"I wasn't born in a hospital."
The words hung in the chamber.
Nobody moved.
Subject Eight stared at me.
Michael looked confused.
Dr. Vale looked terrified.
Not surprised.
Terrified.
That told me more than any explanation could have.
"You know where," I said.
Vale swallowed.
"Yes."
"Then tell me."
"I can't."
"Why?"
"Because you don't remember it yet."
I almost laughed.
After everything I'd been through, that answer felt absurd.
"You just watched me recover memories that were buried for decades."
"Yes."
"I saw the archive."
"Yes."
"I saw the first chamber."
"Yes."
"I saw myself as a baby."
"Yes."
"Then why can't I remember where I was born?"
Vale looked toward the floor.
"Because that memory was never put into the archive."
My chest tightened.
"Why?"
"Your mother removed it."
I looked at her.
"She removed my memory?"
"No."
Vale shook her head.
"She removed it from everyone else."
The chamber seemed to grow colder.
"What does that mean?"
"She knew what they would do if they found out where you were born."
"Who?"
Vale didn't answer.
Michael did.
"The people who came before us."
I turned toward him.
"What people?"
He looked uncomfortable.
"The ones who built the first chamber."
"That was thousands of years ago."
"Exactly."
I stared at him.
"You're telling me people from thousands of years ago knew about me?"
"No."
He paused.
"They knew someone like you would come."
That was somehow worse.
I walked toward the corridor.
"Then let's go."
Subject Eight followed immediately.
Vale remained where she was.
"Where?"
I turned.
"Where I was born."
"You don't know how to get there."
"I will."
"You don't understand."
I looked at her.
"That sentence has stopped being useful."
She almost smiled.
Almost.
Then the floor shook again.
The heartbeat beneath us answered.
One.
Two.
Three.
The sound was slow.
Massive.
Patient.
Vale finally moved.
"I'll take you."
We entered the corridor.
The stone walls seemed different now.
Before, they had looked ancient.
Now they felt familiar.
I ran my fingers along the markings as we passed.
Something about them felt recognizable.
Not because I had seen them before.
Because I had been taught them.
A memory surfaced.
My mother sitting beside me.
I was very young.
She held a piece of paper covered in symbols.
"What does this one mean?" she asked.
I pointed.
"Home."
She smiled.
"And this?"
"Remember."
"And this?"
I hesitated.
"Open."
The memory disappeared.
I stopped walking.
Subject Eight turned.
"What?"
"My mother taught me the symbols."
Vale looked back.
"She shouldn't have."
"Why?"
"Because you weren't supposed to remember them."
I looked at the markings.
"I do now."
The corridor opened into a circular chamber.
In the center was a staircase.
It descended.
No elevator.
No machinery.
Just stone steps disappearing into darkness.
Subject Eight looked down.
"How far?"
Vale shook her head.
"We never reached the bottom."
"You tried?"
"Once."
"What happened?"
"We lost three people."
Michael stepped toward the stairs.
"Not lost."
Vale looked at him.
"They died."
Michael's expression hardened.
"No."
He pointed downward.
"They were remembered."
I frowned.
"What does that mean?"
"They didn't come back."
"That's what dying means."
"No."
He shook his head.
"I mean they didn't come back as themselves."
A silence followed.
Vale looked at the stairs.
"The first chamber changes people."
"How?"
"It doesn't attack you."
"That isn't reassuring."
"It shows you something you aren't prepared to understand."
I looked down.
"What did the three people see?"
Vale's voice became quiet.
"Their own beginnings."
I felt a pressure behind my eyes.
"Then maybe that's what I need."
She grabbed my arm.
"No."
I pulled free.
"I need the truth."
"You need to survive long enough to use it."
"Those aren't always the same thing."
Subject Eight stepped between us.
"Let him go."
Vale stared at her.
"You don't understand what is down there."
Subject Eight looked at me.
"Neither do you."
She turned toward Vale.
"But he's going."
Vale closed her eyes.
Then she nodded.
"Fine."
We started down.
The first hundred steps were uneventful.
Then the air changed.
It became warmer.
Not hot.
Warm.
Like entering a room where someone had recently been.
The stone walls began glowing faintly.
My footsteps echoed.
One.
Two.
Three.
Then another sound joined them.
Footsteps that weren't ours.
Subject Eight stopped.
"Did you hear that?"
"Yes."
Vale shook her head.
"Don't turn around."
"Why?"
"Because if you see them, they might recognize you."
I didn't ask who they were.
I didn't want to know.
We continued.
The footsteps followed.
Always behind us.
Never closer.
Never farther away.
Then I heard my mother's voice.
"Don't look back."
I stopped.
Subject Eight looked at me.
"What?"
"My mother."
"What did she say?"
"Don't look back."
Vale's face changed.
"She told you that?"
I nodded.
"Then listen."
We continued.
The stairs eventually ended.
We stepped into a cavern.
There was no machinery.
No laboratory.
No photographs.
