16

The fire had long gone cold.

Dawn lay sleeping near the far wall of the drainage pipe, mist curling into the shadows like ghost fingers. Misty sat beside him, softly humming, her back resting against the stone. Luca paced silently, scanning a small receiver for radio chatter.

And Ken sat still.

Not asleep.

Not awake.

Just... floating.

It started with a sound.

A metal swing creaking.

The faint scent of wet grass.

And then—

A voice.

"Push me."

Ken turned in the dream. He was younger. No taller than the swing set itself. But the voice calling him was familiar. Too familiar.

Dawn.

White hair. Bright eyes. Grinning like he didn't know how broken the world was yet.

Ken walked forward in the dream, his arms extending toward the swing. He pushed gently, the old chains rattling with each movement.

"You're always so serious," Dream-Dawn said with a laugh. "Like you're carrying something."

Ken shrugged.

"I don't like seeing people cry."

Dawn tilted his head. "Why?"

"Because when I see them cry, I start to remember things I'm not supposed to."

Dawn smiled wider.

"That's why they're scared of you, you know."

Ken blinked. "Who?"

Dawn kicked his feet again.

"They say your memories wake up other people's memories. Like your sadness is loud. Like it infects the code."

Ken frowned. "Code?"

Suddenly, the dream twisted.

The sky overhead cracked like shattered glass. The playground fell away. The swing beneath Dawn flickered out of existence.

And Ken was alone.

In a white room.

Walls pulsing with light.

Wires dripping from the ceiling like vines. In front of him, a chair.

He recognized it instantly.

Room R.

Only this time, he was the one in the chair.

And a voice echoed through the chamber:

"Subject 017. Instigator protocol: terminated. Begin reset procedure."

Ken struggled. His body wouldn't move.

The voice rang again:

"He remembers the first incident. Emotionally unstable. Infectious empathy confirmed."

He tried to scream. Nothing came out.

Then—

A face appeared.

A woman.

Kind. Familiar.

Eyes like his own.

"Ken," she whispered.

And in that moment, he remembered her.

His mother.

She cupped his face with shaking hands.

"I'm so sorry," she said, voice breaking. "They told me this would save you."

Then a flash of white—

And Ken bolted awake, gasping.

"Whoa!" Luca rushed over. "Easy, easy."

Misty was at his side a second later. "Ken? Hey—what happened?"

Ken stared at the ceiling of the pipe. Cold sweat ran down his spine.

"I saw her."

Misty blinked. "Who?"

"My mom."

He sat up slowly. "She was there. At the beginning. In the room. She knew. She let them take me."

Luca looked uncertain. "That might've been a dream—"

"No," Ken interrupted. "It wasn't. It was real. A buried memory."

Dawn stirred behind them. His voice was groggy but clear. "Then you're closer to unlocking it."

Misty looked from Ken to Dawn. "Unlocking what?"

Dawn met Ken's eyes.

"The reason they can't erase him. The part of him that broke the system."

Ken still felt the image of his mother's face burned into his mind. Sad. Regretful.

But real.

And she had been inside the program.

That meant she might still be alive.

And she might still be working for them.

Later that afternoon, they regrouped around Luca's map again. With a shard of glass and some charcoal, he etched a new zone in the lower left corner: Sector Zero.

"This is where they store everything," he explained. "Every student's file. The raw backups. Not the copies in the public archive. The originals."

Misty frowned. "Why haven't they destroyed them?"

"Too risky," Luca replied. "They still need data to fix broken subjects. To reverse effects. To... clone memories."

Ken narrowed his eyes. "Clone?"

Luca nodded. "They can take personality fragments. Insert them into other students. Build composites. That's what they did with Ravyn."

Misty stared. "She was made?"

Luca shook his head. "No. She was built from pieces of erased people. The best loyalty, obedience, and control patterns. But something went wrong. One of the fragments was too... human."

Dawn looked away.

Ken stood slowly. "Then what we need isn't just in that room."

He looked at each of them in turn.

"It is that room."

The plan formed quickly. Sector Zero was located beneath the eastern dormitories—ironically right under the so-called "Top-Tier Wing." It was protected by biometric locks, rotating access codes, and heat-triggered drones.

Misty would pose as a returning student from the "Recalibration Ward." Luca would use his knowledge of the back tunnels to disable the motion sensors. Dawn would monitor drone patterns and serve as a lookout.

And Ken?

He'd go into the core.

Into the archive.

Alone.

That night, as they prepared to move, Misty sat beside Ken as he sharpened the edge of a broken drone blade for protection.

"Are you ready for what you might find?" she asked quietly.

Ken didn't look up. "No."

Misty nodded. "Same."

After a pause, she added, "I remember now. The first time I ever saw you."

Ken glanced at her.

"You were in a hallway," she said, smiling faintly. "And I was crying. No one would look at me. Not even the counselors."

"You looked straight at me. And you didn't smile. You didn't say anything."

She met his eyes.

"But I stopped crying."

Ken didn't respond.

Instead, he reached into his jacket and pulled out the photo Dawn had saved—the one from the swing set.

"I think," he said softly, "it's time I remember everything."

And then he slid the photo into his back pocket and stood.

Because tomorrow, he would walk into the vault of the forgotten.

And take back what was stolen.