Chapter 27 - The Memory They Stole
I saw blood before I saw the room.
Red on white tile.
My own hands shaking.
A woman's body on the floor.
Michael screaming my name.
I dropped to my knees.
“No.”
Emily grabbed me.
“Mom!”
The room returned.
I was in the house.
Everyone was staring.
Michael crouched beside me.
“What did you see?”
“I killed someone.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
“I remember it.”
“You were six.”
The other Elena stepped forward.
“You didn't kill her.”
“Then why do I remember it?”
“Because you watched.”
Victoria looked at me.
“Who was she?”
I closed my eyes.
Her face returned.
Older.
Terrified.
She had my eyes.
I whispered:
“Sarah.”
My mother gasped.
“No.”
I looked at her.
“You were on the floor.”
Sarah shook her head violently.
“That wasn't me.”
The other Elena looked at her.
“It was.”
“What?”
The woman on the floor hadn't been Sarah.
It had been a woman who looked like Sarah.
A predecessor.
One of the first transfer subjects.
I felt sick.
“She had your face.”
Sarah whispered, “My mother.”
I looked at her.
“What happened?”
“She tried to destroy Mirror Zero.”
Thomas appeared on the house monitor.
Sarah looked at him.
“You knew.”
He nodded.
“She was my sister.”
Sarah started crying.
I stared.
“My aunt.”
Thomas nodded.
“She was the first person to realize what the network really was.”
Michael looked toward the server room.
“She wasn't killed by the network.”
I looked at him.
“Then who killed her?”
He said nothing.
The other Elena answered.
“Me.”
The room went silent.
Michael turned toward her.
“What?”
She looked at me.
“I was six too.”
I stared.
“How?”
“She wasn't trying to kill me.”
Victoria stepped forward.
“She was trying to shut the system down.”
“Yes.”
“And you stopped her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The other Elena looked at me.
“Because they gave me a choice.”
“What choice?”
“Her or everyone else.”
I felt a chill.
“What did you choose?”
“Myself.”
She looked ashamed for the first time.
“I pushed the button.”
The server room lit up.
The memories around us began changing.
My childhood.
My wedding.
Emily's birth.
Michael's death.
All flickered like damaged film.
I watched myself standing at my own husband's funeral.
Then the scene changed.
I watched myself walk away.
Then another Elena took my place.
Then another.
Then another.
I turned toward Michael.
“How many times?”
He didn't answer.
“How many versions of me have you watched die?”
“Six.”
My breath caught.
“Six.”
He nodded.
“The first two didn't survive.”
“The third?”
“Escaped.”
“The fourth?”
“Became Victoria.”
Victoria stared at him.
“What?”
Michael looked at her.
“You were not a separate identity.”
She stepped backward.
“You're lying.”
“You were an Elena variant.”
Her face went white.
“No.”
“You chose another name.”
“Why?”
“Because Elena was too dangerous.”
She looked at me.
“And you never told me.”
“I couldn't.”
Victoria started crying.
“For twenty years I thought I was Victoria.”
Michael said quietly:
“You are.”
She looked at him.
“That is the point.”
He stepped closer.
“You became your own person.”
The room went silent.
The distinction mattered.
Maybe that was the entire fight.
Who gets to decide what makes a person real?
A file?
A memory?
A bloodline?
A name?
Emily looked up.
“Mom.”
I knelt.
“What?”
“Why do I remember the house burning?”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
She looked frightened.
“I remember Dad carrying me.”
Michael slowly stood.
“That memory isn't possible.”
Emily pointed toward the hallway.
“He carried me upstairs.”
Michael whispered:
“That's the night I supposedly died.”
I looked at him.
Emily continued.
“He told me not to look behind him.”
I could barely breathe.
“What did you see?”
She started crying.
“A woman.”
“What woman?”
Emily looked at Victoria.
Then Sarah.
Then me.
“She looked like all of you.”
The other Elena's face changed.
“That's impossible.”
Emily touched her forehead.
“She had gray hair.”
Michael whispered, “No.”
“What?”
He backed away.
“My mother.”
The same woman from the oldest photograph.
Michael's grandmother.
The origin source.
But she had been dead for decades.
Thomas appeared on screen.
His face had lost all color.
“She's alive.”
I stared at him.
“Dad?”
Thomas looked away.
“The first Elena never died.”
The server room door opened.
A wheelchair rolled into the hall.
An old woman sat in it.
Gray hair.
My eyes.
Michael's eyes.
Victoria's face.
May you like
She looked at us.
And smiled.
