Chapter 24: Echoes on Tape
The room was still...the only sound a faint mechanical hum from one of the monitors.
Zayaan moved toward it.
The screen was old — not touchscreen, no fancy interface. Just a single blinking prompt in the corner.
PLAYBACK: [01A - INTERNAL LOG | Subject 3]
He hesitated, then clicked.
The footage was grainy. No sound at first — just the hiss of static before it smoothed into an image.
A younger Arwa sat strapped to the chair.
Hair longer. Face softer. But her eyes were wide with confusion... the kind that wasn't fully conscious yet still sensed something was wrong.
She flinched when the lights above her flickered.
Someone stepped into frame. Only their back visible. A lab coat. A clipboard.
Zayaan stepped back, gave Arwa space. He didn't ask if she wanted to stop it.
She didn't blink.
Onscreen, the man spoke — his voice distorted, almost digitized.
"Subject shows resistance to sedative layering. Memory strip incomplete. Proceeding with auditory insertion."
Arwa's younger self twitched in the chair.
Her lips moved — barely. A whisper, not quite picked up by the mic.
Then something began to play through overhead speakers — soft, almost like music. But warped, drawn-out, mechanical.
Her younger self's expression slackened.
Zayaan watched Arwa in real time.
She stood frozen, eyes fixed on the girl in the chair — her — being slowly emptied out, piece by piece.
And suddenly, she remembered.
The humming.
The white light behind her eyes.
The pressure in her skull, like something being pulled loose.
She stumbled back. Hit the edge of the doorway.
Zayaan caught her again, steadied her without a word.
"I... I wasn't supposed to remember this," she whispered.
He looked at her, gently. "But you do."
"And that means they'll know."
His grip tightened. "Then we leave. Now."
But as they turned to go, the monitor beeped.
A second video prompt blinked to life.
[01B – INSERTION | Subject 3 | Priority Cue: Z]
Zayaan stared at the screen. "Z?"
He tapped it.
This time, the footage was shorter.
No chair.
Just a black screen — and a voice.
Hers.
Not the younger version — her current voice. Calm. Monotone.
"If you're hearing this, it means the failsafe failed. It means I woke up before they wanted me to. You have to find him. He's the last tether. They didn't erase all of it. They couldn't."
The screen glitched.
The voice came back, lower now — raw, like it had been recorded in desperation.
"Zayaan, if you're watching this — don't trust what they told you. Don't even trust what you remember. They used me to keep you quiet. They used us to bury something bigger."
The screen cut to black.
Silence returned like a weight.
Neither of them moved.
Then Arwa said, voice flat and certain:
"They didn't just wipe me."
Zayaan didn't ask what she meant.
Because deep down, he already knew.
They'd both been part of something neither of them had fully consented to. And now?
Now they were unraveling it. Together.