The metal hatch groaned as it sealed shut behind them. Dust and rust rattled through the air vents above, and a sharp click echoed down the narrow tunnel—like a lock being thrown into place. Ava froze. Behind her, in the blackness of the abandoned corridor, a red bulb blinked to life.
Just once.
It pulsed silently and died again.
She turned slowly. "Did anyone else see that?" she asked, voice low.
Rohit, still cradling a coughing child, followed her gaze. "What?"
"That light," Ava whispered, stepping back from the door. "It was red. Just for a second."
"It's probably just residual power," Malik said, brushing past her. "Old systems glitch when you slam a door that hard. Come on. We need distance from here."
But Ava's stomach curled. The red flash hadn't been a glitch. It had been. deliberate. Like a signal. As if someone—or something—had just tagged them.
She did not voice it.
Instead, she trailed Malik up the sloppy incline that exited the tunnels, her boots kicking at wet concrete. Ayesha hung onto her, her eyes big but fixed. She hadn't spoken since they'd fled.
That silence was more chilling than screams.
..................
They walked out into a dense night, clouds filling the sky and the smell of pine stinging on the wind. No headlights trailed behind. No voices. No cries of guards. Only the suffocating silence of an area unmarred by time.
Malik did not slow. "We go north," he indicated. "There's an old outpost—Resistance-constructed. Off-grid. Abandoned."
They walked for nearly an hour, deeper into the woods, until the ground turned soft with moss and the trees rose like sentinels around them. The outpost appeared like a memory—a bunker hidden beneath ivy and soil, tucked behind a collapsed stone wall.
Inside: cracked stone floors, a rusted stove, scattered blankets, and a wood-framed mirror leaning against the far wall, half-covered with cloth.
"Safe enough," Malik muttered. "At least for tonight."
The children collapsed on the blankets. Rohit set about checking their minor injuries. Malik rummaged for supplies.
Ava stayed close to Ayesha, who sat by the wall, hands folded in her lap, staring out the narrow window. She hadn't blinked once since they'd entered.
"Ayesha," Ava said softly, kneeling beside her. "Can you hear me?"
The girl didn't respond.
"I read your file," Ava breathed. "They referred to you as Subject Twelve. But I know that's not you. You're not their test subject. You're not what they created you to be."
Ayesha slowly turned her head.
Her lips parted again.
"He never stopped searching for you," she stated. "He still is."
Ava felt the chill creep over her once more, sliding up her spine. "Who is?"
Ayesha blinked once. "The man without a face."
.....................
Malik beckoned her over several minutes later. He'd discovered something in one of the supply crates—a file folder padded with moldy canvas.
It wasn't well-marked, but the mark in the corner froze her heart: a circle with three slashes intersecting it. Her uncle's mark. Vikram Joshi.
There were dry papers—records of some stage of Project ECHOES.
But these weren't figures. These were scribbles—haphazard, handwritten, personal.
One sentence was double-underlined in black pen:
"𝗔𝘃𝗮 – 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗳𝘂𝗹. 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲. 𝗦𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻'𝘁 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄."
Below it, in Vikram's handwriting:
"𝗜𝗳 𝘀𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘀, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗯𝗿𝗶𝘂𝗺 𝗶𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘁."
Ava gazed at the paper for so long her hands started to tremble.
.....................
Nobody slept peacefully that night.
Rohit kept the first watch. Malik slept in the corner with the knife across his chest.
Ava slept chill next to the stove, now cold and dark, and shadows in the room danced over her skin. Her thoughts would not subside.
At some point, she found herself gazing in the direction of the mirror—the one draped half-way with cloth.
She arose almost on autopilot and made her way to it.
Her reflection greeted her with empty eyes and an empty stare.
Then it didn't move.
She blinked. The reflection did not.
Her breath got caught. She backed away.
And the reflection slowly lifted a hand to its lips.
𝙎𝙝𝙝𝙝...
The towel rolled over the top slipped down with a gentle whisper, pooling at the floor like it had been torn away.
Ava backed away—her heart pounding—and the mirror went back to normal. Her reflection mirrored her once more without a blemish.
Behind her, silent steps.
She turned to behold Anaya still, eyes wide open.
"You're not Ava anymore," Anaya whispered.
"What do you mean?" Ava's voice was shaking.
"You're remembering."
"Remembering what?"
"That's what he's scared of," Anaya answered. "That you'll recall what he did."
...................
By dawn, the group was already on their way once more.
Malik would not be dissuaded from cutting a space between them and the hatch. "That place was never dead," he grumbled. "It was waiting."
As they walked through the forest, the wind shifted once again, cold and inappropriate for the season. The trees groaned too loudly.
And following behind—soft but focused—there arose a slow crunching of leaves.
Footsteps.
Rohit looked at Ava. She nodded. She heard it too.
They kept walking. Nobody said anything.
Until a voice whispered among the trees. Gentle. Cold.
"Ava."
She spun around.
Nobody.
Just leaves.
No movement.
But the voice had been inches from her.
......................
They stopped in front of a rotting, old tree. Malik was examining the roots when Ava stopped abruptly.
She stared at the bark.
Deep within the trunk, raw and fresh:
𝗥𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗠𝗕𝗘𝗥 𝗠𝗘?
Not written.
𝗕𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱.
Her stomach dropped. She ran her fingers over the scar.
It was the same symbol her uncle had written in his diaries—written in only one place:
𝗛𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗶𝗱 𝘀𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗲𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱.
..................