CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: ECHOSES BEHIND CLOSED EYES
[There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.]
The Boss leaned against the cold metal wall of the surveillance room, arms folded behind his back like a predator savoring the hunt. The flickering screens showed the ruined arena, static sparking where Zareina's power had fried half the systems.
"Start the synchronization logs," he commanded, voice calm but with a razor's edge.
"Heart rate, breath rhythm, electrical fluctuations. Compare them."
The assistant's hesitation was brief—because the data didn't lie.
"Sir… they're matching."
The Boss's lips curled into a thin, cruel smile.
"Then it's begun."
-----
The lights in the medical wing dimmed further as the moonlight crawled through the slats. The Arena's thunder had faded, but the echoes remained—haunting the walls, clinging to her skin like a second layer she couldn't shed.
Zareina lay in the soft hum of silence, IV line barely noticeable, her breath slow, steady—but her mind was far from still. Her fingers twitched every now and then, a sign that somewhere deeper, her subconscious stirred restlessly.
The walls were quiet, but the silence wasn't kind. It pressed against the room like an invisible weight, thick with things unsaid and pain unhealed. Outside, the night curled into itself, wrapping the world in velvet stillness.
Zareina lay still in the dim light of the infirmary suite. Bandages crisscrossed her ribs, the bruises beneath them painting stories of a war she never asked for. Her mismatched eyes—muted sapphire and gold—stared at the ceiling, half-lidded, unfocused.
Cipher sat on the far corner of the room, curled in a seat, a cold can of energy drink unopened in her hand. She hadn't taken her eyes off Zareina. Not once. Something in her—something she couldn't name—told her to stay. Not just because of loyalty, or even concern. It was something stranger… older.
Her laptop was open beside her, green code trailing like an endless river. But her eyes weren't on it. They remained locked on the girl who hadn't even spoken a full sentence to her in days—but still somehow felt closer than anyone Cipher had ever known.
Cipher then sat near her, laptop still open but untouched, her fingers hovering above the keys. She kept stealing glances at Zareina, watching her like she might dissolve into shadow at any moment.
"You looked like you were going to disappear in there," Cipher said softly, voice barely above a whisper.
Zareina didn't respond. Her breath was slow, measured. But finally, she spoke. Her voice came out quieter than Cipher expected, roughened by exhaustion and something else—something older.
"I saw him."
Cipher blinked. "Icarus?"
Zareina nodded faintly.
"Like... a memory?"
There was a pause. Zareina's eyes drifted shut.
"I don't know. But it felt... real."
Cipher leaned back, watching her more carefully now.
Zareina's voice trailed as sleep claimed her. Cipher stayed by her side, waiting.
---
The Dream
Rain.
Soft.
Cold.
Familiar.
Zareina stood in a courtyard of stone, the architecture ghostlike, blurred around the edges. It felt like a memory, but not quite hers.
She turned slowly. He was there.
Younger.
Gentler.
Icarus.
His hair was tousled, wet from the drizzle, his eyes carrying none of the violence she knew now. He smiled.
"Even if we forget again," he murmured, reaching for her face, brushing away wet strands of hair, "I'll find you."
Her breath caught. Her voice felt foreign as it left her.
"Then I'll make sure you remember me the moment our eyes meet."
He cupped her cheek. They leaned in.
The kiss wasn't desperate. It wasn't passionate. It was slow. Soft. Final.
A goodbye sealed in silence.
Gunshots shattered the moment.
Zareina gasped and jolted awake.
---
Back in the Suite
Cipher snapped her head up. "Zareina?"
Zareina sat up with effort, a hand against her chest. She didn't answer immediately.
"Was it the pain?"
Zareina shook her head.
"I remembered. Something... old. A promise."
Cipher watched her, her usually impassive face touched with genuine curiosity. "Was it about him?"
Zareina didn't speak. She just nodded.
---
Elsewhere
Icarus sat alone in his quarters. The Arena footage played on repeat in front of him, yet he wasn't watching.
His hands trembled.
Back to the morning fight between them before Zaerina lost conscious:
The arena was a ruinous cathedral of broken steel and shattered glass. Twilight bled in through the cracked dome, rain leaking like slow tears from the heavens. The air smelled of ozone and quiet menace.
Zareina stood at the center, bare feet cold on the wet floor, her hoodie ragged, mask slipping just enough to reveal the sharp line of her jaw. Her mismatched eyes glowed faintly—one violet, one stormy gray—reflecting the chaos in the stillness.
Icarus knelt before her, one knee pressed to the fractured ground, breath ragged and uneven. His hand clenched over his chest like he was holding back a storm inside himself. No words came, only that terrible, silent recognition—as if the ghosts of a thousand forgotten memories had collided in that moment.
Zareina stood there. Her voice was low, teasing and dangerous.
"You look like hell."
Icarus face lit up from his stoic version. A dry, breathless smirk forming on his face.
"Not nearly as much as you. Barefoot and broken."
She took a slow step forward, and the soft drip of rain on steel became a heartbeat syncing with hers.
"Do I scare you, Icarus?"
