The Threshold of Oblivion
The rain fell steadily on the rusty rooftops of Neo-Prague. A few drops hit the glass as if trying to warn that something ancient was awakening. The team walked through an abandoned industrial area, guided by the coordinates extracted from the last fragment of code Isabella had deciphered.
"This is too quiet," Kael muttered, adjusting his tactical glove. "Too... clean to be abandoned."
Akihiko stopped in his tracks, staring at the structure in front of them. A factory forgotten by time, but with sensors still active. "It's not neglect. It's camouflage."
Isabella scanned the area. "I'm picking up interference… as if something were rewriting the digital environment in real time."
"A digital veil," Akihiko murmured. "We're at the entrance to a nest."
Without hesitation, they crossed the rusty entrance, and darkness enveloped them completely.
The Network of Silence
Inside the factory, everything seemed frozen in time. Dusty machinery, rusty tools, dead conveyor belts. But something didn't fit. The temperature was too constant, and the air... didn't smell old. It smelled like fresh metal.
Kael raised his visor. "We have company. Movement on the lower level."
"Let's be careful," Akihiko instructed. "Don't shoot until we know what it is."
They descended a metal staircase that creaked with every step. Upon reaching the basement, they found a dark chamber with dozens of suspension capsules. Inside them, bodies floated. Some human. Others… not so much.
Isabella swallowed. "This... this isn't a laboratory. It's a crypt."
In one corner of the room, a lit console projected data in cryptic language. Akihiko approached it, and upon touching it, a holographic image activated. It was Viktor, but younger.
"MEMORY Project – Final Phase: Erasing the witnesses, preserving the echoes."
The Living Fragment
One of the capsules began to vibrate.
Kael raised his weapon. "Something's awakening."
The liquid inside suddenly evaporated, and a figure fell to its knees on the ground. It was a girl. About twenty years old. White hair, pale skin. Her eyes were empty, as if she had no memory of her own existence.
Akihiko approached slowly. "Who are you?"
The young woman looked up. "I... was someone. I know. But... they erased me."
Isabella reviewed the records. "There's no ID. Nothing. It's like I was never born."
Suddenly, a shockwave shook the basement. The console exploded, and darkness enveloped them. Amid the chaos, a voice emerged from the speakers.
"They are awakening what was meant to remain dormant."
It was Ezra.
The Face in the Shadows
From one of the empty capsules, a figure emerged. It didn't walk. It floated. The same black suit. The same sinister elegance.
Ezra.
"They're digging too deep. There are truths that even the darkness doesn't want to remember."
Akihiko unsheathed his katana.
Ezra looked at him with an almost... fatherly expression. "I'm not your enemy, Akihiko. Not yet."
Kael aimed his rifle. "What are you then? A memory? An experiment?"
Ezra spread his arms. "I am an echo. A fragment of what Project MEMORY tried to erase. But I survived... because someone had to remember the price."
The capsules began to shake. The bodies inside them disappeared one by one, as if sucked into an invisible hole.
"He's erasing us!" Isabella shouted.
Akihiko activated his inner void. His violet aura enveloped his companions, creating a resistance field.
"Get out now!" he shouted.
The Escape of the Forgotten
The basement was collapsing. Not physically, but existentially. The factory was decomposing like a forgotten memory, fragment by fragment.
Kael carried the forgetful young woman in his arms. "Let's go!"
They climbed the stairs as the floor crumbled behind them. Ezra watched them from below, still, serene.
"You can't run forever," he said, just before he faded away.
When we went outside, the factory no longer existed.
There was just an empty field, no structures, no footprints. As if nothing had ever been there.
The Impossible Footprint
Later, in the shelter, Isabella examined the data on her device. "There's no record of the factory. No sign it ever existed. But… I have this."
He played a fragment of audio. Just three words, distorted, repeated over and over:
"Akihiko... remember... everything."
Kael placed the young woman on a makeshift stretcher. She was fast asleep, but a tear was running down her cheek.
"She's the key," Isabella murmured.
Akihiko remained silent, staring into space.
Because for the first time… I was remembering things I didn't know I'd forgotten.