⸻ ❛𝐖𝐑𝐀𝐏 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐌𝐄 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝐈 𝐃𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐎𝐒!❜
Rory Hargrove is obsessed to uncover the truth behind Barbara Holland's disappearance, while facing her brother's enemy and buried secrets from...
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THE ONCE-SPARKLING BLUE EYES — those that had once gazed at her parents with tenderness, laughter dancing in their depths — were now dull, emotionless. They stared blankly at the pale, silent walls that suffocated her thoughts, constricting her throat like an invisible noose.
The acrid scent of ammonia poisoned the air, seeping into her skin, corroding something deep inside her. It was stripping away the precious fragments of her childhood, dissecting them piece by piece — while she, in turn, manipulated the memories of others.
But poor Seven... there was no escaping the whispered, saccharine commands of her Papa.
Beyond the thick acrylic glass stood that tall man with silver-streaked hair. She had never seen him wear anything other than a white shirt beneath his immaculate gray suit.
Something inside her twisted every time she was forced to call him father—because deep down, in the marrow of her bones, she knew the truth — he was not her real father.
Not the one who counted stars with her from the balcony at night. Not the one who spun bedtime stories until her eyelids grew heavy. That father, the one she ached for, had faded into nothing but a distant memory — more like a dream from which she had awakened, never to return.
The man stepped into the sterile, freezing chamber where she sat, dragging a metal chair beside her.
"Seven." Papa's icy blue eyes locked onto hers. "Do you see that man?"
He pointed to the figure seated across the metallic table. The five-year-old girl nodded softly.
"I want you to show me his memory from September 7, 1971."
Her gaze shifted to the man—motionless, hands folded neatly in his lap, unsettlingly calm as he surrendered his mind to be exposed.
With an unreadable expression — one that mirrored her own —Seven turned her attention to the television beside her. The screen flickered, waiting, its black-and-white static trembling in anticipation.
"Can you do that?"
She nodded again.
Then, he fastened the wired headpiece against her scalp —once crowned with golden-blond hair, kissed and lightened by the sun. It was meant to monitor her brain activity, to measure the depth of her intrusion.
She closed her eyes.
The sharp scent of ammonia burned in her lungs, saturating her pores, leeching away any remnants of warmth. Connecting with a stranger's mind was never easy. But with each passing day, she was getting stronger—faster, sharper. Digging up memories, planting new ideas, erasing the past... it had become her daily routine.
And after countless failed attempts, she was finally succeeding. But success came at a cost.
Each journey into another's mind drained her to the core, hollowing her out. It demanded she shed herself entirely—dissolve into someone else, slip between the folds of their consciousness. It was a descent far deeper than the ocean floor, more grueling than the ascent of Everest.
Above her, the ceiling lights flickered, their buzzing drone intensifying.
Then, the screen came to life.
At first, only static. Then, flickering, distorted images —streets, buildings, familiar places—warping and twisting like a dream on the verge of collapse. Faces blurred into abstraction, smeared like wet paint by an unsteady hand. Like the world seen through the eyes of the nearsighted. But the voices —the voices were sharp, unfiltered, cutting through the haze. Pure. Unmistakable. The raw essence of human memory.
Not only had she reconstructed the vision, but she had pinpointed the exact moment in time—the precise memory. It aligned with witness accounts, surveillance footage.
She was the antidote to liars. And the man had told the truth.
They were making progress. A satisfied smile crept onto Brenner's lips.
Seven felt a thick, warm liquid pouring from her nostrils and ears. Her lungs swelled, screaming for oxygen, causing her chest to rise and fall frantically.
She was exhausted. Every day, she was forced to dive into the depths of strangers' minds, unraveling their pasts. Yet she obeyed.
There was something in her —a resilience —that Brenner admired.
Her vision blurred, darkened by fatigue and the flood of foreign memories. She didn't see him move closer.
"Clever girl," he murmured, eyes fixed on her. His rough hand brushed against the pale skin of her face. "Good job."
But there was also a courage in her, an unbridled stubbornness. Defiance, sharp as a blade. She raised her pale face, the blue veins showing through her thin skin, the eyelids heavy over her eyes.
"You're not my papa."
The childish but powerful voice was uttered by the girl who stared at him with obstinacy drawn across her innocent face. She obeyed his orders, but it didn't hide the fact that she knew she didn't belong there —she would never let him rewrite her reality.
A flicker of tension, grew at the corners of his lips and on his forehead, darkening his features as he straightened, withdrawing from her.
Only when he rose to his feet did he finally look away, slipping silently from the room.
The process of abducting past memories they had subjected the girl to had not yet taken full effect. They would have to continue to turn Seven into the weapon of war they desired, to make her forget her past.
They couldn't give her up. She was different. A unique project. A revolution in scientific knowledge. She was the only child who hadn't been born within these walls — her presence there was the result of a meticulous, calculated plan.
Brenner and his team had been lucky to acquire her.
