You can run from the past. You can even erase it. But you can't stop the people who archived it first.
Scene: Outer District 3 – 6:49 p.m.
The road was cracked. Weeds split the pavement like scars.
District 3's outer ring had been scheduled for renovation six times in the last decade. Each time, funding got rerouted, permits delayed, blueprints lost. But the orphanage at the end of the road?
Still standing.
Barely.
Rook Vale stood across the street, hood low, face shadowed.
The gate was padlocked.
But the front door was unlocked.
That, alone, was strange.
Reina hadn't lived here in years.
And yet someone had entered recently.
Scene: Orphanage Interior
The entry hall smelled of dust and time.
The toy shelf still held broken robots. The staircase still creaked. The walls had drawings — some his.
He walked slowly, like the floorboards might speak if he stepped too loud.
He made it to the old office.
It had been Reina's.
Now it was stripped bare.
Except…
The floor mat in front of the desk had been moved.
Recently.
Rook knelt.
Pulled it aside.
Beneath: a seam in the wood. A trapdoor he never noticed growing up.
He opened it.
Scene: Hidden Compartment – Orphanage Basement
A short ladder. A sealed case. Concord standard.
Buried in concrete, protected from sensors.
He dragged it out and cracked it open.
Inside: files. Paper and digital. Labeled and color-coded.
The first folder:
SUBJECT: HERNAN VALECLASSIFICATION: [REDACTED]POTENTIAL: "GENETIC MEMORY RETENTION"OVERSIGHT: ZODIAC – CLASS SIGMA
His blood ran cold.
He flipped the pages.
Field logs. Sleep reports. DNA swabs.
Dates matched his first year at the orphanage. He hadn't even learned how to read yet.
"Subject exhibits atypical retention of phrases, sensory recall, and observed mimicry of father's body language posthumously. Unknown whether memory is emotional imprint or neuro-biological retention. Recommendation: long-term environmental immersion. Monitor through proxy (C-REINA)."
His chest tightened.
Reina hadn't just taken him in.
She'd been assigned.
There were video logs.
He tapped one.
A grainy feed.
A young Hernan — maybe eight — standing in a sandbox.
Muttering to himself.
Mimicking his father's final battle movements.
Shot-for-shot.
"He's still running simulations," said a voice offscreen."He's not conscious of it," said another. "It's cellular."
Rook staggered back.
His mind reeling.
All these years, he thought he'd survived because he was invisible.
But he'd never been invisible.
He'd been studied.
Cultivated.
Conditioned.
He checked the final file.
Protocol: Contingency AB-7"If Subject becomes unstable or discovers archive, activate memory-cull sequence via psychological intervention (coded handler: 'Spire')."
He froze.
Spire.
Ava.
Scene: Rooftop Above Orphanage – One Hour Later
The wind cut across the roof like it remembered him too.
Rook stood on the edge, hands clenched.
Ava had been planted not just to observe.
She was the failsafe.
Not for the Zodiac.
For him.
Aya's voice came through his comm.
"You're not saying anything."
"There's nothing left to say."
"You found something, didn't you?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he whispered:
"They didn't just kill my parents.They rewrote me.And then watched to see if I noticed."
Final Scene: Dorm 103 – 2:44 a.m.
Rook returned to his room. Sat at his desk.
He didn't sleep.
Didn't blink.
He opened a blank document and typed one line:
Name: Reina SalenStatus: UnknownAssignment Code: [C-REINA]Objective: Find out what she knew. And why she disappeared.Priority: Maximum.
And beneath it:
Note to self:If I was designed to remember him…Then I was engineered to finish what he started.