Chapter 13 The Echo Room
Cold metal bit into Selena’s wrists as she fought against the restraints. The room pulsed with a soft, rhythmic hum machinery buried somewhere beneath the floor. Her flashlight was gone, her gun stripped away. Across from her, Leena sat slumped in another chair, wires coiled around her temples like a crown of thorns.
“Leena,” Selena rasped, testing the cuffs again. They didn’t budge. “Look at me. Can you hear me?”
Her sister stirred, eyes fluttering open. “They said it wouldn’t hurt this time,” she whispered. “But they always lie.”
A door hissed open at the far end of the chamber. The Pale Man stepped inside, now unmasked. His face was human too human. His eyes were grey, rimmed with fatigue, his expression almost mournful.
“Don’t look so shocked,” he said, adjusting a dial on the control panel beside him. “You’ve seen my face before. Just not in this life.”
Selena glared at him. “You’re delusional.”
He smiled faintly. “You think I’m your enemy. But I was part of the same program the first iteration. They called me Subject One. You and Leena were Subjects Eleven and Twelve.”
Selena’s pulse quickened. “What was the experiment?”
“Memory transference,” he replied simply. “They wanted to isolate trauma remove it from one host and implant it into another. The idea was to cleanse soldiers, erase fear, pain, guilt. But it didn’t work. You can’t remove what makes a person human.”
He gestured toward Leena. “She carried the memories. You carried the emptiness.”
Leena shook her head weakly. “No, she’s wrong they made me forget you, Selena. They said you’d died.”
Selena’s throat tightened. “And you believed them?”
“I had no choice.” Leena’s voice broke. “Every time I remembered you, they erased it again.”
The Pale Man’s tone darkened. “They didn’t erase it, Detective. They gave it to you. Every nightmare, every fragment of her pain all of it lives in you now.”
Selena felt her heartbeat thundering in her ears. Her whole life the flashbacks, the night terrors, the feelings of déjà vu were they all Leena’s memories?
“Why bring us back?” she demanded.
The Pale Man hesitated, then turned to the console. “Because the project is starting again. A private investor revived the funding. They need proof it can work. You two are the only surviving prototypes.”
He pulled a lever. The hum deepened. Lights above them flared white.
“Stop!” Selena shouted, twisting violently against the cuffs. Electricity sizzled through the air, the machines vibrating like a heartbeat. She could feel something a tug inside her skull, cold and invasive.
Her mind filled with static. Voices. Screams. White corridors. Hands holding her down.
And then Leena’s laughter.
Selena’s head snapped toward her sister, who was trembling but smiling faintly through tears. “Do you remember the swing set behind the orphanage?” she whispered.
“Yes,” Selena gasped. “You fell and”
“you carried me home,” Leena finished.
Their memories overlapped perfectly.
For the first time in years, Selena felt whole.
The Pale Man froze at the console, watching them in disbelief. “No,” he muttered. “It shouldn’t synchronize. The neural resistance”
Selena’s cuffs sparked. The system glitched, power flickering. Alarms screamed through the room.
Selena wrenched one hand free and ripped the wires from her head. She lunged forward, slamming her shoulder into the control panel. Sparks erupted. The lights exploded overhead, plunging the room into flashing red.
“Leena, get up!”
Her sister stumbled toward her, still dazed. The Pale Man drew a pistol, shouting over the alarms. “You don’t understand! If you break the sequence, you’ll lose everything her memories, your mind, both will collapse!”
Selena ignored him. “Run!”
They burst into the corridor just as the containment glass behind them shattered. The floor shook, dust raining from the ceiling. Somewhere above, a siren began to wail mechanical, inhuman.
“Exit routes?” Selena shouted into her earpiece, forgetting it was dead. She grabbed Leena’s hand, dragging her through a hallway lined with flickering lights. Each door they passed revealed something worse testing chambers, cells filled with decaying files, machines still pulsing faintly as though alive.
“Where are we going?” Leena panted.
“Up,” Selena said. “Always up.”
They turned a corner and stopped cold.
The Pale Man stood at the end of the hallway, blocking the only exit. His gun trembled in his hand, but his expression wasn’t rage. It was sorrow.
“Don’t make me do this,” he said quietly. “If you escape, they’ll find you again. They always do.”
Selena stepped forward, shielding Leena behind her. “Then you come with us.”
He gave a bitter smile. “I can’t. My body’s tied to the system. It keeps me alive and them out. But if you take the main elevator, it’ll trigger a purge. This whole place will burn.”
“Then die with it,” Selena said, voice cold.
He looked at her for a long time and for a moment, she thought she saw regret flicker in his eyes. Then he tossed her something small and metallic.
A keycard.
“Level One,” he said. “That’ll unlock the service elevator. But hurry. Once the system restarts, every door seals.”
Selena caught it, nodding once. “Thank you.”
He stepped aside, lowering his gun. “Tell the world what they did here. Make sure no one forgets us again.”
She hesitated then pulled Leena through the final hallway. The sirens howled louder now, red lights washing over their faces. The elevator doors groaned open just as fire alarms erupted overhead.
They stumbled inside. Selena slammed the card into the reader. The elevator lurched upward, shaking violently.
Leena clutched her arm. “What happens when we get out?”
Selena exhaled, staring at the flickering numbers climbing higher. “Then we stop running. We find whoever restarted this project and we end it.”
A thunderous explosion roared below. The floor vibrated beneath their feet. The entire structure shuddered as the elevator sped toward the surface.
When the doors finally opened, cold night air rushed in the scent of smoke and freedom.
Behind them, St. Ives Sanatorium collapsed in on itself, the flames swallowing decades of secrets.
Selena turned toward the horizon, breathing hard. Leena leaned against her shoulder, exhausted but alive.
“Is it really over?” she whispered.
Selena’s gaze hardened. “Not yet. But it will be.”
She looked down at the cracked keycard in her hand. Etched on the back was a single phrase:
PROJECT ECHO — PHASE TWO
The wind howled through the ruins
as Selena closed her fist around it.
Somewhere out there, someone was still watching.
And she was coming for them.