2025-10-27 04:27:32The alarms screamed like sirens of war. Red emergency lights bathed the room in a haunting glow as the ground trembled beneath Ethan’s feet.
Leanna pulled him back just as a steel beam crashed beside them, sparks bursting into the air.
“Ethan, we have to move!” she shouted.
But he couldn’t look away from the woman standing in the broken pod.
Subject Beta — the woman from his memory, from the photograph — was alive. And yet… not.
Her skin was pale as porcelain, veins faintly glowing beneath the surface. The liquid from the pod pooled at her feet like liquid glass, and when she lifted her gaze, her eyes shimmered with unnatural light — luminous blue, almost otherworldly.
“You came back,” she said again, her voice soft but echoing with static, as if layered with another presence.
Ethan stepped closer despite the danger. “Do you know who you are?”
Her expression trembled, pain flashing across her features. “I… was someone once. You told me not to be afraid.”
Ethan’s chest tightened. “I did?”
“Yes,” she whispered, “before everything went dark.”
Behind them, soldiers advanced, guns drawn. “Dr. Braxton!” one barked. “Step away from the subject!”
Leanna raised her weapon. “Not a chance.”
Before the soldier could fire, the woman turned, and the air around her rippled. A blinding surge of blue energy exploded outward, hurling everyone backward. The walls cracked, glass shattered, and the metal catwalks above them collapsed in a rain of sparks.
Ethan shielded Leanna as debris fell around them. When the dust cleared, the soldiers were down, unconscious, their rifles twisted like melted wire.
The woman’s body trembled violently. “It’s happening again,” she whispered, clutching her head. “I can’t stop it…”
Ethan rushed to her side. “You’re not alone. Just hold on…”
Her hand shot out instinctively, gripping his wrist. For an instant, images flooded his mind — memories not from now, but from before — her lying on a hospital bed, him standing over her in a white coat, promising:
“You’ll live, I swear it. I won’t lose you.”
Then the vision shattered.
Ethan staggered back, gasping. The woman’s eyes dimmed. “They used me, Ethan,” she said softly. “Voss used both of us.”
Leanna grabbed his arm. “We need to leave now! The whole place is coming down!”
He nodded, snapping back to reality. “Can you walk?” he asked the woman.
She nodded weakly. “Yes… but not for long.”
The facility shook violently as they ran through the corridors, dodging falling panels and sparks raining from the ceiling. Ethan guided the woman with one arm while Leanna covered their flank. Everywhere they turned, chaos followed — containment pods exploding, computer screens flashing SYSTEM FAILURE. The air filled with smoke and the sound of groaning metal.
At the end of the hall, a reinforced door led to the surface lift.
Leanna sprinted ahead, inputting the manual override. “It’s jammed!” she cursed. “The power’s down.”
Ethan glanced around, his eyes landing on the main control hub nearby. “If we reroute the backup supply, we can force the lift open.”
Leanna gave him a look. “You’re sure you remember how?”
He managed a faint smile. “Guess we’ll find out.”
He ran to the console, fingers flying across the interface. Sparks flared, systems rebooted, and after a tense few seconds, the lift’s doors began to groan open.
But then — a slow clap echoed through the smoke.
Ethan froze.
From the corridor behind them, a figure emerged — tall, wearing a black tactical coat, face half-hidden by shadows.
“Bravo, Doctor,” the man said, voice dripping with amusement. “You found her.”
Ethan’s stomach twisted. “Voss.”
Dr. Voss stepped forward, his expression almost… proud. “You never could leave well enough alone. Even death couldn’t teach you obedience.”
Ethan stepped between him and the woman. “You turned her into a weapon.”
Voss’s smile thinned. “A necessary evolution. Project Lazarus was about transcending death — and she did. You should be celebrating me, not running from me.”
Ethan’s voice hardened. “You experimented on her. You destroyed her life.”
Voss tilted his head. “And yours. But look how far it brought you.”
Leanna raised her gun. “Move, Voss.”
He didn’t even flinch. “Shoot, if you like. It won’t change the fact that she’s dying.”
Ethan turned sharply. “What?”
Voss pointed toward the woman, whose faint glow had begun to flicker. “Her system is failing. Without the stabilizer, she’ll burn out in hours. But don’t worry — I can save her… again.”
Ethan’s jaw clenched. “Never.”
Voss smirked. “Then watch her die.”
He pressed a button on his wrist device. The floor shuddered. Explosives detonated deep within the structure, sending waves of dust and fire roaring through the corridor.
Leanna grabbed Ethan and the woman. “GO!”
They dove into the lift just as the tunnel behind them erupted. The doors slammed shut, and the lift shot upward, metal screeching as the explosion chased them.
The woman slumped against Ethan, her skin cold, her pulse faint.
“Ethan,” she whispered weakly, “he’s lying… there’s a backup… in your lab…”
“Where in the lab?” he asked urgently.
Her eyes fluttered. “Under… the glass…”
Then she went limp.
Ethan held her close as the lift reached the surface, bursting through a layer of debris into the pale dawn.
The facility behind them collapsed completely, vanishing beneath clouds of smoke.
Leanna turned to him, catching her breath. “Ethan, is she…?”
He checked her pulse. It was faint but steady. “She’s alive. But she’s fading fast.”
Leanna looked at him, worried, flickering behind her eyes. “What now?”
Ethan stood slowly, his gaze hardening as he stared at the smoldering ruins of Sector Nine.
