Back in the lab’s quiet wing, I plugged the drive into my own laptop. The screen glowed, spilling green code onto my face.
First file: date_01.mp4. The video opened on a dimly lit restaurant. Elias smiled, his eyes soft, as the woman laughed. Then the camera panned to a small black box on the table, a blinking LED pulsing in rhythm with the music.
“What the—?” I muttered, watching the box emit a faint vapor. The woman’s expression shifted, her smile blurring, her eyes widening. A soft click sounded, and she blinked, as if waking from a dream. The next frame showed her staring at the floor, a vacant stare.
File after file followed the same pattern: a date, the humming device, the vapor, the instantaneous erasure.
Then a separate audio clip appeared: “Victor, this is the final run.” The voice was gravelly, intimate.
“You think you’re protecting her,” Victor said, “but the protocol needs a trigger. Your dad’s grief was the key. He never knew the program was live.”
I felt the floor tilt. The truth slammed down like a subwoofer bass—Elias wasn’t the monster; he was the conduit.
“Victor, why the women?” I asked, voice trembling.
“Memory wipes. No trace, no recall. Perfect for… research,” he replied, chuckling darkly. “Your mother’s old lab needed test subjects. Your dad’s dates were perfect—emotional, unguarded. He just… opened the door.”
The screen cracked with static as the file ended, leaving me with a single, chilling line: “The final subject is yours.”
Section 6 – Homecoming
I sprinted up the stairs, the hallway echoing with my own rapid heartbeat.
The apartment door was ajar, a thin slice of darkness spilling into the hallway. I pushed it open, and the scent of stale coffee and ozone hit me.
Elias was nowhere. The living room was stripped down to its bones: a lone chair, a toppled lamp, a shattered smartphone on the floor.
On the coffee table lay a single note, the paper crisp, the ink smudged as if written in haste. “You were never supposed to find this.”
My fingers trembled as I lifted the broken phone. Its screen flickered, a dead pixel blooming into a live feed.
Through the cracked glass, a distant street unfolded—rain slicking the pavement, neon signs buzzing. A convoy of black vans rolled by, their doors swinging open.
Figures in matte masks stepped out, their movements synchronized, like drones. One of them lifted a hand, and Elias emerged, his eyes glazed, his expression vacant.
“Dad?” I gasped, the word choking on the sound of sirens in the background.
He turned, stared straight at the camera, and a thin wire of static crackled over his mouth. The masked leader placed a gloved hand on his shoulder, guiding him away.
The feed cut to black, the last image a droplet of rain sliding down a glass window, reflecting the neon “EXIT” sign.
I stood alone, the note trembling in my hand, the realization settling like ash: my father had never been the villain. He was a pawn, his grief the perfect trigger for a biotech experiment that erased memories and vanished lives.
Now the only thing left was to find the people who had pulled the strings, before they erased the next chapter of my life.
