Ava didn't sleep.
Not really.
She closed her eyes, sure. Let herself drift somewhere between thoughts and silence. But sleep—deep, dreamless, healing—was nowhere in reach. Her body was still, tucked beneath a scratchy motel blanket, but her mind ran laps.
Next to her, Eli was dead asleep.
One arm flung over his face. His breathing even. The kind of peace only someone used to living with chaos could master.
She envied it.
He stirred when she sat up.
"Can't sleep?" he mumbled, voice thick with sleep.
"No."
He blinked slowly. Then, with zero hesitation, he shifted over and patted the space between them. "Come here."
Ava stared. "We're already sharing a bed."
"This is closer. Different kind of sharing."
She rolled her eyes but moved anyway, lying down with her head on his chest, her hand resting lightly against his shirt. He was warm. Real.
Safe.
"How do you do that?" she whispered.
"Do what?"
"Make it feel like everything's not falling apart."
He laughed quietly. "Because everything is falling apart. I just choose to ignore it for a few hours."
She let out a breath. Half-laugh, half-exhale. "Brilliant survival tactic."
"Right? I should write a book."
---
They stayed like that.
No one moved.
And the silence didn't feel heavy for once.
Until Ava asked, softly, "What if this is the last time we're just... us?"
Eli's fingers traced slow circles along her back. "What do you mean?"
"I mean… what if once we open this thing—once we figure it out—it changes everything? What if we're not us anymore?"
He didn't answer right away. But when he did, it wasn't what she expected.
"Then we take a moment right now and burn it into our memory."
She lifted her head slightly, her eyes meeting his. "You always say shit like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you're writing a goodbye letter in your head."
"Maybe I am."
Ava frowned. "Don't."
But he just looked at her like he knew something she didn't. Or maybe like he'd already accepted something she hadn't.
"We can't un-know this stuff, Ava," he said. "Once it's out there, it's out. And whatever happens next... we deal with it."
"But we deal with it together."
Eli smiled faintly. "Yeah. Together."
She kissed him before he could say anything else.
---
It wasn't one of those perfect kisses you read about in books.
There was no sweeping orchestral soundtrack.
No slow motion.
Just lips meeting in the dark, a little unsure, a little desperate. Like they both needed something to hold onto—something that wasn't a secret, or a threat, or a question without an answer.
Her fingers tangled in his shirt. His hand slid up to cup her jaw. Neither of them pulled away.
Not right away.
And when they did, they didn't say a word.
They just stayed close.
Hearts pounding.
Eyes open.
Breath shared.
---
When morning came, it brought no answers.
Only sunlight through the cheap motel curtains and the distant sound of trucks passing on the highway.
Ava sat cross-legged on the bed, scanning the map they'd scribbled together. Eli stood by the window, sipping burnt coffee and watching the world outside like he expected someone to burst in at any moment.
"We're close," Ava said, pointing to a circled X near the edge of the county line. "That's the pattern. That's where it ends."
Eli leaned over her shoulder, studying the red lines. "What's there?"
"Abandoned warehouse. Old biotech facility. Shut down ten years ago."
"Of course it is."
She smirked. "You know what this means, right?"
"That we're walking straight into a horror movie plot?"
"That we're walking into answers."
He nodded slowly. "Then let's pack."
---
They didn't talk much on the drive.
There wasn't anything left to say.
Just tension humming beneath the silence. Shared glances. Unspoken thoughts.
The warehouse sat at the end of a long dirt road, hidden behind dead trees and rusted-out fencing. The sign was faded, letters peeled: Vireo Labs – Property of the State.
It felt like a place where memories had gone to rot.
Ava stepped out of the car first, gravel crunching beneath her boots. Eli followed, holding the notebook like a lifeline.
"This is it," she said.
"You sure?"
She glanced at him. "Nope."
He smirked. "Perfect. Let's go."
---
Inside, the air was thick with dust and cold. Their footsteps echoed too loudly. Every broken tile or hanging wire looked like a trap waiting to be triggered.
Ava's flashlight cut through the dark, catching glimpses of overturned desks and shattered glass.
Then—something shimmered.
A faint reflection.
She turned toward it.
There, in the far corner of the room, was a heavy metal door. Reinforced. Unlike anything else in the building.
"This wasn't here ten years ago," Ava whispered.
Eli ran his fingers along the edges. "It's sealed. Electronic lock."
He pulled out his phone, opening the notes app.
"I think the code's buried in the notebook somewhere. That repeating sequence—it's a cipher."
Ava stepped back, watching him work. "You've got, like, five minutes before I start kicking this thing open."
"Relax. I've got this."
He typed. Paused. Backspaced. Tried again.
The lock beeped. Green.
Ava's heart jumped.
The door hissed open.
And what lay behind it?
Not dust. Not decay.
But light. Clean, white light.
Rows of humming servers. Screens still flickering. Files. Cabinets.
A lab. Still powered.
Still alive.
She turned to Eli.
His face was pale.
He whispered, "Holy shit."
---
The silence in the room wasn't empty—it was watching.
Ava stepped forward, heart hammering. Everything about this screamed wrong. Out of place. Like time had stopped in this one room and waited just for them.
She moved toward the nearest screen. It blinked. A log-in screen.
Then—without warning—it filled with static. Lines of code ran across it.
