entire posture had changed again.
Alert.
Careful.
Like a man walking back into a nightmare he barely escaped the first time.
“You’re sure?” he asked quietly.
Eva nodded once.
“I’ve seen the layout before.”
Her voice sounded distant now.
Almost uncomfortable.
That caught my attention immediately.
“You were here before?”
Eva hesitated.
And that hesitation was enough.
Adrian looked at her sharply.
“You never told me you worked in Sector Nine.”
“I didn’t work here,” she replied quickly.
Too quickly.
The silence afterward exposed the lie immediately.
Adrian’s eyes darkened.
“What are you hiding?”
Before Eva could answer, a faint electronic hum echoed somewhere deeper in the chamber.
All three of us froze instantly.
The sound was low.
Mechanical.
Alive.
I tightened my grip on the black box.
“Tell me that place is abandoned.”
Nobody answered.
Which was answer enough.
Adrian slowly pulled the g*n back into his hand.
“Stay behind me.”
I almost laughed at how naturally he said that now.
As if protecting me had become instinct instead of choice.
Maybe it always had been.
We moved carefully through the darkness.
The hidden facility was far bigger than I expected.
Old computers lined the walls beneath layers of dust.
Glass observation rooms sat empty in silence.
Some doors hung half open.
Others looked sealed permanently.
And everywhere I looked…
I felt something strange.
Not memory exactly.
Recognition.
Like my body knew this place before my mind did.
My chest tightened the deeper we walked.
Then suddenly—
A flash.
White lights.
Cold metal table.
Voices speaking through glass.
> “Subject consciousness remains unstable.”
Another voice:
> “Begin emotional suppression.”
Pain exploded behind my eyes instantly.
I stumbled hard against the wall.
Adrian caught me immediately.
“Alina.”
His voice sounded far away for a second.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“I know this place.”
Eva and Adrian exchanged a look I couldn’t fully read.
Fear.
Not surprise.
Fear.
That terrified me.
“What?” I whispered.
Adrian looked like he was choosing between truth and protection again.
And I was starting to hate that look.
Finally he answered quietly.
“Memory recovery becomes stronger near original imprint locations.”
I stared at him.
“You mean where I died.”
Silence.
That silence again.
Always silence before pain.
The electronic humming sound suddenly grew louder.
Closer now.
Eva raised her weapon immediately.
“We’re not alone.”
The emergency lights flickered violently overhead.
Then—
A monitor across the room turned on by itself.
Static filled the screen.
My blood ran cold instantly.
Because slowly…
a face appeared through the distortion.
An older man.
Gray hair.
Sharp eyes.
Calm expression.
Too calm.
The Director.
Even before he spoke, I somehow knew it was him.
> “Adrian.”
The voice echoed softly through hidden speakers.
Adrian’s jaw tightened instantly.
> “I wondered how long it would take you to bring her back here.”
My stomach twisted.
Back here.
The Director’s eyes shifted toward me through the screen.
And suddenly I understood why people feared him.
Not because he looked cruel.
Because he looked empty.
Like human emotions had become unnecessary to him years ago.
> “Version Four,” he said calmly. “You’ve progressed beyond expectation.”
I hated the way he said it.
Like I was software.
Not alive.
“Stop calling me that,” I snapped.
To my surprise…
the Director smiled slightly.
> “Interesting. Emotional resistance remains intact.”
Adrian stepped in front of me instinctively.
“She’s not your subject anymore.”
The Director ignored him completely.
> “Do you remember this room, Alina?”
My breathing became uneven.
“No.”
But the answer felt weak even to me.
The Director pressed something offscreen.
Suddenly another monitor flickered alive beside him.
And my entire body froze.
It was me.
Not now.
Before.
Version Zero.
Lying unconscious on a hospital bed surrounded by machines.
My heart nearly stopped.
“No…”
The video continued silently for a few seconds.
Then the Director’s voice returned.
> “Clinical death occurred at 2:14 AM.”
The machines in the video flatlined.
