🌑 Episode 40
Before the Fire
⏳ 04:18
The countdown kept flashing across the screen.
The hidden chamber trembled softly as warning alarms echoed through the underground passage.
Lena's fingers moved faster over the keyboard.
"I'm extracting the files," she said, her voice tight. "But the system is locked in layers. He doesn't want us taking anything."
Ryan stood near the entrance, eyes fixed on the dark corridor outside.
"Then take whatever you can."
Victor checked the magazine in his gun and looked at Ariba.
"We have four minutes."
Ariba didn't answer.
Her eyes were still on the screen where her father's final video had frozen.
She's not just a subject… she's my daughter.
That single sentence kept repeating in her mind.
For years, she had believed her father died because he discovered corruption.
But now—
It was bigger than corruption.
It was about her.
About a secret project.
About a past someone had buried.
Ariba stepped closer to Lena.
"What exactly are you copying?"
Lena swallowed.
"Lab files. Identity records. Internal communication. Maybe enough to prove the Architect built something illegal."
"Something?" Victor asked coldly.
Lena looked at Ariba for a moment.
"…Or someone."
Silence.
Ryan turned back sharply.
"We're not talking in riddles anymore. Tell us what you think."
Lena hesitated.
Then she spoke quietly.
"I think Ariba wasn't just a witness to this story."
She looked down at the screen.
"I think she was the center of it."
Ariba's breath caught.
"No…"
Victor frowned.
"Explain."
Lena opened another recovered file.
A scan appeared on the screen—medical charts, genetic analysis, old lab notes.
Ryan stared.
"What is that?"
Lena answered in a low voice.
"Modification records."
Ariba stepped back.
"This is fake."
But even as she said it, her voice shook.
Lena clicked another file.
This time, it was a security report.
SUBJECT A-17 showed exceptional emotional resilience and memory resistance. Continued observation required.
Beneath it—
Guardian Assigned: Dr. Rahman
Ariba's knees nearly gave out.
Ryan caught her before she fell.
"Easy…"
Ariba looked at him with glassy eyes.
"He knew… all this time…"
Ryan's face softened.
"Maybe he was trying to protect you."
Victor's tone stayed hard.
"Or maybe he was part of it until it went too far."
"No," Ariba said immediately.
Her voice was weak—but certain.
"He wouldn't do that."
Victor didn't argue.
Because deep down, none of them knew anymore where the truth ended and guilt began.
⏳ 03:11
Suddenly—
A metallic sound echoed from the corridor.
Ryan raised his head.
"They're coming."
Victor moved toward the doorway.
"I'll buy time."
Ariba grabbed his sleeve.
"Don't die."
Victor gave her a crooked smile.
"I hate promises like that."
Then he disappeared into the corridor.
A second later—
Gunshots exploded through the tunnel.
Ryan flinched.
Lena kept working.
"Almost there… almost there…"
Ariba looked at the monitor again.
Another file had opened by itself.
A photo.
A little girl sitting in a white room, hugging a stuffed rabbit.
Ariba stared at it.
She knew that rabbit.
She used to have one exactly like it.
Her voice came out as a whisper.
"That's me…"
The date on the photo was from years before the memories she could clearly recall.
Lena zoomed in.
On the wall behind the little girl was a symbol—
A phoenix inside a black circle.
Ryan looked between the photo and Ariba.
"They started with you when you were a child."
Ariba felt like the room was spinning.
"So my whole life…"
"…was built on a lie."
"No," Ryan said gently.
"Not your whole life."
He held her shoulders so she had to look at him.
"What they did to you isn't who you are."
For a second, the alarms, the countdown, the fear—everything faded.
Only Ryan's voice stayed.
Only his eyes.
Only the truth he was trying to hold together for her.
Then Lena shouted—
"I got it!"
A progress bar hit 100%.
"I copied the core files!"
Ryan exhaled.
"Good. We leave now."
But the system suddenly flashed again.
⚠️ REMOTE ACCESS OVERRIDE
Victor's voice shouted from the corridor—
"MOVE! NOW!"
Ariba turned just as every screen in the room switched to black.
Then the Architect appeared again.
This time, not as a shadow.
His face filled the monitors.
Calm. Young. Smiling.
"You really are your father's daughter," he said.
Ariba's expression hardened.
"What did you do to me?"
The Architect tilted his head.
"Such a dramatic question."
Ryan stepped forward.
"You used her."
The Architect ignored him.
His eyes stayed on Ariba.
"You were never meant to live an ordinary life."
Lena whispered, "Don't listen to him…"
But Ariba couldn't look away.
The Architect continued—
"Your father ruined years of work when he took you away."
Ariba's heartbeat thundered in her ears.
"Took me away from where?"
The Architect smiled faintly.
"From your real beginning."
Ryan snapped, "Shut it down!"
Lena tried—but the system was under full remote control now.
The Architect's voice grew quieter. More dangerous.
"You want the truth, Ariba?"
He leaned closer to the camera.
"Then ask yourself why you were the only subject who survived."
The room went silent.
Even Ryan had no words.
Victor stumbled back into the chamber, breathing hard.
"There are too many of them!"
He looked at the screens.
"Oh, great. He's monologuing."
⏳ 01:29
The floor shook again.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
Lena grabbed the drive containing the copied files.
"We have to go!"
But Ariba stood rooted in place.
The only subject who survived.
What did that mean?
What had they made her into?
Who had she been before her father saved her?
Ryan took her hand.
"Ariba."
She looked at him.
And in that one look, he understood—
she was breaking.
Not loudly. Not dramatically.
Quietly.
From the inside.
He squeezed her hand harder.
"You can fall apart later," he said softly. "Right now, you survive."
Victor fired two shots down the corridor.
"That's the best speech we've got? Move!"
A violent crash came from outside.
The guards were almost inside.
Lena pointed toward a secondary hatch at the back of the chamber.
"There!"
They ran.
Ryan pulled Ariba with him while Victor covered their escape.
Lena forced the hatch open with a metal lever.
One by one, they climbed through into a narrow service shaft.
Behind them, the Architect's voice echoed one final time through the speakers—
"You can run from me, Ariba."
A pause.
"But you can't run from what you are."
Then—
💥 BOOM
The hidden chamber exploded in fire.
The shockwave threw them forward through the shaft.
Ariba hit the ground hard, ears ringing.
Smoke poured around them.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then Ryan coughed.
Victor groaned.
Lena clutched the data drive to her chest.
They were alive.
Barely.
But the files—
the truth—
had survived with them.
Ariba slowly lifted her head.
Her face was dirty, her eyes burning, her hands trembling.
But inside that trembling—
something else was beginning.
Not fear.
Not confusion.
Something sharper.
Something colder.
Resolve.
Because now it wasn't just about revenge.
It wasn't just about her father.
Now—
it was personal in a way she had never imagined.
She rose to her feet.
Ryan looked at her carefully.
"Are you okay?"
Ariba stared into the darkness ahead.
And when she answered, her voice no longer sounded uncertain.
"No."
A beat.
"But I will be."
Far away, in another hidden control room, the Architect watched the explosion footage and smiled.
"She has the files," one of his men said nervously.
The Architect folded his hands.
"Good."
The man looked confused.
"Good?"
The Architect's smile deepened.
"Because now…"
"…she'll finally come to me on her own."
To Be Continued…
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