And a new message appeared.
One line.
WELCOME BACK, AVA.
Ava didn't breathe.
She just stood there, blinking at the screen, the words hammering at something buried deep inside her chest. WELCOME BACK, AVA.
Her name.
On a computer that shouldn't be alive.
In a lab that should've been dead.
"What the hell is this?" Eli's voice cut through the static hum around them.
"I… I don't know." Her voice cracked a little, like the words tasted foreign coming out.
But she was lying.
She did know something. Or her body did, at least. The way her stomach flipped, the way her hands trembled—that was recognition. Not confusion. Something about this room, this light, this moment—it pulled on her like gravity.
She stepped closer.
The screen flickered again, this time pulling up an old video file.
Dated seven years ago.
PLAY?
She glanced at Eli. He gave a small nod, even though his jaw was tight.
Her finger hovered.
Then clicked.
---
The screen came to life with a static hiss. Then: a hallway. Cold white walls, clinical and sharp. A figure walked down it, clipboard in hand. Young. Focused. The camera followed him into a small room.
And there—sitting on a metal chair, back to the lens—was her.
Ava.
Or someone who looked exactly like her.
Same hair.
Same frame.
Same nervous tick of rubbing the left thumb with the right.
Eli's eyes widened.
"What the actual—"
The girl in the video turned her head.
It was Ava. But... younger. Blank eyes. Almost robotic.
Like someone had erased something behind them.
The man in the video asked a question. Something clinical. Ava didn't respond.
He tried again.
Still silence.
Then the screen glitched—and just like that, the video shut off.
Back to the message:
WELCOME BACK, AVA.
SUBJECT #19 – STATUS: AWAKE
---
Her knees buckled, and she grabbed the edge of the desk to steady herself.
"No. No, no, no, that can't be me."
Eli didn't speak.
She turned to him, desperate. "It's a mistake. It has to be. I would remember. I would know if I—"
"Memory loss?" he said quietly. "You said you always felt like something was missing, right?"
"Not this. Not being some test subject in a secret underground lab!"
Eli crouched beside her, gripping her hand. "Ava, it doesn't change who you are now."
"You say that like it's simple." Her voice cracked. "But what if this—what if everything I thought I was... is a lie?"
He didn't answer right away. Just looked at her like he was weighing all the versions of her he'd seen—funny, brave, terrified, messy—and deciding none of this erased any of them.
"Then we figure it out," he said. "Together."
---
They searched the lab after that.
Still shaken. Still not okay.
But moving.
Because if they stopped, it would all collapse.
There were drawers of files, coded and tagged. Black-and-white photos. MRI scans with names blacked out. A large board with markers connecting dates and patient numbers.
#19 was circled in red. Multiple times.
Every note under her name was labeled: COGNITIVE ANOMALY.
"I think they were studying your memory patterns," Eli said, flipping through papers. "Or maybe trying to reprogram them."
Ava sat on the floor, holding a photo between her fingers. It was grainy, low-res. But she was in it. Standing next to the same man from the video.
Smiling.
Not the fake, distant kind. A real one.
Like she knew him.
Like she trusted him.
Her voice was small. "What if he was my family?"
Eli looked over. "Or what if he made you believe he was?"
That hit like ice water.
She dropped the photo.
---
Hours passed.
They barely spoke.
Each corner of the lab revealed more questions. More cracks in her memory.
More proof that whoever she was before... wasn't who she'd built herself into.
And that maybe—just maybe—she'd been someone else entirely.
But even with the answers piling up, something still felt off. Like a piece was missing.
Until Eli found the second room.
Smaller. Colder.
A single cot. Surveillance screens.
And a wall filled with photos.
All of Ava.
Through the years.
Candid. Blurry. Some recent.
Eli froze. "They've been watching you."
Ava's skin prickled.
She stepped forward, staring at a shot of her leaving her apartment from a few weeks ago. Coffee in one hand. Hair messy. Totally unaware.
"Why?" she whispered. "Why me?"
Eli's jaw clenched. "Because you're not just some experiment. You're the one that got away."
--
She broke down in the car.
Didn't even make it onto the road.
Just collapsed into the seat and let it hit her—every unraveling thread, every memory that now felt suspect. Her body shook. Her breath came out ragged and uneven. She hated crying in front of anyone.
Especially him.
But Eli didn't say a word.
Just reached over and held her hand, tight. Like he could anchor her through it.
She buried her face into his shoulder. "I don't know who I am anymore."
"You're Ava."
"That means nothing."
"It means everything. Because whatever happened back then—whoever did this to you—you still broke free. You still became you."
She wanted to believe that.
But belief was a fragile thing now.
And she wasn't sure how to hold it.
---
That night, they didn't touch.
They lay side by side in the dark, breaths syncing but bodies inches apart. Too many ghosts in the room.
Too many versions of her hanging in the air.
Ava stared at the ceiling. "Do you think I'm dangerous?"
Eli answered instantly. "No."
"You hesitated."
"I didn't."
She turned to face him. "You should've seen your face."
He looked at her then—really looked. Eyes shadowed but steady.
"I don't care what they did to you," he said. "Or what they made you. You're not theirs anymore."
She didn't respond.
Because the scariest part wasn't what they might've made her.
It was the growing fear that some part of her had liked it.
---