He looked up, eyes dark and burning with obsession.
"Only when you whisper my name like it's a secret spell."
Her smile twisted into something sharp. Although it was hidden,but Icarus still feel it.
"You want to hear it again?"
He nodded, breath catching.
Zareina whispered to him with her mask on like she wanted to spell that word.
"Kael."
The name hung between them like a blade—familiar, dangerous, and unbearably intimate.
Back to the present:
He could still hear her voice—not the commanding tone from the fight, but a whisper. One he couldn't place.
Why did it sound like... home?
He rose abruptly and walked to the mirror.
"Why do you feel like everything I lost... and everything I never had?"
He didn't have the answer. But the ache in his chest throbbed louder than any logic.
---
Observation Deck – The Boss
The Boss stood before a wall of screens, each showing angles of the Arena, the participants, and two faces: Zareina. Icarus.
His assistant hovered nearby.
"They weren't following the plan," she remarked. "They were feeling."
"Exactly," the Boss murmured, amused. "Emotion is chaos. And chaos reveals the truth."
He gave the command: "Trigger her memory again. I want to see if her heart leads before her mind."
"And Icarus?"
The Boss's smile turned sharp.
"Let him break. Then rebuild."
---
The Lingering Night
---
---
Meanwhile, Icarus stood behind the one-way mirror. Watching. Always watching.
Alone in a cold interrogation room, dried blood staining his knuckles, Icarus muttered to the silence.
"Why do I remember her lips? Why do I remember a name I never heard?"
He slammed his fist on the table, fury and confusion tangled in his gaze.
His jacket hung off one shoulder, and a fresh bandage wrapped around his palm, blood still soaking through. He'd shattered a glass earlier. No one asked why.
His voice was low, as if speaking to no one. Or maybe to the ghost of his own forgotten self.
"Why does she always look like she's walking away… even when she's standing still?"
The door opened.
The Boss entered, silent and sharp as a blade. He then leaned against the frame with a cigarette he hadn't lit. Watching both of them.
"Because she remembers something you've forgotten," he finally said. "And it's starting to surface. Also,you're relapsing"
Icarus's glare was a storm.
"What the hell am I relapsing into?"
"Into who you were before they broke you both."
Icarus didn't respond. His jaw clenched.
"What if I don't want to remember?" he asked, a bitter whisper.
"Then stop watching her."
"I can't."
---
Dreamscape:Zareina
The dream dragged Zareina under like a tide.
She was running through a corridor of glass. Red lights flashing. Her mismatched eyes reflected in every panel. She wasn't alone.
A voice behind her.
"You always run ahead of me."
"And you always follow, don't you?"
She turned, and there he was—young, different, not quite Icarus but so painfully him.
They were in uniforms. Black. Silver accents. Her fingers were stained with blood, but her eyes were glowing… soft. Sad.
"You trust me?" he asked.
She hesitated. Then nodded.
"With my life. Even if you forget it one day."
---
Dreamscape:Icarus
Icarus wasn't sleeping, but exhaustion blurred his mind until memory bled through the cracks.
She was there again—Zareina, but not quite as she was now. Her eyes shimmered golden, not mismatched. Her laugh… real.
They sat on a rooftop under stars, boots dangling over the edge.
"You said one day we'd vanish. Like ghosts."
"I lied," she replied, smirking.
"You don't lie."
"I do when I'm scared."
Rain hammered the battlefield—cold, unrelenting. Footsteps splashed through the mud, mingling with screams and distant thunder.
He remembered her: a girl in black, soaked and fierce, collapsing into his arms. Their blood mingled on his gloves—her whispered warning cracking the silence like glass.
"Don't forget… even if they erase us."
The memory shattered—fragmented and bleeding out like the storm around them.
He reached for her hand in the dream—but just as he touched her fingers, she vanished in a scatter of light.
He woke with a jerk. Sweating. Heart pounding.
And for the first time, he remembered her name before she had changed it.
"Ravyn…"
Icarus pressed his forehead against the glass.
"Tell me who you were to me," he whispered.
"She was your anchor," the Boss murmured behind him. "And you were hers."
"And now?" Icarus asked.
"Now… you're both drifting."
---
Elsewhere…
Aspen stood on a balcony, far from all of them. The seal she'd stolen now embedded into a custom-made necklace. She fingered it idly as she watched the skyline.
> "They're waking up," she said to herself.
"Good. Let chaos begin."
Her eyes—purple, with that red tint—gleamed like wildfire waiting for oxygen.
---
Suite, Later That Night
Zareina hadn't moved since then.
Cipher sat cross-legged near the edge of the bed, arms folded.
"You looked like you were somewhere else."
Zareina turned toward her slowly. "We kissed."
Cipher blinked. "You and... Icarus?"
She didn't answer. She didn't need to.
Her hand touched her lips.
"It wasn't passion. It was... farewell."
The rain outside started again, just a whisper on the glass.
---
Somewhere deep within the facility, far from any prying eyes, Icarus leaned back against cold steel and closed his eyes.
A whisper left his lips:
"If she remembers... then I want to remember too."
(To be continued)