The air inside the hatch stung Mara's lungs.
Cold. Sterile. Chemical.
A smell she recognized without understanding why — like something her body remembered long before her mind did.
Daniel moved ahead of her, limping slightly from their earlier fight.
Mara kept several steps back, watching him with a predator's caution.
"Don't trail behind," he said quietly, not turning around.
"It's easy to get lost in here."
"Good," Mara answered.
"That's exactly what I want."
Daniel didn't react, but she saw his shoulders tighten.
The staircase spiraled downward into a long corridor lined with metal doors.
Red emergency lights blinked overhead, casting the hall in halos of pulsing crimson.
Mara froze.
She knew this place.
Not as memory — but as instinct.
Her palms tingled.
Her heartbeat slowed.
Her senses sharpened.
Daniel noticed.
"You feel it, don't you?"
Mara swallowed hard.
"I don't want to."
"But you do."
He led her to the first door.
The number A-001 was stenciled across the top.
Mara's fingers brushed the metal without meaning to — and something cracked open inside her mind.
A flash.
A white room.
She was strapped to a table.
Electrodes on her skull.
Someone whispering:
"Don't scream. It makes the readings unstable."
Mara jerked back, gasping.
Daniel steadied her.
"It'll come in pieces. Don't fight it. Fighting only makes the rewiring harder."
"Rewiring?" she spat. "What did they do to us?"
Daniel didn't answer.
Not because he refused —
but because the answer was too big for a single sentence.
He pushed open Door A-001.
Inside was a small chamber filled with broken restraints and shattered glass.
Old blood stained the floor in a dark rust pattern.
Mara stepped inside slowly.
"Whose room was this?" she whispered.
Daniel hesitated.
"…Yours."
Mara's throat closed.
"No. No—Daniel, I've never been here. I've never seen this room."
"You saw it a thousand times. You just don't remember."
Images hit her again — this time harder.
Her own voice screaming.
Needles entering her spine.
Her fingers clawing at restraints until they bled.
Mara stumbled, grabbing the wall.
A scream tore from her chest before she realized she was making the sound.
Daniel grabbed her arms.
"Mara, breathe—"
"DON'T TOUCH ME!"
She shoved him away, shaking so violently the room blurred.
Her vision fizzled like static as another memory forced itself forward.
A voice.
A low whisper.
Male.
"Try again, Alpha. You're not ready yet."
Mara's skin crawled.
"…Alpha?" she choked out.
Daniel's expression crumpled.
"That was your designation."
"What was yours?" she whispered.
Daniel closed his eyes.
"Beta."
Mara's breath stilled.
"You said that before," she murmured. "Why? Why are we—paired?"
Daniel finally looked at her, eyes hollow.
"We weren't the first. We were just the first to survive. The others didn't last past childhood."
Mara's stomach dropped.
"…others?"
Daniel nodded slowly.
"Prototypes One through Six. We were Seven and Eight."
Mara looked around the room again — and the space felt suffocating.
A cage.
A lab.
A womb.
A tomb.
"They made us," Mara whispered.
"But why?"
Daniel hesitated too long.
"Power. Obedience. Potential. Something that could think and fight beyond human limits. Something loyal."
"And we were supposed to be loyal to them."
Daniel didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Mara stepped closer to him, fury rising through her fear.
"Why did you help them take me?"
His jaw tightened.
"Because I didn't want them to hurt you again."
"Then why chase me? Why drag me back here?"
Daniel's voice cracked.
"Because if they catch you without me, they'll restart you. Reset your mind again."
Mara blinked.
"Again?" she whispered.
"How many times have they wiped me?"
Daniel's silence was the answer.
Her knees nearly buckled.
"…How many?"
Daniel whispered, "Four."
Mara felt like she was drowning.
Her memories—her identity—her entire life—
gone
gone
gone
erased
rewritten
fabricated
She leaned against the wall, shaking.
"They're going to wipe me again," she said quietly.
"Then I'll lose everything. Even Evelyn."
Daniel flinched at her name.
"Evelyn wasn't supposed to get attached," he said.
"She broke protocol for you. She hid you for years. She—"
"—she died because of me?" Mara snapped.
"No." Daniel stepped closer, voice trembling with urgency.
"She died because she loved you more than she feared them."
Mara swallowed hard, vision blurring again.
Before she could respond—
A metallic clank echoed from deeper in the facility.
Followed by another.
And another.
Slow, dragging footsteps.
Daniel went rigid.
"No," he whispered. "No, they shouldn't be awake yet—"
Mara's blood turned to ice.
"Who?" she breathed.
Daniel's face paled.
"Prototype Nine."
Mara's pulse stopped.
"Nine?" she whispered. "There was another after us?"
Daniel grabbed her wrist—hard.
"We have to move. Now."
A shape turned the corner at the far end of the hall.
Tall.
Pale.
Wrong.
Its movements jerky, its head twitching in unnatural angles.
Its eyes—
or what remained of them—
glowed a faint chemical blue.
Mara's voice came out a broken whisper.
"…Daniel… what is that?"
He didn't look back.
"A mistake."
Prototype Nine let out a guttural sound — halfway between a breath and a snarl.
Then it sprinted toward them with impossible speed.
Daniel shoved Mara through the nearest doorway.
"RUN!"
The facility exploded into chaos.
And for the first time, Mara realized something terrifying:
Prototype Nine didn't come for Daniel.
It came for her.