I didn't look at the second message until we reached my mother's house.
That was deliberate.
For once, I wanted to decide when something entered my life rather than letting a stranger's words dictate the direction of my day. I wanted to sit at a kitchen table, hear the familiar ticking of a clock, and drink something warm without wondering whether the room had been designed to observe me.
It was a modest ambition.
After everything I'd survived, I thought I deserved it.
My mother put a kettle on. Subject Eight sat opposite me, turning the photograph over in her hands, while Michael wandered around the living room examining the furniture as though he expected to find a concealed laboratory beneath the sofa.
"You know," he said, "this is the first house I've visited in a long time that doesn't make me feel like I'm about to be experimented on."
"That's because the sofa is too old to be hiding anything," my mother replied.
Michael pressed a hand against one of the cushions.
"Are you certain?"
She gave him a look.
He immediately sat down.
I smiled, but my attention returned to the photograph.
The bedroom looked exactly as I remembered it. Faded wallpaper. Narrow bed. Wooden dresser. A toy lying near the doorway.
And the woman reflected in the mirror.
I turned the photograph toward Subject Eight.
"What do you see?"
She studied it again.
"Your bedroom."
"Anything else?"
"The woman."
"Does she look familiar?"
Subject Eight hesitated.
"Yes."
My stomach tightened.
"From where?"
"I don't know."
She lowered the photograph.
"But I feel like I've seen her somewhere that wasn't a memory."
"What does that mean?"
She pressed her fingertips against her forehead.
"Like I've met her. Not seen her in a photograph or inside the archive. Actually met her."
The room seemed to grow quieter.
"Do you remember when?"
"No."
She looked frustrated.
"I can almost reach it. There's a hallway. A light above a door. Someone telling me to stay quiet."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
The kettle clicked off in the kitchen.
Both of us flinched.
Michael looked over.
"I'm guessing that wasn't a normal reaction to a kettle."
"No," Subject Eight admitted.
My mother brought over three cups and placed them on the table. She glanced at the photograph, and the expression on her face changed.
"What is it?" I asked.
She sat down slowly.
"I recognize the wallpaper."
I stared at her.
"You said you didn't know who was standing in the doorway."
"I don't."
"But you recognize the room?"
She nodded.
"I chose that wallpaper."
I looked at the photograph again.
The pattern was faded, a collection of small blue flowers arranged along pale cream-colored strips. I remembered disliking it as a child. I'd wanted something darker, something that didn't make the room look as though it belonged to a dollhouse.
My mother had told me I could choose something else when I was older.
"You decorated the room?"
"Yes."
"Then why did you say you found me there?"
She looked confused.
"I did find you there. You were asleep in your bed."
I felt a chill.
"Then who took the photograph?"
"I don't know."
I turned the image over.
There was nothing on the back.
No date. No name. No indication of where it had been taken.
Except the photograph had been sent to my phone.
Someone had access to an image of my childhood bedroom, and that person knew enough about my history to understand what it would do to me.
I took out my phone.
The second message was still waiting.
DON'T LET THEM CONVINCE YOU THAT EVERYTHING WAS A LIE.
I typed a reply.
Who are you?
The response came almost immediately.
Someone who remembers the room.
I stared at the screen.
Subject Eight leaned forward.
"What did they say?"
I showed her.
Michael stood up.
"No."
I glanced at him.
"No what?"
"No replying to mysterious messages from people who may have access to our personal history."
"You were the one who spent half an hour joking about hidden laboratories."
"That was before the hidden laboratory started sending texts."
I almost smiled.
Then another message arrived.
You were six when you first saw her.
My smile disappeared.
I read the sentence twice.
Six.
I had been six years old when my mother took me to St. Agnes for the first time. At least, that was what I remembered.
The memory had always been fragmented. A white corridor. A nurse with a clipboard. My mother's hand wrapped tightly around mine.
And a woman standing behind a window.
I had assumed the woman was a doctor.
Now I wasn't sure.
I typed:
What happened when I was six?
The answer took longer.
You asked your mother why the woman in the mirror looked sad.
I looked up.
My mother had gone completely still.
"Mom?"
She didn't respond.
"Did I ever ask you that?"
Her lips parted.
Then she covered her mouth.
"Oh, God."
I stood.
"You remember."
She nodded slowly.
"I thought it was a dream."
"What was?"
"The night you woke me up."
She looked at the photograph.
"You were crying. You told me there was a woman in your mirror, and she wanted to go home."
My heart began pounding.
"What did you tell me?"
"That there was nobody there."
"Did you check?"
"Of course I checked."
She sounded almost offended.
"I looked behind the dresser. Inside the wardrobe. Under the bed. I even took the mirror off the wall."
"And?"
"There was nothing."
I stared at the photograph.
The woman in the reflection had been standing outside the bedroom door.
Not inside the room.
Outside.
As though she had been waiting for someone to let her in.
"What happened after that?" I asked.
My mother rubbed her forehead.
"You wouldn't sleep in that room for three nights. Eventually, you said the woman had gone away."
"Did I tell you anything else?"
She thought for a moment.
"You said she wasn't angry anymore."
A memory stirred.
Not a complete scene.
A feeling.
A small hand touching the cool surface of a mirror.
A voice whispering from somewhere beyond the glass.
You don't have to remember me yet.
I gripped the edge of the table.
Subject Eight immediately reached for my arm.
"What is it?"
"I heard her."
"Now?"
"In the memory."
My mother looked frightened.
"What did she say?"
I repeated the words.
