Every person in the hospital screamed at the same time.
The sound reached us through the walls.
Then it stopped.
Not gradually.
Instantly.
The silence that followed was worse.
I remained on the floor with Subject Eight kneeling beside me, one hand gripping my shoulder.
Michael stood several feet away.
Dr. Vale hadn't moved.
Nobody spoke.
I listened for the voices that had filled my head only moments before.
Nothing.
No memories.
No whispers.
No fragments of other lives.
Just my own breathing.
Subject Eight looked at me.
"Are you still here?"
I didn't understand the question at first.
Then I realized what she meant.
I nodded.
"I think so."
She searched my face.
"What did you see?"
"The beginning."
Michael stepped closer.
"The first memory?"
"Yes."
"What was it?"
I looked at him.
"I don't know."
His expression tightened.
"You don't know?"
"I saw something."
"What?"
"Darkness."
He stared at me.
"That doesn't make sense."
"I know."
I pushed myself upright.
My legs felt weak.
"I saw people standing around something underground."
"The archive?"
"No."
I looked toward the mirror.
"It was older."
Vale finally moved.
"How old?"
"I don't know."
"Did you see writing?"
"Yes."
"Symbols?"
"Yes."
"What did they say?"
"I couldn't read them."
Vale closed her eyes.
"Of course."
Subject Eight looked at her.
"What does that mean?"
Vale didn't answer.
I did.
"It means you've seen them before."
She opened her eyes.
"Yes."
"Where?"
"The original chamber."
"You said the markings were records."
"They are."
"Then read them."
"I can't."
"You've had decades."
"I told you, we don't know what they mean."
I stared at her.
"You know more than you're saying."
Her expression hardened.
"So do you."
I almost argued.
Then I stopped.
She was right.
There was something I wasn't remembering.
Something that had been hidden behind all the other memories.
The first memory.
The one beneath everything.
I closed my eyes.
Darkness.
Stone.
A group of people.
A hole in the ground.
Something below.
I tried to focus.
The image became clearer.
There were no machines.
No electrical lights.
No glass.
No laboratories.
The people were gathered around a circular opening carved into the stone.
They weren't scientists.
They weren't wearing uniforms.
They looked like ordinary people.
Families.
Children.
Elders.
One woman held a newborn.
Another person was carrying a bundle of dried plants.
Someone else held a stone covered in symbols.
They weren't worshipping what was below.
They were afraid of it.
One man stepped forward.
He spoke.
I couldn't understand the language.
But somehow, I understood the meaning.
Remember this.
The memory shifted.
The man placed his hand against the stone.
The opening beneath him glowed.
Not brightly.
Just enough to reveal something beneath the surface.
A reflection.
The man's own face.
Then the face changed.
His father.
His mother.
His children.
People who had died.
People who hadn't been born yet.
The man pulled his hand away.
The others ran.
One person remained.
A little girl.
She stepped toward the opening.
The man shouted for her to stop.
She didn't.
She placed her hand against the stone.
And everything went dark.
I opened my eyes.
Subject Eight was staring at me.
"What?"
"You were talking."
"What did I say?"
She hesitated.
"You said, 'She touched it.'"
I looked at Vale.
"Who was the girl?"
Vale's face had gone pale.
"I don't know."
"That's a lie."
"I genuinely don't know."
"Then why are you afraid?"
She looked toward the floor.
"Because I've seen that memory before."
Michael turned sharply.
"When?"
Vale looked at him.
"When I first entered the chamber."
"Then you remember."
"No."
She shook her head.
"That was the problem."
I frowned.
"What problem?"
"I couldn't remember the memory itself."
She looked at me.
"I remembered remembering it."
The distinction sounded strange.
But I understood.
A memory of a memory.
Something the archive had preserved without preserving the event.
"Why?"
"Because the memory didn't belong to me."
My stomach tightened.
"Whose did it belong to?"
Vale didn't answer.
Michael whispered:
"The fourth."
Vale looked at him.
"No."
"You said the fourth could project memories."
"Yes."
"So it was theirs."
"No."
Her voice became firmer.
"The fourth didn't create that memory."
"Then who did?"
She looked at me.
"That is what we've spent decades trying to find out."
A noise echoed somewhere above us.
Metal scraping against metal.
Subject Eight stood.
"What was that?"
Another sound.
Then footsteps.
Several.
Coming down the corridor.
Vale looked toward the entrance.
"We need to leave."
"Who is coming?"
"I don't know."
"Mercer?"
"No."
"My father?"
"No."
"Then who?"
Vale's expression changed.
"People who remember."
The footsteps grew louder.
Subject Eight moved beside me.
"People from the hospital?"
"Maybe."
"Then why are you afraid of them?"
Vale didn't answer.
The first person appeared at the end of the corridor.
A nurse.
She was walking slowly.
Her face was blank.
Behind her came a doctor.
Then another nurse.
Then a security guard.
None of them spoke.
They simply walked.
Their eyes were open.
But they weren't looking at us.
They were looking through us.
The nurse stopped.
She whispered something.
I couldn't understand it.
Then she said my name.
Not the name I'd heard earlier.
My real name.
The one I hadn't heard since I was five.
Subject Eight looked at me.
"How does she know that?"
"I don't know."
The nurse took another step.
"I remember you."
The doctor behind her spoke.
"I remember him too."
The security guard began crying.
"I remember the room."
The three of them started speaking over one another.
"The glass."
"The chair."
"The child."
"The woman."
"The door."
"The dark."
I felt pressure building behind my eyes.
"Stop."
They didn't.
The words became louder.
Not shouting.
Remembering.
The nurse suddenly looked directly at me.
"You were crying."
I swallowed.
"What?"
"You were a baby."
She began crying.
