Blood Tells the Truth
806 Words
I woke up screaming.
The pain in my shoulder was white-hot, like someone had poured fire straight into my veins. My wrists were bound. My ankles too. Metal cuffs. Cold. Tight. Familiar.
My surroundings flickered—dim lighting, concrete walls, a soft beeping sound.
Not a hospital.
A bunker.
Not Damien’s.
Then whose?
“Aria.”
That voice.
Low. Controlled. Dangerous.
I turned my head—and froze.
Vincent.
My handler.
My executioner.
He stepped out from the shadows, dressed in Eclipse black, eyes hard. “You’ve been compromised.”
“Where am I?” I spat.
He didn’t answer.
“Where’s Damien?”
Still nothing.
Then the sound of high heels clicked behind him.
Mina.
Wearing red.
Smiling like the devil’s favorite daughter.
“You should’ve killed him when you had the chance,” she said sweetly, circling me like I was a trophy.
“You shot me.”
“I saved your life.”
“You tried to end it.”
“Semantics.”
Vincent leaned in. “We’re giving you one last mission, Aria. Fail it, and you’re done.”
I laughed, bitter and bloodied. “I don’t take orders from traitors.”
“You do if you want answers,” Mina whispered. “About why you and Damien were created.”
---
The screen in front of me flickered to life.
Footage played—two children in a glass room. A girl with dark eyes and rage in her hands. A boy with quiet menace and a killer’s instinct. They moved in sync. Fought in sync. Bled together.
Me. Damien.
The audio kicked in.
“She’s the chaos. He’s the leash. Together—they’re perfection.”
Perfection… for war.
I looked away. “Shut it off.”
Vincent did.
“You were built to be weapons,” he said. “You and Damien. Together. Until he went rogue.”
“Maybe I did too,” I snapped.
“No,” Mina said. “You just forgot.”
Vincent dropped a dossier in front of me.
Inside?
Damien’s current location.
A rooftop. Shanghai. Midnight.
“One bullet,” Vincent said. “Right between the eyes. Do this… and we’ll unlock the rest of your files.”
I stared at the folder.
“Or what?” I asked.
Vincent smiled. “We send the other half of Project Sin to finish the job.”
My pulse slammed.
“What other half?”
They stepped aside.
And from the hallway walked a man with Damien’s eyes… and my smile.
My heart. Stopped.
“You remember me?” he asked.
His voice was soft. Sinister.
“I’m Subject 03.”
The boy from the shadows. The one neither Damien nor I remembered.
The one they kept hidden.
My twin.
He leaned close to my ear.
“I was the one meant to survive.”
---
The air was slick with rain again.
I stood on the rooftop, rifle in hand, heart torn in two.
Damien stood across the way—unarmed. Waiting.
He knew.
I lined up the shot.
His eyes locked on mine.
He didn’t run.
Didn’t flinch.
Just… waited.
“Do it,” I whispered to myself.
My finger tightened on the trigger.
But I couldn’t.
Because I finally remembered.
The fire.
The lab.
The screams.
And Damien’s hand in mine as he dragged me through blood and flames.
He saved me.
I lowered the rifle.
A second shot rang out.
But not from me.
It hit Damien in the side—he staggered.
Sniper.
No—Subject 03.
He stepped into view behind me.
“You hesitated,” he said, raising his gun.
“Always your flaw.”
I turned and fired first.
The bullet hit his gun, knocking it out of his hand—but not before he lunged at me.
We collided, fists and fury and years of buried hate.
He was fast. I was faster.
But he was brutal.
He slammed me into the rooftop wall, his hand at my throat. “You were supposed to die in that fire.”
“You first,” I gasped—and drove my knee into his ribs.
He fell back.
I grabbed my sidearm and pointed it at his face.
“Tell Vincent,” I hissed, “I’m not his puppet anymore.”
Then I ran.
I found Damien bleeding behind a vent system.
“You came back,” he rasped.
“I remembered.”
He smiled through the pain. “Then it’s starting.”
“What is?”
He grabbed my wrist, his fingers shaking.
“They didn’t just erase your memories.”
“What do you mean?”
He looked into my eyes.
“They implanted something else.”
And then his body convulsed.
His veins darkened.
And he whispered one final word before blacking out—
“Run.”
- Writer