I couldn’t breathe anymore.
Because I was watching myself die.
Adrian moved toward the monitor instantly.
“Turn it off.”
The Director ignored him again.
> “What happened next changed modern neuroscience forever.”
Doctors rushed into the room in the footage.
People shouting.
Machines restarting.
Then suddenly—
The dead version of me opened her eyes.
A sharp sound escaped my throat.
Eva looked away immediately.
Even she couldn’t watch comfortably.
The Director continued calmly:
> “Memory reconstruction should not have worked after full neural collapse.”
The woman on the screen—me—sat up slowly, confused and terrified.
Exactly the way I remembered waking up in the hospital months ago.
Only now I realized something horrifying.
That wasn’t the first time.
It was the beginning.
> “But Subject Alina Vale retained emotional continuity.”
The Director looked directly into the camera.
> “She remembered love.”
The room went silent.
My eyes shifted slowly toward Adrian.
And suddenly I saw it.
The guilt.
Not ordinary guilt.
The kind that comes from watching someone suffer because of you over and over again.
The Director noticed too.
> “Your greatest mistake was attachment, Adrian.”
Adrian’s voice became cold instantly.
“My mistake was believing you wanted to save people.”
The Director smiled faintly.
> “And yet here you are. Still protecting our greatest achievement.”
Achievement.
I wanted to scream.
Instead I whispered:
“I died here.”
Nobody answered.
Because there was nothing else to say.
The screen flickered again.
Then another video appeared unexpectedly.
This time—
Zurich.
Snow.
My breath caught instantly.
Me and Adrian walking through crowded streets laughing.
Real laughter.
Not memories breaking apart.
Not fragments.
A full memory.
Alive.
Warm.
My chest hurt watching it.
The Director’s voice softened strangely.
> “You almost escaped successfully.”
Adrian’s expression darkened immediately.
“Enough.”
But the Director kept talking.
> “Did she ever tell you what happened that night?”
Adrian went still.
And for the first time…
I saw actual fear cross his face.
Not fear for himself.
Fear of what I was about to learn.
I looked between both of them slowly.
“What happened?”
Nobody answered.
The Director finally spoke.
> “She remembered everything.”
Silence.
My heartbeat became painfully loud.
Everything?
The Director continued calmly.
> “Every cycle. Every reconstruction. Every death.”
The room tilted slightly around me.
No.
No, that wasn’t possible.
“She begged you not to reset her again,” the Director said softly.
Adrian looked destroyed already.
But then came the sentence that shattered him completely.
> “And you ignored her.”
I turned toward Adrian instantly.
His face said enough before his mouth ever could.
Pain exploded through my chest.
“You promised?” I whispered.
Adrian closed his eyes briefly.
“She was dying.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
My voice cracked hard.
“You promised?”
Silence.
Then quietly—
“Yes.”
Something inside me broke.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just enough to make breathing hurt differently afterward.
The Director watched everything calmly from the monitor.
> “Love makes people selfish, Adrian.”
Adrian looked at the screen with pure hatred now.
“You don’t understand love.”
The Director smiled faintly again.
> “No. I evolved beyond it.”
God.
That answer chilled me more than anything else tonight.
Because he meant it.
He genuinely believed emotions were weakness.
The emergency lights flickered again suddenly.
Then a loud automated voice echoed through the hidden facility:
> “PURGE SEQUENCE ACTIVATED.”
Eva swore under her breath immediately.
“That’s bad.”
“How bad?” I asked weakly.
Adrian looked toward the ceiling.
And for the first time since meeting him…
he sounded helpless.
“They’re going to burn the entire facility.”
My blood turned cold.
“What?”
Eva grabbed my arm instantly.
“We have minutes at best.”
The Director’s voice returned one final time through the speakers.
> “Goodbye, Alina.”
The monitors shut off simultaneously.
Darkness swallowed the room again.
Then somewhere deep below us—
something massive awakened.
And the floor beneath my feet started shaking.
chapter 18 coming soon............
- Writer
