Lilia stepped back, gasping. "There's something else," she said. "Something you didn't tell us."
The screen flickered, and the text changed on its own, as if someone inside were rewriting the line.
Subject C is still active.
Celine stared. "Subject… what?"
For the first time, the man's face went pale. "This… this shouldn't be appearing now."
Lilia slowly lifted her head. Her eyes were no longer just those of a child or an experiment. There was an awareness in them, beginning to take shape. "So… we weren't only two."
No one answered.
Because some truths, once spoken, no longer need confirmation.
And in that moment, Celine realized something both terrifying and clear: recovering the memories would not be a single explosion…
but a sequence.
And the first thing to break, before any secret,
would be the illusion that this story belonged to Lilia alone.
"Subject C" did not appear on the screen by itself. With it, the entire rhythm of the room changed. The machines no longer blinked steadily. They seemed to breathe. A slow pulse, then faster, then a brief pause that left the heart suspended.
Lilia spoke in a low voice, as if addressing something inside her rather than around her.
"He doesn't want to be revealed."
The man in the black coat no longer hid his anxiety. He stepped closer to the screen, like someone trying to deny a sentence that had appeared before him.
"Subject C… should have been shut down."
Eva turned on him sharply. "You don't shut down something alive. You only postpone its emergence."
At last, the screen displayed an image. Not a clear one. Just the shadow of a child, slightly older than Lilia in the old photos, but with unstable features, as if the face refused to be fixed in place.
Celine felt a sudden tightness in her chest.
"I know this feeling."
They looked at her.
"Not his face. His presence. This… this is what I've felt my entire life. The emptiness that can't be explained."
Lilia stepped toward the machine. This time, no one tried to stop her.
"Tell the truth now," she said. "All of it."
To be continued...