I'm standing in front of the mirror in the small bathroom — a bit too big for what it holds, but still better than the cramped cubicles in the Loop. My fingers move slowly through my hair, which has grown faster than I'd hoped. Too long. I don't like it when it falls past my shoulders — it looks messy, makes me seem even less in control. But that's not all. Looking at myself, I feel like I've changed. My face is less hollow, I've gained some weight. My arms don't look quite so frail, my hands don't shake as much when I move. It's strange — feeling heavier, and more alive at the same time.
Day by day, what once seemed impossible starts to unravel: the fog in my head begins to lift. I catch myself thinking in full sentences again, not chopping up my thoughts the way you do when you're desperately trying to keep a grip. My mind stretches gently, unwinds like a ball of yarn left untouched for too long but finally found again.
Elijah is there, sitting on his bed — a little stiff, as usual, eyes unfocused. He doesn't talk much, but his impatience shows in every movement. I think that's how he's always been. I used to keep to myself, but him — he always had friends, always got into trouble. I couldn't tell you the details yet, but I know, somehow, that he used to watch out for me when others gave me a hard time.
We share this room now. It's become our small refuge in the middle of this underground fortress. The communal meals, the regular medical checks — it all creates the reassuring structure of a life we're slowly starting to recognize. The food is still bland, but at least it's real food — not the tasteless liquid stuff from the Loop that made us feel half-machine.
Boris, ever serious, insisted we train with firearms — "just in case," he said. I know he just wants us to be ready, but it still scares me. The idea that even down here, so far beneath the surface, our peace could be shattered. Shooting, fighting — it's far from who I am. Elijah, on the other hand, jumped at the chance, that grin on his face, the kind I don't quite like — though I understand it. Gunther encourages us to embrace it. "It helps you take your body back," he says. And he's right. Learning to aim, to feel the weight of the weapon, the recoil — it grounds me again in this body I'd almost forgotten I had.
Tinka stops by often, even though her time is mostly swallowed up by field missions. She's a scout, so she's out a lot. She always gives me that soft smile, like an older sister watching us grow up without meaning to.
One day, while I'm putting my things away after another training session, the door opens and Ilya walks in, his right arm hanging stiffly at his side. No — not just stiff. There's something artificial about it. Heavy. A prosthetic, I realize only then. His shoulder moves normally, but his elbow is stuck at a forty-five-degree angle. The hand at the end is gloved, half-curled, like a figurine's.
Gunther greets him with a teasing grin. "You don't leave your computer cave often."
He says it to poke at him — he knows everyone has to do weapons training at least once a week.
Ilya lets out a laugh, that mix of irony and exhaustion that clings to him like a second skin.
"Gotta get some fresh air, right? Can't spend all my time making sure you don't die every time you step outside."
I look at him for a second, curious. That prosthetic looks clunky, awkward. He turns his head toward me, and I glance away.
"—It's not contagious," he says dryly. "No need to stare. It's not gonna lunge at you, promise."
I get it. The sarcasm is just another layer of armor wrapped around the metal. Might as well play along. I shrug.
"—I'm more worried about what I lost than whatever you cobbled together over there."
Elijah glances at me, raising an eyebrow, a half-smile tugging at his lips.
Ilya chuckles, shakes his head with a grin.
"Guess we all carry our own shit."
---
These past few days, something has changed in the atmosphere of the Citadel.
It's not obvious. No sirens, no shouted orders in the corridors. Just a thicker tension, like a low note thrumming somewhere beneath the surface. You don't see Gunther much in the training hall anymore. He rushes in, drops a word of encouragement, corrects a shooting stance with a precise gesture — then vanishes. Tinka too, she doesn't stop to chat like she used to. Sometimes you catch a glimpse of her from afar, hunched over schematics, looking hurried, focused. And often, when you walk past Boris's office, the door is ajar, and you hear low voices, see Ilya's bent frame, Gunther's broad back, Tinka's fine hands sketching something out.
Something is being prepared.
But no one says anything.
Elijah is hoping — I can see it. That stubborn kind of hope that keeps him up when he talks too fast. One morning, while we were cleaning our weapons in the back room, he said, too lightly:
— Maybe they're planning a return to the loop.
Ilya, who was silently sorting magazines two meters away, raised an eyebrow. He didn't smile this time. He took a second to set down what he was holding before answering:
— That would be suicide, he said without raising his voice. They've stepped up surveillance since your escape. Boris knows it. He's thought about it, obviously. But not now.
Elijah clenched his jaw but didn't argue. He knows it's true. So do I.
