he dawn broke grey and silent, casting a pale wash of light through the slats of the townhouse blinds. Ava hadn't slept. She sat at the old library desk, the cassette tape lying inert beside the recorder. The contents of it had unraveled hours earlier, and yet the weight of its message lingered like the aftermath of a storm.
Ben's voice. Alive, but not truly. Trapped in magnetic tape. "Cassandra isn't a name," he had said. "It's a codename for the operation. The memories you have—they're not just yours. They were planted. Rewritten. And someone's been watching ever since."
Ava kept playing the words over and over in her mind. She no longer trusted her past. No longer knew where she ended and the manipulation began.
The scent of old wood and mildew surrounded her, grounding her to the present moment. She reached for the notes she'd scribbled through the night, all tangled timelines and cryptic names: Cassandra, Elias Morrow, Project Epoch, the Waverly Collapse.
And one recurring word.
"Thorne."
Caroline had mentioned it once, offhandedly, in a half-sleep conversation years ago. It hadn't meant anything then. Now, it stood out like blood on snow.
She pulled out the flash drive again, opening the last file Ben had left her. Coordinates. A map. A name: Thorne Institute for Cognitive Recovery. Location: Vermont.
Ava packed what little she needed—recorder, notebook, the cassette, the key. Her fingers lingered over the edge of the desk before she stood. The townhouse felt colder now. Like a memory already fading.
On the drive north, the scenery blurred into greys and faded greens. Fog clung to the road like a veil, and every mile she traveled tightened something in her chest. She was getting closer, but closer to what?
The Thorne Institute sat tucked in the folds of a wooded hill, obscured from the highway by pine and time. Its sign was rusted, its driveway cracked. Ava parked beneath a skeletal tree and took a breath. The air was sharper here, like truth waiting to cut.
Inside, the building echoed with an eerie stillness. The receptionist was long gone. The front desk was coated in a thin film of dust. But the lights still worked.
She walked past empty chairs and faded brochures. Her boots clicked softly against linoleum tiles. Then she saw it—a door labeled ARCHIVES.
It opened with a reluctant groan. Rows upon rows of cabinets lined the space. She found the drawer labeled C-E, and pulled it.
Files. Names. Faces.
And then hers.
"Maddox, Ava. Subject ID: 044."
Her hands trembled. She flipped through the pages. Brain scans. Memory charts. A list of implanted sequences. Her childhood. Her first kiss. Her mother's laugh.
Artificial.
Scripted.
One note at the bottom chilled her more than any scream:
"Convergence expected: December 17. Outcome unknown."
That was three days away.
She staggered back, heart pounding. The tape. The townhouse. The name Cassandra. They weren't breadcrumbs. They were warnings.
Behind her, a light flicked on. She turned sharply.
A man stood at the far end of the hallway. Thin, sharp-featured, with a calmness that screamed danger.
"Ava," he said, like an old friend. "I was wondering when you'd find your way back."
Her breath caught. "Who are you?"
He smiled faintly. "Dr. Julian Thorne. You're not just a subject here, Ava. You were the template."
Something inside her fractured.
"You altered me."
He stepped closer. "You volunteered. You begged us to remove the memories. Said they were destroying you. We gave you a new history. A better one."
She shook her head. "You lied."
"No," he said softly. "We curated."
She raised the recorder, finger trembling above the play button. "Then let's hear what I was trying to forget."
But Dr. Thorne didn't move. "If you listen to that... the memories come back. All of them."
Ava hesitated. The recorder was warm in her hand. Her thumb brushed the button.
The world held its breath.
Click.
Ben's voice filled the hallway again. "Ava, if you're hearing this, it means you've made it to the Institute. But nothing will prepare you for what you left behind. What they made you forget was not just pain. It was purpose. You were trying to expose them."
Ava felt the floodgates opening. Images surged through her: a fire, a protest, files burned in the snow, someone screaming her name.
She fell to her knees.
Thorne crouched beside her. "You asked us to save you from yourself."
She looked up, eyes brimming. "Then why did Ben die?"
"Because he remembered what you couldn't."
Silence stretched like a blade between them. Ava stood slowly.
"You're not the cure," she whispered. "You're the disease."
Then she ran.
Out of the archive. Down the halls. Out into the cold.
The sky split with thunder. Snow began to fall.
She didn't look back.
What was left unspoken would become her truth.
And what she remembered next would change everything.
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