Running toward the shadow felt like running into the mouth of a collapsing world.
The air rippled around him—
cold, hot, electric, suffocating—
an unstable storm of corrupted data and raw memory.
His limbs twisted open like a curtain of darkness as we approached.
Lira held my arm in a death grip.
"DON'T THINK. JUST PUSH THROUGH."
We collided with him—
The sensation was indescribable.
Like being squeezed through a pinhole made of grief and static.
Like drowning in someone else's lungs.
Like falling upward.
The world shattered.
Darkness swallowed us whole.
For a moment—
there was nothing.
Then—
White.
A blinding, sterile white.
The air smelled like disinfectant and winter air trapped in vents.
A soft hum filled the background.
A mechanical heartbeat.
A hallway.
Theta.
But not the Theta from my adult memories.
This one was smaller, cleaner, with polished walls and bright floors—
the place as it looked decades ago.
Lira stumbled into view beside me, panting.
She looked around in disbelief.
"This is… a childhood memory," she breathed.
"He pulled us into one of your earliest Echo impressions."
No—
not pulled.
We broke into it.
The shadow wanted to keep this hidden more than anything else.
I steadied myself on the wall.
The fluorescent lights above us flickered with the slow pulse of a wounded beast.
Lira lowered her voice.
"Where are we exactly?"
I swallowed.
"This is Theta's east wing."
She raised a brow.
"And that means…?"
I hesitated.
"It's where they kept the… experiments."
Lira's breath hitched.
Before she could speak, a soft sound echoed from down the hall:
A sniff.
A small sob.
A child crying.
My chest tightened.
Lira turned toward me slowly.
"Is that…?"
"Marin," I whispered.
Her name hung in the sterile air.
We walked toward the sound, every step echoing too loudly.
My vision blurred at the edges—
memories flickering like dust motes in a storm.
A door stood at the end of the hallway.
White.
Silver handle.
A number etched into the top:
E-07.
The number stung at something deep inside me.
Lira touched the door.
"This is where she was?"
I nodded slowly.
"I think so."
A memory rippled through the room—like a film reel misaligned.
For a second, I saw another version of the hallway—
dim, cracked, filthy.
The real Theta.
Then it snapped back to the polished childhood one.
Lira's voice softened.
"Open it."
I reached out.
The moment my hand touched the handle, the door dissolved into a wave of white light.
The room behind it pulsed to life.
Small.
Empty.
Except for her.
Marin.
Not the flickering silver echo.
Not the half-grown, glitching apparition.
But a little girl—six, maybe seven.
Curled in the corner.
Wearing a thin hospital gown.
Clutching her knees to her chest.
Her small shoulders shook with each silent sob.
I stepped into the room, breath catching.
Lira stayed by the doorway, eyes glossy with shock.
"Oh… Elias…"
I moved slowly, carefully,
not wanting to disturb the fragile stillness of the memory.
Little Marin didn't look up.
The younger version of me sat across from her.
The same scene I glimpsed in the fractured memory previously—
but now whole, detailed, unmuted.
Little Elias's voice was soft, trembling.
"Marin?"
She flinched, hiding her face further in her arms.
He shuffled closer.
"You don't have to be scared."
She didn't answer.
So he did the same thing he always did when he didn't know what else to do:
He held out his hand.
Small.
Shaking.
Open.
She slowly lifted her head.
Her eyes were red, puffy, exhausted.
"Why did they put me here?"
her tiny voice broke.
"I didn't do anything bad."
My breath trembled.
I hadn't heard that voice in twenty years.
Young Elias scooted closer.
"You're not bad. They're bad."
Marin wiped her nose with her sleeve.
"W-why did they take me?"
He hesitated.
Then whispered.
"So you wouldn't disappear."
She blinked rapidly.
"What does that mean?"
He swallowed.
"My mom said they're taking kids away. Ones nobody will miss."
Marin's face crumpled.
"Nobody will miss me."
Little Elias leaned forward and grabbed her hand.
"I will."
The room pulsed—
a wave of emotion so strong the world trembled with it.
Lira's breath hitched behind me.
Young Elias squeezed her fingers.
"I'm your friend. I won't let them take you.
And if they try to make you forget me, or make me forget you…
I won't."
Marin stared at him.
"You promise?"
He nodded—
tears filling his eyes.
"I promise. I'll always remember you."
The words pierced me.
Everything inside me tightened until it hurt to breathe.
Little Marin whispered:
"Even if they take me away?"
"Even then."
"Even if they hurt me?"
"Even then."
She hesitated.
"Even if they hurt you?"
He nodded fiercely.
"Even then."
She finally leaned forward—
wrapping her tiny arms around him, sobbing into his shoulder.
Little Elias held her tightly, trembling.
Whispered into her hair:
"I won't let you disappear."
The room rippled.
Flickered.
Marin's child-form evaporated like dust on wind.
My younger self vanished too.
And I stood alone—
until Lira stepped beside me, covering her mouth with her hand.
"Oh god, Elias…
He took THAT?"
My voice broke.
"He took the first promise I ever made."
The walls shook violently.
The shadow's voice roared through the collapsing memory:
"YOU WERE NOT MEANT TO SEE THIS."
Lights burst overhead.
The hallway dissolved into cracks of darkness.
Lira grabbed my hand.
"Elias—RUN!"
I stared at the empty space where the two children had been.
Where everything had started.
Where my missing piece truly lived.
"I remembered," I whispered.
And for the first time—
the shadow sounded afraid.
"No."
The door behind us shattered.
Darkness flooded in.
"YOU BELONG TO ME."
Lira yanked me backward as the memory imploded.
We fell out of the child's room—
out of Theta—
out of the memory—
and into a spiraling, collapsing void.