| "Memory Boot Sequence Initialized... Stand by" |
The first thing Lyra felt wasn't pain–it was the absence of it. A cold hum whispered across her skin, not like wind, but like static. Distant. Artificial. Her breath hitched before she even remembered how to breathe. Her eyelids fluttered against the strobe of flickering florescents, blinking in rhythmic pulses.
System integrity... 76%.
Neutral sync... 42%.
User ID: Unknown.
She gasped, fingers twitching against steel. The slab she lay on vibrated faintly, warm underneath her as if recently occupied. Her body was light and heavy all at once–like her bones didn't remember how to carry her. Muscles locked, then shuddered.
Something was wrong.
Everything was wrong.
Lyra jerked upright with a cry, clutching her chest as if her heart had been replaced with a machine that didn't know how to beat. Her vision adjusted slowly. The chamber was rectangular, industrial, lit only by a flickering green panel across from her.
Glass walls. Wires. Cold mist still leaking from opened ports. And–beneath her–a serial code etched into the metal. Her name wasn't there.
Only:
| [CLASSIFIED: EXTRACT SUBJECT-019A] |
She slid off the slab, nearly collapsing. Her bare feet touched smooth black tiles–polished, but cracked near the corners. How long had this place been abandoned?
The air reeked of ozone and sterilizer. Her hands trembled as they brushed against her arms–too thin. Pale. She looked human, but didn't feel real. Not yet.
On the terminal screen:
| "Welcome back, Lyra. Run while you still remember who you are." |
Her breath caught.
How did it know her name?
How did she know her name?
Somewhere in the ceiling, a surveillance lens swiveled towards her, emitting a soft click. She looked up. Froze.
Suddenly, the walls stuttered. A shrill whine split the room before lights surged red.
ALERT: Unauthorized subject awake. Memory Lock compromised. Evac protocol initiated. |
Run.
She didn't know where the word came from. Maybe it was instinct, or programming–or someone else's voice echoing through her neurons. But her body obeyed.
Lyra sprinted.
Through corridors lined with overgrown cables and shattered screens. Past sealed doors marked with "PROPERTY OF THE VERITAS CORE." Sirens bled through metal walls like dying screams. Her heart thundered louder than her footsteps.
She saw bodies.
Preserved. Some collapsed mid-action. Others wired into chairs, smiles carved too wide–like someone had made them forget they died.
After what felt like hours, she collapsed beside a shattered observation window. City lights blinked far below through thick smog–neon towers rising like broken teeth from the earth. Drones zipped in the distance. Billboards glitched in a loop of forgotten advertisements.
This wasn't the world she remembered.
Or maybe...she didn't remember the world at all.
As Lyra lay there, something in her chest pulsed. A warmth. A fragment.
"You have to find her, Lyra."
A voice. Not hers. Female. Familiar. Then static.
Back in the room she escaped from, the terminal blinked once more.
| Data Extraction Incomplete. Subject Eris status: LOST. |
| Begin retrieval protocol. |
And somewhere far away, a woman with obsidian-black hair stirred in her own artificial sleep–her memory sealed behind a firewall of betrayal.