KINGDOM OF ASH AND SCREAM

Chapter 3 THE ECHO OF MEMORY

I did not come here to mourn you, Elias. I came to figure out why the hell you could not just stay dead.

Aris kicked the rotting porch step, the wood groaning in protest. He pulled his jacket tighter, fighting the biting wind that whipped through the Oregon pines. The cabin stood before him like a jagged, splintered tooth against the night sky. He reached into his pocket, his fingers brushing the cold metal of his flashlight.

He spoke to the empty air, his voice cracking. You left me at your own funeral, you bastard. Do you know what that did to me? Do you have any idea how much I had to swallow to keep your secrets buried with you?

He pushed the front door. It was locked, but the wood around the frame was soft with rot. He nudged it again, then slammed his shoulder against it. With a sharp crack, the door gave way, spilling him into the suffocating darkness of the entryway.

Aris flicked on the light, the beam cutting through a decade of dust. This place smelled of cedar, old paper, and stale air. It felt like walking into a tomb.

Are you proud of this? he whispered, his voice trembling. Living in the wreckage of your own life while I sat in your office, mourning the man who taught me everything?

He moved slowly, checking the floorboards. Elias was paranoid. He was a man who lived with his eyes on the exits. Aris stepped gingerly, his eyes scanning for tripwires or pressure plates. He knew the signs. He had seen Elias map out a kitchen floor with laser-trip sensors just to keep his sister from stealing his coffee.

Step here, Aris muttered to himself, recalling a long-forgotten lesson. Pivot left. Weight on the heel.

His foot caught a snag. He froze, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. A faint click echoed from the walls.

Damn it, Elias, he breathed, holding his breath.

He didn't move. He stood in the absolute silence, waiting for the sound of a spring or a mechanism. Nothing happened.

Just a ghost, he told himself. You are just fighting a ghost.

He reached the center of the cabin, the living room cluttered with overturned chairs and stacks of half-decayed journals. He felt it then, a prickling at the back of his neck. It was the distinct, unmistakable sensation of eyes boring into his skin.

He spun around, the flashlight beam sweeping wildly across the dark corners. There was nothing. Just the peeling wallpaper and the shadows dancing like specters.

Who is there? he shouted, his voice hoarse. If you are going to kill me, just do it. Stop playing these games.

Only the wind answered, whistling through the cracked windowpanes.

Aris turned back to the hallway, his breath coming in jagged, shallow gasps. You are losing it, he told himself. You are completely losing it. He pulled out his phone, his thumb hovering over the saved recording he had received. He tapped play, needing to hear that voice again, needing to ground himself in reality.

The audio hissed, then Elias spoke, his voice gravelly and weary.

Aris, if you are hearing this, you are already close. Go to the study. Behind the bookshelf. The legacy drive is in the lead-lined box. Don't look at the files until you are somewhere safe. And for god's sake, don't trust the silence.

Aris shoved the phone back into his pocket, his hands shaking. The silence was the worst part. It was heavy. It felt like it was pressing against his eardrums, waiting for him to make a mistake.

He found the study door. It was locked, but the lock was a simple manual deadbolt. He didn't bother picking it. He grabbed a heavy metal paperweight from a nearby desk and smashed the window, reaching through to turn the latch.

The study was frozen in time. Bookshelves lined the walls, sagging under the weight of thick, leather-bound manuals. Aris walked to the main desk. He felt the phantom presence of his mentor everywhere. He could almost see Elias sitting there, nursing a scotch, lecturing him on the morality of data.

You always said truth was a commodity, Elias, Aris murmured, brushing his hand over the desk. You said it could be bought or sold or hidden. Is that what I am? A commodity you were playing with?

He found the bookshelf. He counted the spines. Three, five, seven. He pulled the seventh book. A click echoed, and a small panel popped open in the wall, revealing a heavy, steel-lined box.

Aris pulled it out. It was heavy, cold, and solid. The legacy drive. The key to everything.

He didn't open it. He kept his word. He stuffed it into his bag. He was turning to leave, to get the hell out of this place, when a loose sheet of paper slid off the top of the desk.

He stopped. He picked it up. It was a photograph, faded and yellowing at the edges.

Aris frowned, bringing his flashlight closer.

It was a picture of the cabin’s basement. The equipment was different, older, but it was unmistakably the same array. In the center of the frame stood a machine, a complex tangle of wires and oscillating crystals.

And standing next to it was a man.

Aris felt his blood turn to ice.

It was him.

He stood there, younger, his face thinner, his eyes wide and terrified. He was wearing a lab coat he didn't recognize, holding a diagnostic tablet he had never seen.

The date on the corner of the photo was ten years ago.

Aris stumbled back, hitting the bookshelf. The paper fluttered from his fingers, landing face-up on the dusty floor.

No, he whispered. No, that is not possible.

He knelt, grabbing the photo, his breath hitching. He looked at his own face. The scar on his chin, the way his hair fell over his left eye. It was him.

But ten years ago, he had been in college. He had been a struggling student, living in a cramped dorm, working at a diner to pay tuition. He had never met Elias. He hadn't even heard of the project until he was hired five years ago.

He stared at the photo, his vision blurring.

Where did this come from? he asked the empty room, his voice rising into a frantic, hysterical pitch. Who took this? Why am I in this photo?

He looked at the machine again. It was the source. It was the Hum generator.

He had been there. He had been there a decade ago.

Why don't I remember?

He pressed his hands to his temples, trying to force the memory to surface, but there was only a vast, terrifying black hole where those years should have been.

It was all a lie, he realized, the horror finally setting in. My life, my memories, my education. Everything I believe about who I am was manufactured.

He stood up, his legs buckling, his skin crawling with the sudden, violent realization that he was not an observer. He was a participant.

A floorboard creaked in the hallway.

Aris froze. He wasn't alone.

He spun around, the flashlight beam hitting the door.

There was a silhouette standing in the doorway. Tall. Still. Watching.

Who is there? Aris demanded, his voice trembling.

The figure didn't move. It didn't speak. It just stood there, a shadow in the doorway of his own manufactured past.

Aris reached into his jacket, his hand closing around his flashlight like a weapon. He had the drive. He had the proof. But as the shadow began to step forward, he realized he didn't know who he was, or what he was capable of.

He was standing in the middle of a trap, and for the first time, he realized he was the bait.

Answer me! Aris screamed, the sound tearing from his throat.

The figure stepped into the light.

Aris stopped breathing. His heart stopped dead in his chest.

It wasn't a stranger. It wasn't an assassin.

It was himself.

Or at least, a version of him that looked exactly as he had in the photograph. The same clothes, the same expression, the same hollow, dead look in his eyes.

Aris dropped the flashlight. It hit the floor and flickered, casting a long, dancing shadow over the man who wasn't supposed to exist.

You, Aris whispered, the word barely audible.

The other Aris smiled, a slow, cruel expression that made Aris want to vomit.

I was wondering when you would finally show up, the other Aris said, his voice a perfect, chilling mirror of Aris’s own. We have been waiting a very long time to finish the work.

The light died.

The study plunged into total, suffocating darkness.

Aris backed away, his hand fumbling for anything, a pen, a book, a weapon. He hit the wall, sliding down to the floor, his mind fracturing.

He had the drive in his hand. He was the only one who could stop this. But as the sound of breathing grew louder in the room, right in front of him, he realized the most terrifying truth of all.

He wasn't fighting the people who stole his life. He was fighting his own ghost.

Are you ready to remember? the other Aris whispered in the dark, right against his ear.

Aris gasped, closing his eyes, his world falling apart into a thousand jagged pieces. He wasn't running from the past. The past was running him.