The last words had not yet faded. After a moment, something shifted in the depths of the room.
Not a sound, not a clear vibration, but a change in the sensation itself. As if the place, with all its devices, walls, and cables, had rearranged its stance toward them.
Lilia stood at the center, her hand in Celine's, her eyes fixed on the man in the black coat. The dim light no longer reflected off her as it had before. Instead, it seemed to bend slightly, leaving her in a different kind of shadow.
The man spoke calmly, his tone unchanged:"
_Choice… a beautiful word. But it is often an illusion."
Lilia replied without hesitation:"
_The illusion is thinking you still hold the strings."
Eva said nothing. She was watching the screens. Something had shifted in the data. No new images appeared, but the lines began to overlap, as if the system were trying to interpret Lilia's presence now and could not find an appropriate category.
Celene felt it before she saw it. A mild headache, then pressure behind her eyes. As if something were standing behind a closed door inside her head, not knocking, just waiting for it to be opened.
_"What exactly did you do to us?" Celine asked, this time directing the question at everyone."Not just Lylia. Me too."
The man tilted his head slightly, then said:"
_You… were not the target."
_"But you erased my memory." Celine uttered.
_"Because you were the link."
Silence followed. Even the machines softened their hum, as if listening.
_"Every experiment needs an anchor point. Lylia was the capacity. The other child was the response. And you…" He paused, then continued,"You were the balance."
A side screen suddenly lit up. Not a full image, but a short clip. Children's voices. Laughter. Then an abrupt cut. Celine gasped without realizing it. Her heart recognized the sound before her mind did.
She asked in a low voice:"
_Why did you send me back to my life? Why didn't you leave me here?"
This time, the man did not answer immediately.
Eva spoke instead:"
_Because your presence here was accelerating the collapse."
Celine turned to her:
_"Collapse of what?"
_"The system. The experiment. The boundaries."
Lilia tightened her grip on her sister's hand and said calmly:"
_They were afraid of you as much as they were afraid of me."
The man closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them:"
_You had to be removed. And everything connecting you to this place had to be sealed. A clean memory. A stable life. Remote monitoring."
"And Marcus?" Celine asked suddenly. "My father… did he know?"
No one answered right away.
Then another recording began to play from a nearby device, without anyone touching it. Marcus' voice, weaker than in the previous recording:"They told me taking her out was the only way to protect her. They said Celine would forget and live a normal life. And I… believed them. Because the alternative was worse."
Celine felt something break slowly, Lyilia closed her eyes.
_"And what about me?" Lilia asked.
The man finally said:"
_You were not capable of being forgotten."
He pressed a button. One of the machines moved slowly. It did not ignite, did not emit any frightening sounds. A small section simply opened, as if inviting rather than imposing.
_"Your memories were not fully erased. They were frozen. Separated from your awareness. We cannot restore them without you. And we cannot stop them if you begin."
Celine looked at Lilia, fear clear in her eyes.
_"Don't do anything right now."
Lilia turned to her and smiled softly, more reassuring than Celine had expected.
_"I won't reclaim them because they want me to. And not because I'm afraid."
Then she looked at the man.
_"I will reclaim them because I want to know who I was… before you chose for me."
Eva stepped forward.
_"If this begins, nothing will be the same again."
Lilia nodded.
_"It never was."
At that moment, one of the screens went dark. Then another. Not a malfunction, but a withdrawal. As if the system were stepping back, making room for something else.
And Celine, amid all of it, felt for the first time that the questions that had chased her from the beginning were not searching for answers at all.
And now, she was no longer sure she was ready to hear everything.
But she was certain of one thing: what would be revealed here would not only change their past,
it would redefine who holds the right to write the ending.
To be continued...