"You wouldn't stop crying."
The doctor stared at me.
"And your mother kept asking them to turn the lights off."
The security guard whispered:
"She told them you were afraid of the light."
I couldn't breathe.
Those weren't their memories.
They were mine.
Or my mother's.
Or someone else's.
The memories were moving again.
The fourth was using them.
I stepped backward.
"Get out of my head."
The nurse smiled.
"We aren't in your head."
She touched her own temple.
"You're in ours."
The three people collapsed almost simultaneously.
Subject Eight rushed toward the nurse.
"Are you okay?"
The nurse blinked.
She looked around.
"What happened?"
Subject Eight helped her sit up.
"You were remembering something."
The nurse stared at me.
"I know."
"What?"
She shook her head.
"I don't know why."
I looked at Vale.
"This is spreading."
"Yes."
"Then we need to stop it."
"We can't stop something we don't understand."
"Then let's understand it."
I turned toward the mirror.
The reflection was waiting.
But it wasn't showing me anymore.
It showed the ancient chamber.
The girl was still standing beside the opening.
Except now I could see her face.
I knew her.
My heart stopped.
It was Subject Eight.
I turned toward her.
She was staring at the same reflection.
"No," she whispered.
The girl in the mirror looked exactly like her.
Same eyes.
Same face.
Same age.
Same expression.
Subject Eight stepped closer.
"That isn't me."
The girl raised her hand.
Subject Eight raised hers.
Their movements matched.
"I wasn't there."
"You were," Vale said.
Subject Eight turned.
"What?"
Vale looked devastated.
"You were there."
"How?"
"I don't know."
"You knew me as a child."
"Yes."
"You knew about St. Agnes."
"Yes."
"You knew about the archive."
"Yes."
"Then how could I have been there before any of it existed?"
Vale didn't answer.
I did.
"Because maybe St. Agnes wasn't where they found you."
Subject Eight stared at me.
"Maybe it was where they found us."
The mirror changed.
The ancient chamber disappeared.
A new memory appeared.
Two children.
A boy.
A girl.
They were standing in a room I recognized.
The original archive chamber.
But it wasn't ancient anymore.
It was clean.
New.
The boy was me.
The girl was Subject Eight.
We were holding hands.
I couldn't have been more than five.
My father stood nearby.
My mother was crying.
Vale was younger.
And behind all of them stood another person.
The fourth.
Except this time, it wasn't a child.
It was an adult.
A woman.
She leaned toward us.
Then she said something.
The memory sharpened.
I heard every word.
"You two were never the experiment."
My younger self looked up.
"What are we?"
The woman smiled.
"Witnesses."
The memory ended.
Subject Eight stared at me.
"Witnesses to what?"
I didn't answer.
Because the first memory was changing again.
The ancient chamber returned.
The little girl was no longer standing beside the opening.
She was inside it.
And someone was holding her hand.
I recognized the other person immediately.
My mother.
But she was much younger.
Much younger than I'd ever seen her.
She looked down at the girl.
Then up toward the people gathered around the chamber.
And she spoke.
This time, I could understand her.
"It's not a place."
She looked into the darkness.
"It's a memory that never ended."
The image faded.
I turned toward Vale.
"What does that mean?"
She stared at me.
"I don't know."
For once, there was no hesitation in her answer.
But the voice inside my head returned.
Soft.
Almost gentle.
I can show you.
I closed my eyes.
"No."
You wanted the truth.
"I want my own memories."
Then stop looking backward.
The voice changed.
It became clearer.
Older.
Not a child's voice.
Not mine.
Look forward.
I opened my eyes.
The mirror had changed again.
It showed the hospital.
People were standing in corridors.
Patients.
Doctors.
Visitors.
All staring at the same thing.
The same empty space.
Then one by one, they began walking toward the exits.
Not running.
Not panicking.
Walking.
As if they had all received the same instruction.
Subject Eight stared at the mirror.
"What are they doing?"
I watched the people leave.
Then I saw where they were going.
Outside.
Into the city.
Thousands of people.
All moving in the same direction.
Toward the river.
Vale whispered:
"The network."
"What about it?"
"They're being drawn to the original source."
My stomach tightened.
"The place beneath the hospital?"
"No."
She shook her head.
"The place beneath everything."
I looked at the mirror.
The image changed one final time.
A city appeared.
Then another.
Then another.
People everywhere were stopping what they were doing.
Looking up.
Remembering.
Waiting.
And beneath all those cities, something ancient began to move.
The fourth voice whispered:
"The first memory was never meant to stay buried."
The mirror cracked.
A single line appeared across its surface.
Not written in my handwriting.
Not written in my mother's.
Not written by any human hand I recognized.
REMEMBER WHERE YOU WERE BORN.
I stared at the words.
Then I understood.
They weren't talking about the hospital.
They weren't talking about St. Agnes.
They weren't talking about the archive.
They meant something else.
Something I had never considered.
I looked at Subject Eight.
"I know where this started."
She shook her head.
"You don't."
"Yes."
I looked toward the corridor.
"Neither the archive nor St. Agnes was the beginning."
Michael stepped closer.
"Then where?"
I looked down at the glowing cracks beneath our feet.
"Where I was born."
Vale's face changed.
"The hospital?"
"No."
I felt the memory waiting just beyond the edge of consciousness.
A place beneath the hospital.
A place my mother had taken me before anyone else knew what I was.
A place that had never appeared in the archive.
A place even my father had been afraid to enter.
I whispered:
"I wasn't born in a hospital."
The lights flickered.
"And I think I finally remember where I was born."
From somewhere far below us came a sound.
One slow heartbeat.
Then another.
And another.
Something was answering.
Something that had been waiting much longer than any of us had realized.