“Now,” he said coldly, “we bring her back. And then… I finish what Voss started.”
That night, in a distant city tower, Voss watched the explosion replay on a monitor.
He smiled faintly and turned to his assistant.
“He’s remembering faster than I anticipated,” Voss said.
“Should we stop him?” the assistant asked.
“No,” Voss replied. “Let him remember. The truth will destroy him better than I ever could.”
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Latest Chapter
Chapter 208
The city did not announce Mara’s disappearance.It never did.Disappearances were absorbed the way rain was absorbed by cracked pavement,quietly, unevenly, leaving darker patches that no one wanted to step in. Leanna learned of it the way she learned everything now, indirectly, through absence.Mara did not answer her comms.Mara did not show up for the morning briefing.Mara did not argue when Leanna proposed rerouting supplies.At first, Leanna told herself it was caution,that Mara was lying low,that this was what survival looked like now silence, misdirection, patience.By noon, denial tasted like ash.Leanna stood in the small office behind the clinic, hands braced against the desk, staring at the empty chair opposite her. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and old paper,outside, volunteers moved in low voices, their steps careful, as if sound itself had become dangerous.She replayed the last conversation with Korrin again and again, searching for the moment she might have mi
Chapter 207
The city did not react all at once,and that was what unsettled Leanna most.There was no riot after the Council’s announcement,no cheers either,just a slow, uneven ripple,conversations in doorways, pauses in broadcast chatter, eyes lifting from screens and then dropping again. People absorbed the news the way one absorbed a change in weather,warily, with the instinct to adapt before questioning whether it was deserved.Leanna Hale appointed Civil Liaison to the Council,temporary mandate,oversight of humanitarian coordination.Temporary.Everything dangerous was always temporary at first.She watched the broadcast from a quiet room above the clinic, the sound turned low,her name looked strange in official typography, stripped of context and blood and fear,cleaned,sanitized.Legitimized.Mara stood behind her, arms folded so tightly her knuckles had gone white.“You didn’t warn us,” Mara said.Leanna didn’t turn. “I didn’t know until an hour ago.”“You could have refused.”“Yes.”Silenc
Chapter 206
The city learned restraint the way a wounded animal learned stillness.Carefully,suspiciously,with flinches that never quite went away.Leanna felt it every morning when she walked through the lower districts,the pauses in conversation when uniforms passed, the way shopkeepers kept their hands visible, the way laughter died down too fast,peace had arrived, but it had not been welcomed,it sat heavy in the air, like humidity before a storm.She had stopped pretending this was temporary.That was the first lie leadership burned out of you.There was no until Ethan returns,no until Korrin overreaches,no clean turning point waiting just beyond the horizon. There was only now messy, compromised, fragile,and the question of what kind of damage you were willing to accept in order to keep it standing.Leanna stood in the clinic doorway and watched volunteers work in practiced silence. Bandages. Rations. Quiet reassurances murmured to people who didn’t ask for hope anymore just relief.Mara joi
Chapter 205
The city learned how to live without Ethan faster than it should have,and that was the cruelest part.Leanna noticed it in the small things first the way patrol routes stabilized, the way blackouts became scheduled instead of sudden, the way people stopped looking over their shoulders every time a rumor passed through the streets. Order settled in like dust, quiet and persistent, coating everything.Korrin’s order.She hated how efficient it was.Three days after Ethan left, Leanna stood on the balcony of the safehouse and watched the city breathed,morning traffic crawled below,vendors argued over prices,children ran across cracked pavement chasing something that looked like hope but might have just been boredom.Life went on.That should have been comforting.Instead, it felt like betrayal.She pressed her palms against the railing, grounding herself. Sleep had become optional these past nights,brief, shallow, full of half-dreams where Ethan was always just out of reach,not dead,not
Chapter 204
The city did not celebrate.That was the first thing Leanna noticed when they released her.No crowds,no cheers,no whispered legends rising up the way they always had when Ethan broke something that was supposed to be unbreakable,just streets moving at their usual pace, people stepping around each other with careful indifference, as if nothing monumental had happened at all.As if the world hadn’t tilted.She stood at the edge of the transport bay long after the guards unlocked her cuffs and shoved her forward,the metal doors slid shut behind her with a sound that felt final in a way she couldn’t explain,not imprisonment ending,but something else.Something quieter.Her wrists were raw,her body ached in the dull, exhausted way that came after fear had burned itself out,but it was her chest that hurt most tight, shallow breaths, like her lungs didn’t trust the air anymore.Ethan.That was the thought she couldn’t escape.Not where he was,but what did he do.She had seen the broadcast.
Chapter 203
Night did not fall in the city anymore.It descended.The kind of darkness that didn’t simply remove light but rearranged meaning,turning familiar streets into corridors of intent, every shadow a decision waiting to be made. Ethan moved through it without disguise, without haste. That alone felt like a provocation.People noticed.They always did now.Some turned away quickly, fear reflexive and sharp. Others stared too long, eyes burning with questions they would never ask out loud,a few inclined their heads, gestures small but weighted, like prayers offered to something they weren’t sure deserved worship.Ethan hated that most of all.He adjusted the strap of his jacket and kept walking.Korrin’s perimeter loomed ahead not a wall, not a gate, but a gradual shift in atmosphere. Surveillance density increased,patrol patterns tightened,the air itself felt watched. This was where the city stopped pretending it was shared.Ethan crossed the invisible line anyway.Immediately, his comm ch
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