No computers.
Only stone.
And in the center of the cavern was a pool of perfectly still water.
I approached it.
My reflection appeared.
Then changed.
I saw myself as a baby.
Then as a child.
Then as I was now.
Three versions of me.
Standing together.
The baby looked toward me.
The child looked toward me.
The adult looked toward me.
Then all three disappeared.
A fourth reflection appeared.
A woman.
My mother.
She was holding the baby version of me.
She was standing at the edge of the pool.
I could hear her.
"I'm sorry."
The memory shifted.
My father stood beside her.
"You can't hide him forever."
"I don't have to."
"They'll find him."
"Not if they don't know where he came from."
My father looked toward the water.
"What did you do?"
My mother shook her head.
"I made sure he would forget."
My stomach tightened.
"You erased his origin?"
"I separated it."
"From his memories?"
"From the network."
My father looked angry.
"You could have destroyed everything."
"I was trying to save our son."
The memory faded.
I looked at Vale.
"My mother didn't erase the memory."
"No."
"She separated it from the archive."
"Yes."
"So where is it?"
Vale looked at the pool.
"Here."
I stared at the water.
"This is the memory?"
She nodded.
"The first memory."
Michael stepped toward the pool.
"No."
Vale looked at him.
"What?"
Michael pointed.
"That's not the first memory."
The water moved.
A ripple spread across the surface.
Then another.
Something appeared beneath it.
A shape.
A door.
Subject Eight stepped closer.
"What is that?"
Vale whispered:
"The original entrance."
"To the archive?"
"No."
She looked at me.
"To the thing beneath it."
The water began draining.
The surface lowered.
Stone appeared.
Then another layer.
Then another.
Until a circular opening became visible at the bottom.
Darkness waited beneath it.
I felt something pull at my mind.
Not violently.
Like recognition.
I knew this place.
I had been here.
Not as a child.
Not as an adult.
Before either.
A memory returned.
My mother carrying me through this cavern.
I was a newborn.
My father followed.
Vale was there.
But there was someone else.
A woman standing beside the opening.
The same woman I had seen in the ancient memory.
The one who had called herself my mother.
Except she wasn't my mother.
She looked older.
Ancient.
She reached toward me.
My real mother pulled me away.
"No."
The woman smiled.
"He has already remembered."
"He's a baby."
"He doesn't need to understand."
"What do you want?"
The woman looked at me.
"He is the fourth."
My mother shook her head.
"No."
The woman smiled.
"Then why does the first memory belong to him?"
The memory shattered.
I fell to my knees.
Subject Eight caught me.
"What did you see?"
"My birth."
"What happened?"
I looked at Vale.
She already knew.
"My mother brought me here."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"To keep you hidden."
"From my father?"
"No."
"Then from who?"
Vale looked toward the opening.
"From the first memory."
I stared at her.
"That isn't a person."
"No."
"Then what is it?"
She didn't answer.
The cavern shook.
The opening beneath the drained pool began glowing.
A low sound rose from below.
Not a heartbeat this time.
A voice.
It spoke one word.
My name.
I felt every memory inside me respond.
My mother's.
My father's.
Michael's.
Subject Eight's.
Every memory I had ever touched.
They all connected.
But this time, they didn't pull me into the past.
They pointed downward.
Toward the opening.
I stood.
"What happens if I go down?"
Vale's voice trembled.
"You remember everything."
"And?"
"You may not come back."
Subject Eight grabbed my hand.
"Then we don't go."
I looked at her.
"I have to."
"No."
"This started before St. Agnes."
"I know."
"Before the archive."
"I know."
"Before my father."
"I know."
I looked toward the darkness.
"And if I don't find out why, someone else will."
Subject Eight squeezed my hand.
"Then I'm coming with you."
Michael stepped forward.
"So am I."
Vale stared at all three of us.
"You don't understand what you're offering."
Michael looked at the opening.
"I already gave it once."
He looked at me.
"I won't let it take you too."
I stepped toward the opening.
The voice spoke again.
This time, it wasn't calling my name.
It was speaking directly to me.
You were not born here.
I stopped.
Subject Eight looked at me.
"What?"
I stared into the darkness.
The voice continued.
You were remembered here.
The floor beneath us began to glow.
Images appeared around the cavern.
My mother.
My father.
Vale.
The ancient people.
The archive.
St. Agnes.
Michael.
Subject Eight.
And then something I had never seen before.
A room.
A bed.
A woman giving birth.
But it wasn't my mother.
I stared.
The woman was a stranger.
A newborn child was placed into her arms.
The baby cried.
Then the woman looked up.
She wasn't afraid.
She was smiling.
The image moved closer.
I saw the child's face.
Mine.
But the woman holding me wasn't my mother.
The voice whispered:
Your mother found you.
My heart stopped.
Subject Eight whispered:
"Then who gave birth to you?"
The image vanished.
The cavern went completely dark.
And from somewhere beneath us came the answer.
"The first one."