The room smelled of ink and old wires.
Elira's breath caught as she scanned the wall plastered with versions of herself. Some looked confident. Some terrified. One had blood on her hands.
She stepped forward. "Thirteen lives…"
A tablet lay beneath the file—its screen cracked, but blinking faintly.
UNLOCK MEMORY FILE: 07-13 // AUTH: KAEL
Her heart pounded. July thirteen.
The date that kept repeating in whispers. In nightmares.
She hesitated. Her finger hovered over the screen.
Then she tapped it.
[MEMORY FILE PLAYBACK INITIATED]
The static cleared. The image sharpened.
Kael's voice came first. "Elira, if you're watching this, you're in Version 13. That means I failed twelve times to protect you from yourself."
A dimly lit room. Elira—older, sharper, colder—sat across from him. Her hair was shorter. Her eyes, unreadable.
"You're lying," she said in the recording. "You said I was special. That I was chosen."
"You are," Kael replied. "But not how you think. You created the loop, Elira. You wanted to forget. You made me erase you."
"What?"
Kael leaned forward. "You begged me to store your memories. To keep them safe. Because you were being hunted—for what you knew."
Real-time Elira stepped back. "No…"
Present Day
Her legs buckled. She sank to the ground.
She had done this to herself.
Twelve times.
Why?
The screen continued.
"You discovered Project Mnemosyne. You exposed what they did to the volunteers—what they did to you. You tried to run. But you knew they'd find you. So you fragmented yourself."
Older Elira stood, furious. "So I'm a coward."
"No," Kael whispered. "You're a survivor. But now you're forgetting why you fought in the first place."
Real-time Elira's hands shook. Mnemosyne… The word rang in her bones.
The screen crackled again—switching to a new clip.
Jane's voice.
"She'll forget again, won't she?" Jane asked off-camera.
"Yes," Kael replied. "But I'll keep anchoring her."
"And Christine?"
Kael was silent for too long.
Then: "Christine already knows too much. She made a deal to protect Elira's body. But not her mind."
Present Day
A noise outside. Footsteps.
Elira yanked the tablet's cord free and bolted out the door, lungs burning. Her head swam with ghosts—her own.
Elsewhere
Christine stared out the window, gripping a vial filled with swirling gold liquid.
"She's close," she muttered.
Behind her, a voice rasped through a communicator.
"Extract her before she remembers the July Protocol. If she unlocks it... we all burn."
Christine's jaw tightened. "Understood."
Back with Elira
She ran until the city blurred. Until the sounds faded into a low hum.
Then—
A hand grabbed her wrist.
Kael.
Breathless. Eyes wide.
"You saw it, didn't you?"
Elira yanked away. "You lied to me."
"I tried to protect you."
"You used me. You hid the truth."
Kael stepped closer. "You told me to."
She froze.
"What?"
Kael opened his palm.
Inside it—a memory shard, flickering like flame.
"Do you want everything back, Elira? All of it? No more resets. No more forgetting."
She stared at the shard.
And asked the question that would change everything.
"…Will it break the loop?"
Kael nodded. "Yes."
Then paused.
"But you might not survive it."