In the city of Elmira-where cobbled streets met sleek storefronts and cafés buzzed with student chatter-Dr. Joshua Bennett lived a life of quiet order. At just twenty-five, freshly graduated from medical school, he had returned to Almira University...
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Six Hours Later - Joshua's Apartment
Joshua's POV
I woke to the alarm's shrill beeping at 6:30 AM, just as I had every morning for the past three years. My hand found the snooze button automatically, muscle memory taking over even as my mind remained clouded with exhaustion and grief.
I hadn't slept. Every time I'd closed my eyes, I saw Aina's face in those final moments—the anguish, the conflict, the way she'd whispered my name like a prayer and a goodbye all at once. The rational part of my mind kept trying to process the impossible things I'd witnessed: the man with the gun, the talk of memory manipulation, the way Aina had moved with trained precision when she'd fought back.
Who was she, really?
I forced myself out of bed and stumbled toward the bathroom. My reflection in the mirror looked haggard—eyes red-rimmed, stubble darkening my jaw, hair disheveled from a night of tossing and turning. I looked like a man who'd lost something precious and didn't know how to begin searching for it.
The shower's hot water helped slightly, washing away the physical exhaustion if not the emotional turmoil. As I dressed in my usual clothes—dark slacks, white shirt, navy jacket—I tried to prepare myself for the day ahead. I had morning rounds at 8 AM, followed by a lecture to second-year medical students at 10. Life, apparently, continued even when your world had been turned upside down.
My phone sat silent on the nightstand. No messages from unknown numbers. No word about whether Aina was safe, whether she'd found what she was looking for, whether she was even alive.
I pocketed the phone and gathered my things—laptop bag, keys, the travel mug that Aina had bought me last month because she said the hospital coffee was "an insult to caffeine everywhere." The memory hit me like a physical blow, and I had to steady myself against the kitchen counter.
Focus, I told myself. You have patients depending on you.
At 7:45 AM, I locked my apartment door and headed for the stairs. The building was quiet—most of my neighbors were still asleep or just beginning their own morning routines. My footsteps echoed in the stairwell as I descended from the third floor to the lobby.
I pushed through the building's front door and stepped into the crisp morning air, my breath forming small clouds in the cold. The university medical center was a twenty-minute walk, a routine I'd maintained since moving to this apartment. The familiar path usually helped me organize my thoughts for the day ahead, but this morning my mind remained chaotic, fragmented.
I'd made it perhaps fifty yards from my building when my phone buzzed with an incoming voice message. My heart hammered as I saw the notification—an encrypted audio message from an unknown number.
With trembling fingers, I opened the message and held the phone to my ear.
Aina's voice, breathless and terrified, filled my earpiece: "Joshua, it's me. Felix is... Felix is dead. They killed him. Nordstrom's people found us and I barely got away. I'm hiding in the university—in the basement level of the Medical Sciences building, under classroom B-12. The one where we used to have our Tuesday seminars. Please, if you get this, I need help. I don't know who else to trust. Be careful—they might be watching you too."
