The building didn't look evil.
White walls. Glass doors. A front desk painted in pastel pink like it belonged in a children's hospital.
But I knew better.
Monsters don't always hide in shadows.
Sometimes they wear scrubs and ask how you feel.
---
The receptionist smiled when I walked in.
Fake lashes, chipped nails, a name tag that said Cynthia.
"Hi! Do you have an appointment?"
I smiled back.
"I'm just here to visit someone."
She clicked her nails against the keyboard. "Name of the patient?"
I leaned closer.
"Me."
---
That was the trick.
Everything about this place was clean. Safe. Professional.
But hidden in its second basement — past the locked wing and behind an unmarked steel door — was where they made girls like me.
Not born.
Built.
---
I'd only remembered it after Remi showed me the video.
A security tape. From years ago.
A little girl strapped to a table.
Screaming without sound — her mouth gagged with cloth.
And a man in a lab coat, whispering:
"She's not ready yet."
---
I walked the halls like I belonged.
Down the first corridor. Past the nurses' station.
Left. Then right. Then a door with no label.
Keypad locked.
I took a breath and reached into my pocket.
The card Remi gave me — stolen from a man who no longer had a pulse.
Beep.
Unlocked.
---
The hallway smelled like disinfectant and secrets.
I found the room.
Not a lab.
An archive.
Filing cabinets. Hard drives. Drawers labeled with years and patient numbers.
I was in here somewhere.
Under a different name.
A different lie.
I opened the drawer marked Project Echo.
---
There were tapes.
Not digital. Old-school VHS.
Each labeled with codes and numbers.
But one had my initials burned into the spine.
A.A. – Final Trial
I slid it into the player.
And watched myself become a weapon.
---
The girl on the screen wasn't crying.
She was staring straight ahead. Eyes dead. Lips cracked.
A man stood in front of her, shouting commands.
"Repeat after me — they are the enemy."
She nodded.
"They hurt you. They deserve pain."
She repeated.
But just before the screen went black…
She blinked. Once.
A tear.
---
I shut the tape off.
That tear…
It meant she hadn't been erased.
Some part of her — of me — still wanted to feel.
Still wanted to be human.
---
Footsteps outside.
I hid behind the cabinet.
Two guards walked past, unaware of the storm inside that room.
When they were gone, I grabbed the tapes, the files, the evidence.
Walked out like a ghost.
---
This time, I didn't need to burn the place down.
Exposing it would be better.
And if the people who built me tried to run?
I'd remind them…
I was never incomplete.
I was the correction.