Chapter Fourty Seven
447 Words
Mila’s POV
It began with a whisper.
At first, she thought it was the rain outside — soft, steady, unbroken — but then it shaped itself into words. Her name.
> “Mila…”
Her eyes snapped open.
Darkness pressed in around her, thick and heavy. The power was out; even the clock on her nightstand was blank. For a moment she lay there, listening. The whisper came again, closer this time.
> “Mila… can you hear me?”
Her pulse raced.
She sat up, gripping the sheets. “Who’s there?”
No one answered. Only the rhythmic drip of rain and the faint hum of the generator outside. But something felt wrong — like the room itself was tilting, memory bleeding into the present.
A flicker of light burst behind her eyes — not real light, but something internal, like an image being projected from inside her skull.
A white hallway.
A woman’s voice.
A little girl crying.
Then a man shouting: “Shut it down!”
Mila gasped, clutching her head. The vision disappeared as quickly as it came, leaving her trembling and disoriented.
She swung her legs off the bed, feet brushing against the cold floor. The air smelled faintly of ozone — metallic, sharp. Her phone was dead. The window was fogged. But when she looked closer, she saw something that made her freeze.
Her reflection wasn’t hers.
For a second, just a second, she saw someone else in the glass — a younger version of herself, no older than twelve, with a bruise blooming along her temple.
The girl mouthed something soundless before vanishing into the mist.
Mila stumbled backward. “No… no, no, no.”
She pressed her hands against her temples, trying to steady her breathing.
> “It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream.”
But the whispers didn’t stop. They multiplied, overlapping, growing frantic. She couldn’t make out the words — only fragments:
> “…memory collapse…”
“…subject zero…”
“…she wasn’t supposed to wake up…”
Her heart pounded so hard she thought it would burst. She bolted for the door — but when she yanked it open, her father was already standing there.
“Dad?” she whispered.
The hallway light flickered once, bathing his face in shadows.
He looked pale, eyes wide — like he had been awake for hours.
“Mila,” he said softly. “Did you… hear something?”
Her mouth went dry. “What’s going on?”
Instead of answering, he reached out and pulled her into a tight, trembling hug. His voice cracked against her hair.
> “You were never supposed to remember.”
- Writer
