Confrontation at the Kitchen Table
“Dad, why do all the women vanish after the night?” I slammed my coffee mug down, steam curling like the lies I suspected.
Elias looked up, eyes blood‑shot, his fingers trembling around his spoon.
“Maya, I swear I’m not doing anything,” he whispered, voice cracking like old vinyl.
“You’ve dated six of them, and each one is gone by sunrise. You’re the only common factor.”
He swallowed, the silence stretching longer than the night we’d both lost Mom.
“Your mother… she died because I couldn’t keep her” he said, the grief raw, a fresh wound.
“And now you’re losing them too. Is it a curse? A mistake?” I pressed, heart pounding against my ribs.
He stared at the window, where the early light bled into the kitchen.
“I’ve been trying to move on. The apps… they seemed harmless. I thought I was finally… alive again.”
“Alive? Or just a puppet on someone else’s strings?” I snapped, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks.
He shook his head, eyes glossy.
“I don’t know what’s happening. I’m scared too, Maya. I’m scared of whatever—”
His voice fell into a hoarse whisper.
“—I can’t even explain it to you.”
I leaned forward, fists clenched.
“Then help me find the truth, or I’ll keep digging until you’re the one who disappears.”
At Maren’s Apartment
I knocked on Maren’s door, the hallway smelling of incense and cheap coffee.
She opened, eyes wide, a half‑smile trembling.
“Maya, I’ve been waiting for you. I think you’ll want to see this.”
She shoved a phone across the coffee table. The screen lit up with a single text.
“You’re not supposed to remember. Goodbye.”
My breath hitched. The sender was unknown‑number‑X9, no name, no carrier.
“It came right after I left Bellmere,” Maren said, voice low. “I thought maybe you’d get a glimpse of whatever it is.”
I swiped down, the notification bar revealing a hidden app icon tucked behind the calendar.
EliasApp – a minimalist logo of a fingerprint.
“He’s been using something I’ve never seen before,” I muttered, tapping it.
The app opened to a list of dates, each tagged with a timestamp and a cryptic status: “Processed – 00:12”.
“Processed? Like a… transaction?” Maren asked, leaning forward.
“Or a protocol.” I typed a quick search, the phone humming.
Suddenly the screen flickered, the room dimming as the bulb above sputtered.
“What the—?” Maren’s voice broke.
The phone vibrated, then a red warning flooded the display.
System breach detected – unauthorized access
Lights flickered, then went out, plunging us into darkness.
Breaking into the Server
I stared at the glowing terminal, the hum of the cooling fans the only sound in the cramped office.
“You really think this will work?” Maren’s voice crackled through the speaker, half‑skeptical, half‑hopeful.
I typed the admin password I’d coaxed out of my father’s snooping app and watched the log files spill onto the screen.
Each entry was a timestamp, a user ID, and a cryptic note: “DNA sample archived – ID 7‑3‑B.”
My heart hammered. The dates matched – the night Maya met Lena, the night I met Carla – all the vanished women.
Scrolling deeper, a pattern emerged: every vanished woman’s name was linked to a unique sample code stored under the same project name, Chronos.