The rest of the time, we keep ourselves busy. We do what we can to piece together who we were. Memories come back in flashes, scattered and out of order. Details, sensations. Elijah is convinced he had a girlfriend — or loved someone. He doesn't remember her name, or her face. Just a feeling. Something warm, something that mattered.
Me, I remember a book. A precious book you could only find in a few monitored libraries. The story of a wizard, a yellow brick road, a girl and her shoes. I remember reading it more than once, sometimes in hiding. It brought me comfort. It was one of the few foreign books we were allowed. I think I was good in class. I think I liked to learn.
We try to cross-reference our memories, like two clumsy archaeologists sifting through earth that's already been dug up a thousand times.
One evening, in the cafeteria, while others whisper about surface weather or food stock levels, we find ourselves at a table near the wall, a bit apart. I'm holding my spoon without thinking. Elijah is talking.
— Do you remember what you used to do? I mean, really remember — not just an image, but what you liked?
— Reading, I say. Reading, and... maybe writing. I feel like I used to write.
He nods.
— I think I did sports. Or something in a group. I remember a locker room. And someone laughing — a girl's voice. That counts, right?
I shrug.
— It's more than nothing.
A voice interrupts us.
— Those kinds of memories are valuable.
It's Ilya. He's sat down at the table next to us, without us noticing. He's eating in silence, but he's listening. His eyes are dark and alert.
— If you were sent to the loop, it's probably because your parents did something. Most of the time... they're either dissidents or convicted criminals. Sometimes both. Sometimes not even guilty — just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Elijah frowns.
— So we were there because of our parents?
Ilya nods slowly.
— Probably. You're too... normal, if you'll forgive me. That's not an insult. It's just — you seem like kids who grew up in a house, who had a life. That doesn't leave a lot of other explanations.
I lower my eyes. It's true. In my memory, there was a kitchen, a wooden table, a slightly crooked lamp above the sink. Ordinary things. An ordinary life.
Elijah exhales through his nose, like something just clicked in his mind.
— One night, I think... our mother didn't come home. And the next day, they came for us. Me in history class. Mira in biology.
I look up. That rings true.
I was in biology. It was raining outside.
Ilya doesn't speak for a few seconds. Then:
— Sometimes it's just like that. A silence at dinner. An absence. And then — nothing. But that doesn't mean you deserved what happened to you.
He was about to get up when I stopped him.
— What about you?
He freezes. Looks at me.
— Me?
— Gunther and Tinka... they grew up here. But you, you're young too. How did you get here?
He hesitates, like he's considering making a joke. Then he sighs, lowers his eyes, and sits back down. It's rare for him to let his guard down.
— I was out there.
Elijah and I wait, silent. He takes a bite of bread, chews slowly.
— I grew up with my uncle. A good man. Not a hero, not part of the resistance, just... quiet. He raised me on his own. Never made waves. Taught me to think quietly and keep my head down. Which, you can imagine, isn't easy when you're born like me.
He taps a knuckle on his prosthetic, makes it ring.
— The regime doesn't like people like me. Not officially, of course. Officially, we're "integrated," we have the same rights. But in school, in training, on the street — everything screams at you that you should've been aborted. And if you push, if you ask for a scholarship, a prep class, a place in tech school... it always gets blocked. Always for "valid reasons." Lack of motivation. Risk of failure. Functional inadaptability.
He lets out a dry laugh.
— I tried three times. Three times rejected. So I got the message. And I disappeared.
Silence.
— Disappeared? Elijah repeats.
— Yeah. I staged an escape, left a fake trail. Threw a bag of my stuff into a river — make it look real. Mostly to keep my uncle out of trouble. He probably thinks I'm dead. That's better. If he knew where I am, he might get punished too. Even if he didn't do anything. Kind of like you, with your mom. Hypothetically.
He pauses. There's something in his voice that slips, just a little. A deeper note. Almost pain.
— And then?
— Then? Then I hacked an internal network. I was eighteen. I wanted a bit of payback. Nothing big — just enough to cause a stir. It made noise, but I didn't get caught. Boris found me. And instead of treating me like trash, he asked if I wanted to work for him. I said yes. It was the first time I felt like someone saw what I could do — not what I lacked.
They even gave me a brand-new arm.
He looks up at me, then at Elijah.
— You wonder who you were before. Me, I know what I was: a failure, in the system's eyes. Now, I'm useful. And I've got no intention of becoming invisible again.
This time, he gets up for real, doesn't wait for a response, and disappears into the hallway.
We sit there a while. Elijah eventually murmurs:
— He's been through it too.
I nod slowly.
— And yet he's still standing.
We don't say anything else, but we're both thinking the same thing:
He impresses us.
And he scares us a little, too.
In his own twisted way, Ilya might be one of the only ones here who really sees through us.