The elevator doors hissed open with a mechanical sigh. The hall beyond was nothing like the warmth of Maya's room—it was sterile, dim, and too quiet, as if the building itself was holding its breath. Liam stepped out, every footfall echoing across the cold tile like a threat.
He'd been here once before. Late at night. Unauthorized. And just like then, the door at the end of the hall glowed faintly red beneath the emergency light, as if warning him to turn back.
But he didn't.
He couldn't.
Not with Maya's memory slipping like sand through her fingers.
Inside the dim archive room, dust floated through narrow slats of light that cut through high windows like blades. Rows of metal drawers lined the walls, each one locked, labeled in codes the average person would never understand. But Liam had spent years decoding them. He knew what he was looking for.
Drawer R-9.
The moment he opened it, cold air spilled out — not real, but something colder. Something psychological. The kind of chill that lives in the space between guilt and fear.
He flipped through the files quickly—thick folders, clipped and tagged with red ribbons. Then he saw it.
"Case #4132-A. Subject: Maya Leclair. Anomaly: Emotional Overlap."
The file was heavier than it looked. Inside, pages yellowed from secrecy detailed tests he hadn't authorized, therapies pushed far beyond safe limits. And at the very back—
A photo.
Maya. Hooked to more than monitors. Wires. Electrodes. A halo of light around her head. Not healing her. Altering her.
Liam's stomach twisted. This wasn't treatment. It was experimentation. Emotion manipulation. Memory suppression.
His hand clenched around the file. He needed to burn this. To run. To hide it from Maya. But the deeper truth screamed louder than logic now.
They hadn't just tried to save her. They had tried to remake her.
Suddenly, behind him, a shadow moved.
He turned sharply, the file still in hand.
"Looking for answers?" came a voice — familiar, mocking.
Dr. Lynne.
Her white coat fluttered as she stepped into view, eyes glinting like polished knives. "You always were too sentimental, Liam. That's why she's slipping through your fingers."
His voice was hoarse, furious. "You experimented on her. You played God."
"I preserved her," Lynne snapped. "You think this love you cling to is real? She's forgetting who she was before you. And soon, she won't remember you at all."
The air in the room grew thick. Too still. Too dangerous.
"She's not an experiment," Liam said, voice trembling with rage. "She's a person. And I will save her—memory or no memory."
He shoved past Lynne, file tucked beneath his coat like a stolen secret. The lights overhead flickered as if reacting to the tension left behind.
When Liam returned to Maya's room, she was staring out the window, lost in the city lights.
"Did you get it?" she asked, eyes not quite meeting his.
He nodded, kneeling beside her. "I found the truth."
Maya turned slowly, as if she already knew what he was going to say.
"But it's not the truth that scares me," she whispered. "It's the part where I forget how to love you."
Liam closed his eyes, forehead resting against her knee.
"Then I'll fall for you all over again," he murmured, "a hundred times if I have to."
Outside, the city kept moving. But in this room—time bent. A war was coming. Not of guns or weapons.
But of memory, love, and what it meant to truly be someone's future… even as the past crumbled.