"You can't do this to me!"
Her scream tore through the hallway like a gunshot. Lira struggled, arms bound by glowing restraints suspended in midair—containment spells designed to break the will. Her skin burned, her lungs were on fire, but she didn't stop fighting.
"I'm not a threat, damn it!"
No one answered. Government agents surrounded her with blank expressions, as if they no longer saw a person—only a dangerous file that needed to be… reset.
One of them, clad in a dark coat and gloves etched with runes, stepped forward with the device. A crystal needle pulsed inside it, loaded with both magic and tech.
"Lira Raine. Unit A-7. Classification: Red priority. Protocol engaged."
"I trusted you!" she spat, eyes blazing with fury. "I protected this damn country, and this is how you repay me?"
Two soldiers gripped her shoulders. The floor trembled faintly. Her magic, not fully sealed yet, tried to fight back—but it wasn't enough. Not against them.
"This isn't fair…" she whispered.
And in that moment, she knew.
No one was coming to save her.
The needle pierced her neck.
A low hum filled the air—barely audible. Then came silence. Brutal. Absolute.
Her eyes, once burning with rage, dimmed. She didn't fall. She just… stopped moving. As if time itself had frozen inside her.
One of the agents gave the final order:
"Transfer her to Lucerna Institute. Official diagnosis: total dissociation. Mental classification: non-functional."
⋆⭒✧༺༻✧⭒⋆
Three years later...
Eren stood in front of the crooked sign that read Lucerna Institute, his dark blue coat still damp from the rain. Restoring memories was his job. Routine.
"Subject 13," the caretaker said flatly. "Three years without a word. Nothing stimulates her. Not spells, not music, not even eye contact."
Eren nodded. He saw her sitting by the window—motionless. Pale. Beautiful. Empty.
He activated the mnemonic resonator. The device floated gently toward her, casting lights across her forehead.
Nothing.
Not a spark.
He tried another frequency. A different device. Increased the intensity, adjusted the angle, even used an old catalyst.
Still nothing.
And yet… something in her gaze—so faint it felt imagined—told him she wasn't completely gone.
⋆⭒✧༺༻✧⭒⋆
"No one's ever gotten so much as an image," the caretaker murmured. "She's empty. Like a shell."
Eren packed up the resonator with a sigh, but didn't look away.
Empty. He hated that word. She wasn't just another patient. She wasn't a number.
"How old was she when she was admitted?" he asked, still kneeling.
"Twenty. She'd be twenty-three now... assuming she's still in there."
Eren ran a hand through his hair. His wristband glowed faintly, reacting to his frustration. Not even one percent—this had never happened to him before.
He crouched lower, aligning with her eyes. Lira kept staring out the window, unblinking. Unmoving.
But there it was again—that feeling.
It wasn't logical. It wasn't professional.
It was instinctual. Human.
Something in her was calling for help. Not with words. Not with movement. But it was calling.
"Has she been given a name?" he asked.
"Subject 13. The staff calls her 'the statue.'"
Eren frowned.
"No one's come for her in three years?"
"Not a single visitor. No family either. Her ID was destroyed, and her file... well, it was sealed."
Eren slowly turned his head toward him.
"Sealed by who?"
"Central government. Only the top knows why."
The air grew heavy. Eren knew what that meant—someone didn't want Lira to remember who she was. And they'd done a damn good job erasing everything.
But there had to be a crack.
There always is.
"Can I come back tomorrow?"
The caretaker looked at him, puzzled and tired.
"After seeing a zero percent?"
"Exactly because of that."
He didn't wait for an answer. He turned to leave, but before stepping out, he glanced back at the girl.
And for just a second, he could swear her eyes moved. A millimeter. A tiny shift. Almost imperceptible.
Eren walked out of the institute with one thought burned into his mind:
She's not a lost cause. She's a buried crime.
⋆⭒✧༺༻✧⭒⋆
The city at night always buzzed with a faint hum, like something invisible waiting to break. Eren wandered aimlessly through neon-lit streets, coat still damp, thoughts tethered to a single face.
Subject 13.
The scan hadn't lied. No memory traces. No latent connections. Not even residual emotion. It was as if someone had plucked her soul out with surgical precision.
And yet, he couldn't let it go.
Back at his apartment, Eren linked his wristband to the system core. The room lit up as screen after screen flickered on, displaying files, old logs, maps of mental energy. His fingers moved fast.
"Subject 13. Lucerna Institute. Admitted three years ago. Cause: acute mental collapse. Origin: unknown."
A red alert flashed instantly.
Access denied. Classification: confidential.
He frowned. Most sealed files could be forced open through system loopholes. But this one had reinforced barriers. One of the black departments had intervened. Maybe Obscura Division. Or worse.
Still, there was a way—side data fragments: passive scans, old hospital records, leftover magic in the intake zone…
He opened another panel. Entered his technician code.
Sequences began to load—fuzzy images from three years ago, surveillance footage.
And there, among the broken pixels, he found something.
A female figure being escorted by two agents. Face covered. Arms limp. A dark mark on her neck—magical burn.
Eren zoomed in.
"Is that... an injection mark?"
Could be a memory erasure device. An old one. Highly illegal.
And that changed everything.
Someone hadn't just erased her.
Someone wanted her to never remember who she was.
And the government had allowed it.
Eren sank into the couch with a long sigh. Closed his eyes.
"She's not empty," he thought.
"She's trapped."