Chapter Fourty Two
540 Words
Xavier’s POV
The message burned on my screen like a curse:
> You’re digging too deep, Xavier. Stop before they erase you too.
Erase.
I stared at the word until the hallway around me started to fade into static.
Students laughed, lockers slammed, someone shouted down the corridor — but it all sounded distant. Like background noise in a movie I wasn’t really part of anymore.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard.
> Who is this?
No reply.
I tried again.
What do you mean— erase me?
Still nothing. Just the silent dots that never appeared.
I slipped my phone into my pocket and started walking. Fast. I needed air — or answers. Preferably both.
But then someone stepped into my path.
“Rough morning, Reed?”
It was Eli Turner — the quiet guy from the back row in physics, the one who barely spoke unless called on. Thin, sharp-faced, always wearing that same gray hoodie with the sleeves chewed up at the ends.
I blinked. “What do you want?”
He tilted his head slightly, eyes glinting with something I couldn’t place — not mockery, not curiosity… something colder.
“Just making sure you got my message.”
My heartbeat stopped.
“What message?”
He smiled — small, humorless.
“The one about digging too deep.”
I took a step back. “You— you sent that?”
“Relax,” he said, voice low. “I’m not your enemy, Xavier. But you’re walking into a minefield you don’t understand.”
“What do you know about Project Mnemosyne?” I asked before I could stop myself.
He glanced around — the hallway was still crowded, but somehow, nobody was listening.
Then he leaned closer, his voice barely a whisper.
“Enough to know it’s not a project. It’s a rewrite protocol.”
My blood turned to ice.
“A what?”
Eli straightened, eyes scanning the ceiling like he was checking for cameras. “They’ll hear if I explain it here. Meet me after school — the old observatory, behind the west field.”
“Why should I trust you?”
He gave a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Because you don’t have any other choice.”
And then he was gone — slipping into the crowd as if he’d never been there.
*****
All day, his words clung to me.
Rewrite protocol.
Every class felt like a trap. Every phone vibration made me flinch.
I didn’t even realize I was gripping the flash drive in my pocket until the bell rang.
Mila still hadn’t texted back.
By the time the sun began to set, I was standing where Eli said to meet — the old observatory, long abandoned, its glass dome cracked and vines curling up its side.
The air was colder here.
Quiet.
I pushed the door open.
It creaked — and then stopped halfway.
Because Eli was already inside.
And he wasn’t alone.
There was a laptop on the table, screen flickering.
And on it — an image of Mila.
Lying in a hospital bed.
Wires in her arm.
A label on the bottom of the screen:
> Subject M-01 | Project Mnemosyne | Neural Rewrite Sequence Active.
- Writer
