Is That Mom

Part 2 of Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

Confronting the Past

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Part 2:

Infiltrating the Outpost

The cover of night was both a blessing and a curse for Ethan. As darkness blanketed the forest, it cloaked his movements, but it also magnified the outpost’s ominous presence. The moonlight barely filtered through the canopy of trees, leaving the world around him shadowed and silent. The outpost loomed before him like a relic from another world—a place where science had stretched beyond ethical boundaries and crumbled under the weight of its own secrecy.

Ethan paused just outside the building, his eyes scanning the walls for the entrance marked in his mother’s journal. According to her notes, there was a concealed door at the back of the outpost, once used by maintenance workers to come and go unnoticed. His mother had written about it as if she had used it herself, her handwriting revealing both precision and a sense of urgency. The idea that she had walked this same path, likely under the same veil of darkness, sent a chill through Ethan. But unlike her, he was alone.

The map he carried was worn and tattered, its edges frayed from repeated folding and unfolding, and though the ink had faded in places, the hidden entrance was clearly marked. He kept his flashlight low, sweeping the beam over the wall until he spotted the door. It was smaller than he expected, rusted and partially obscured by vines that had claimed their stake on the building over the years. Ethan crouched and examined the lock. Rust and grime coated the handle, but it looked like it could still work.

He reached into his pack, pulling out a small toolkit. His heart pounded in his ears as he worked the lock, the sound of metal scraping against metal unnerving him in the oppressive silence. Time felt distorted, and for a moment, it seemed like the entire forest was holding its breath. Finally, with a soft click, the lock gave way. The door creaked open, revealing a narrow corridor that led into the belly of the outpost.

Ethan stepped inside, immediately consumed by the stale air and the weight of time that hung thickly in the atmosphere. He closed the door behind him, sealing himself inside. The darkness here was different from outside—it was heavier, more intimate, pressing against him like a blanket. The smell of dust, metal, and something faintly chemical lingered in the air, a reminder of the experiments that had once filled this place.

The journal had warned him of the labyrinthine layout of the outpost, and the notes etched into the margins of the map were the only thing keeping him oriented. Ethan moved slowly, his flashlight sweeping across the walls and floors, revealing the decay of what had once been an active facility. Wires dangled from the ceiling, exposed pipes rusted through in some areas, and broken equipment lay scattered like the bones of some great technological beast. Every corner he turned felt like an intrusion into a forbidden world, one that had been left to rot in the darkness.

As he ventured deeper, the outpost began to feel like a tomb. The hallways stretched endlessly, the silence so thick it was almost suffocating. It was as though the building itself was a monument to all that had been abandoned here—research, machines, and people. He imagined what it must have been like when the facility was still active, the sound of machines humming, scientists in lab coats bustling from one room to the next. But now, those sounds were replaced by the echo of his footsteps, which seemed too loud in the stillness.

He came to a halt in front of what looked like a control room. The door had been left ajar, and from what he could see, the room was filled with old monitors and consoles, all dark and coated in dust. The light from his flashlight revealed more details—a row of filing cabinets pushed against the far wall, several pieces of lab equipment strewn across tables, and what appeared to be a series of photographs pinned to a corkboard near the entrance. Ethan’s heart skipped a beat as he approached the photographs.

They were faded, their edges yellowed with time, but the images were clear enough to recognize. Groups of people—researchers, by the looks of them—posed in front of complex machinery. The expressions on their faces varied from proud to exhausted, and in some of the photos, the same woman appeared over and over again. His mother. Younger, her hair pulled back, a focused look on her face as she stood beside her colleagues. The sight of her took Ethan’s breath away. She seemed so different from the woman he remembered—colder, more determined. This was a side of her he had never known.

Ethan reached out and gently lifted one of the photographs from the board, turning it over to see if there was any writing on the back. Scrawled in the same precise handwriting as the journal were the names of the people in the photo, his mother’s name standing out among them. A date was written just below the names, from over two decades ago. He stared at it, trying to reconcile the image of the woman in the photograph with the mother he had known. This place had shaped her, molded her into someone he no longer recognized.

The discovery left him shaken. He carefully placed the photograph back and turned his attention to the filing cabinets. They were old and rusted, but one of the drawers slid open with a reluctant groan. Inside were dozens of files, some of them marked with faded stamps of confidentiality. He sifted through them, finding records of experiments conducted at the outpost, data logs filled with technical jargon he barely understood. But one name kept appearing: Project Orpheus.

His mother’s notes had mentioned it only briefly, in cryptic phrases and half-finished thoughts. Now, standing in the heart of the facility where it had all taken place, Ethan realized just how central this project had been to everything. The files spoke of genetic manipulation, subjects altered at a fundamental level, pushing the boundaries of human potential in ways that defied nature. It was the kind of work that belonged in science fiction, yet here it was, documented in his hands.

The dread that had been gnawing at him since he entered the outpost grew stronger. Each discovery brought him closer to the truth, but with every step, the fear of being watched crept back into his mind. The silence, once a comfort, now felt like a threat. It was too quiet, too still, as though the building was waiting for him to uncover something it had kept hidden for years. His flashlight flickered, casting eerie shadows on the walls, and for a brief, heart-stopping moment, he thought he saw movement at the edge of his vision.

Ethan froze, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. He swung the flashlight in the direction of the movement, but there was nothing. Just more empty hallways, more abandoned rooms. His pulse raced as he stood there, gripping the flashlight tightly, trying to convince himself it was just his mind playing tricks on him. But the feeling of being watched refused to leave him. It clung to him like the air inside the outpost, heavy and inescapable.

His breath came in shallow gasps as he forced himself to move forward, deeper into the maze of corridors. The further he went, the more the facility began to feel like a living thing—a place that had once thrived but was now dying slowly, its secrets rotting away with it. Every step brought him closer to understanding what had happened here, and every step filled him with a growing sense of dread.

He was no longer just searching for answers. He was walking through the remnants of a past that had been deliberately hidden from him, and the truth was waiting for him, somewhere in the darkness.