The first thing she noticed was the silence.
Not the comforting hush of dawn or the hum of distant machines. No—this silence was thick, heavy, the kind that sat on your chest and made you question if you were even breathing.
She opened her eyes.
White. Blinding white. The lights above her pulsed softly, artificial and cold, like they were trying too hard to be the sun. She blinked once, twice, as the sterile ceiling sharpened into focus.
Her fingers twitched.
She was lying on something firm—a hospital bed, maybe. She could hear the faint beeping of a monitor now, rhythmic and slow, syncing with her heartbeat. Wires were taped to her forearms. A saline IV line dripped into the back of her left hand. Her muscles ached like she hadn't moved in days. Maybe longer.
She sat up, groaning at the effort. Every movement felt foreign, like she'd borrowed this body and it hadn't quite forgiven her yet.
Then she saw her reflection.
A mirror across the room—strategically placed, as if someone wanted her to see.
Her breath caught in her throat.
She didn't scream, though maybe she should have. She didn't panic. Instead, she stared.
Her skin—once smooth, now a canvas.
Tattoos. Hundreds of them.
Cascading down her neck, curling around her arms, spiraling across her ribs, etched down her legs. No pattern, no repetition. Symbols, animals, faces, dates, maps. Some vibrant and colorful, others soft like watercolor bruises. Some ancient. Some modern. Some alive with movement.
She looked down at her palms—more tattoos. Her fingertips bore numbers. Her wrists carried foreign scripts. A compass lay inked at the base of her throat, its needle forever spinning in every direction.
And yet…she didn't remember a single one.
She stood, pulling the IV out of her hand with a sharp hiss. The pain grounded her. Her hospital gown slid off her shoulders, pooling at her feet. A duffle bag sat on the chair beside the mirror, along with a folded black hoodie, jeans, and combat boots—new. Unworn. Deliberately placed.
She didn't know who she was. But someone had prepared her for this.
She dressed quickly, each movement stiff and cautious. Her reflection followed her like a stranger. Her face was…familiar and foreign all at once. High cheekbones. Freckles across her cheeks. A silver ring pierced through the side of her nose. Dark brown hair tumbled past her shoulders in loose, tangled waves.
There was a name, somewhere. It danced just out of reach, behind a fog of static and white noise.
She picked up the duffle bag. It was heavier than she expected.
Inside: a burner phone. No SIM card. A single address scribbled on a torn receipt. A key. A photograph.
She pulled the photo out.
It showed her standing beside a man—tall, dark skin, sharp jawline, wearing a badge on his belt. They weren't smiling, but there was something in their eyes. Trust? History?
Written on the back:
"Find Agent Marlow. Trust only him."
The door to the hospital room creaked open.
She spun around instinctively, ducking low. No footsteps. No shadow. Just the echo of something moving far down the hallway.
She slid the photo into her back pocket, zipped up the bag, and slipped out.
The corridors were empty. No nurses. No patients. The lights buzzed faintly overhead, flickering as she passed beneath them. There were signs on the walls: Neuro Diagnostics. Isolation Ward. No Unauthorized Entry.
She glanced at one of the signs—her own name wasn't listed anywhere.
Was she a patient here? Or a prisoner?
At the end of the hallway was a glass security door. She pressed her hand against the reader. Nothing. She tried the key—no lock.
A flicker to her left. A movement behind the observation glass.
She turned—and locked eyes with a man in a white coat. He looked surprised, maybe even afraid. He mouthed something to her.
Before she could read his lips, the lights snapped off.
Emergency red lights flared. Sirens screamed to life.
"Subject 108 has breached containment."
"Repeat, Subject 108 is mobile."
"Protocol Black."
Subject. Not patient. Subject.
She bolted.
The hospital—or whatever it really was—was massive. She sprinted through side halls and down stairwells, the duffle bag thumping against her back. Boots echoing. Breathing sharp.
She didn't know why she was running—but every nerve in her body told her to move.
Her tattoos seemed to vibrate with her heartbeat, as if responding to the danger.
She made it to a service exit, burst through the door into a back alley, and was greeted by a slap of cold night air.
The city outside was alive.
Neon lights. Skyscrapers. Rain. Horns blaring in the distance. A million lives moving forward, completely unaware of the girl who just escaped from a ghost facility beneath their feet.
She stood in the alley, soaked in moonlight and adrenaline, and for a moment…she just breathed.
Then the phone in her duffle bag buzzed.
She pulled it out. The screen lit up. Unknown number. One message.
RUN. THEY KNOW.
– M
Somewhere far away, in a surveillance bunker buried beneath concrete and silence, three men stood before a wall of monitors. Each screen showed a different angle of her escape.
"She's awake," one of them said.
"She shouldn't be. Not yet."
Another voice, older, colder: "She activated two tattoos during her exit. That's ahead of the curve."
"What do we do?"
The older man turned, folding his hands behind his back.
"We let her run," he said. "It won't matter."
He tapped a button. On the screen, her face froze in high definition. Her tattoos glowed faintly beneath her skin under the red security lights.
"She's not one of them anymore," he said.
The room fell silent.
"She was never real to begin with."
Back in the city, she ducked into the shadows of an abandoned train station, hiding beneath a rusted staircase. She peeled off her hoodie and checked one of the glowing tattoos on her forearm—it shimmered softly, a symbol she couldn't read, like an eye split by lightning.
It hadn't glowed before. What had changed?
Each tattoo felt…alive, like a story waiting to be told, or a memory she hadn't earned.
She stared at her reflection in a broken shard of glass.
No name. No history. No identity.
But she was real, wasn't she?
She had to be.
Didn't she?