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Then the phone vibrated again.
I DIDN'T WANT YOU TO BE AFRAID OF ME.
I stared at the message.
For the first time, the sender's words didn't feel like a threat.
They felt like an apology.
I typed carefully.
Are you the woman in the photograph?
The answer arrived.
Not exactly.
I waited.
Another message followed.
The woman in the photograph is what you remember seeing.
I frowned.
What does that mean?
No response came.
I tried calling the number.
The call failed before it could connect.
Michael moved beside me.
"Can you trace it?"
"I'm not sure that's a good idea."
"I'm not suggesting we break into anything. I'm suggesting we find out whether the person contacting you is using a real number."
I looked at him.
"You know how to do that?"
"No."
He paused.
"But I know people who might."
My mother shook her head.
"We aren't bringing more people into this."
"They're already involved," I said.
She looked at me.
I softened my voice.
"Mom, whoever this is knows about my childhood. They may know something we don't."
"And what if they're trying to manipulate you?"
"Then I'll be careful."
"You can't be certain."
"No. I can't."
I took her hand.
"But I don't want fear deciding everything for me anymore."
She looked at me for a long moment before nodding reluctantly.
Subject Eight picked up the photograph.
"There's something else."
She turned it toward the light.
The reflection in the dresser mirror was blurry, but the woman wasn't the only figure visible.
A small shape stood behind her.
At first, I thought it was a shadow.
Then I noticed the outline of a child's head.
And the narrow shoulders.
Subject Eight's fingers tightened around the photograph.
"That looks like me."
I stared at the image.
The child was too indistinct to identify with certainty, but the shape of the hair and the angle of the head were familiar.
"How old do you think the photograph is?" Michael asked.
"It's supposed to be from my childhood," I said.
"That's not what I mean. Look at the mirror."
He pointed toward the reflection.
The room itself was clear enough, but the mirror appeared scratched, as though the photograph had captured an older image beneath the surface.
I moved closer.
There was writing on the glass.
Tiny letters.
Almost impossible to distinguish.
I tilted the photograph until the light caught the marks.
Three words emerged.
SHE REMEMBERS FIRST.
My mother whispered my name.
I ignored her.
I couldn't stop staring at the writing.
"Who remembers first?" Subject Eight asked.
The original stirred inside my mind.
For a moment, I expected it to answer.
It didn't.
That silence was no longer frightening in the same way it had been beneath the hospital. The original had promised to learn, and perhaps this was part of that promise. It wasn't going to solve every mystery for me.
But I could feel its attention.
It was listening.
I looked at the photograph again.
The first life had been divided among three subjects. That was what we'd learned. Memory, experience, and choice had been separated so that none of us would be forced to carry everything.
But the first life had existed before us.
She had made a choice.
She had wanted to become human.
And someone had been afraid of what that meant.
I wondered whether the photograph showed a memory of the first life, or whether it showed something that had happened independently of the archive.
Those were very different possibilities.
I typed one final message.
What do you want from me?
The reply came after nearly a minute.
Nothing.
Then:
I want you to remember that you were loved before you became useful to anyone.
My throat tightened.
I read the message again.
My mother reached across the table and took my hand.
"I loved you," she said quietly.
"I know."
"No. I need you to understand something."
She waited until I looked at her.
"Whatever you discover about your first life, whatever happened before I raised you, none of that changes what we had. You weren't an experiment to me. You weren't a vessel. You weren't a piece of something ancient."
Her eyes filled with tears.
"You were my child."
I squeezed her hand.
"I believe you."
And I did.
The message hadn't changed that.
If anything, it had reminded me that the most important parts of my life didn't need to be validated by the archive.
I could remember them for myself.
Subject Eight put the photograph down.
"We should find out where it came from."
I nodded.
"But not tonight."
She studied me.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
For once, I wanted to sleep in a room without examining every shadow. I wanted to let my mind settle without forcing it to uncover another secret.
The sender had given me enough to think about.
Tomorrow, we would investigate the photograph, the messages, and the possibility that the first life had appeared in my childhood.
Tonight, I wanted to be present.
I helped my mother clear the table. Michael insisted on washing the cups, though he complained that the kitchen had an alarming shortage of dish soap. Subject Eight found an old board game in a cupboard and challenged me to play.
We argued over the rules.
We laughed.
And for a few hours, the past remained where it belonged.
Then, just before midnight, my phone lit up on the bedside table.
One final message.
You weren't the only child who saw her.
Beneath it was a name.
SUBJECT EIGHT.
I sat up.
Across the room, Subject Eight was asleep in the chair, her head resting against the cushion.
I looked at her.
Then at the phone.
A second line appeared.
ASK HER WHAT SHE REMEMBERS ABOUT THE NIGHT SHE DISAPPEARED.
I stopped breathing.
Subject Eight had told me she'd forgotten entire stretches of her childhood.
She had never explained why.
I had assumed St. Agnes was responsible.
But the message suggested something else.
Something that had happened before the hospital.
Something involving the woman in the mirror.
I looked toward the dark window.
For a moment, I thought I saw a figure standing on the other side of the glass.
A woman with my face.
I blinked.
The reflection showed only my bedroom.
But on the window, written in the faint condensation of my breath, were three words.
SHE REMEMBERS FIRST.
I reached toward the glass.
And somewhere deep inside my mind, a memory began to open.
Not mine.
Not Subject Eight's.
Someone else's.
Someone who had been waiting for us to remember the night we were separated.
And this time, I knew better than to assume that remembering would make the truth any easier to bear.