Chapter 21 - The Silent Subjects
Compressed air hissed through the laboratory.
One by one, the storage pods opened.
Emily expected medical equipment.
Instead, people slowly stepped out.
Men.
Women.
Young.
Old.
Each wore identical gray hospital clothing.
Each looked dazed.
None of them spoke.
They simply stood still, waiting.
Sarah whispered, "Don't make eye contact."
Emily ignored the warning.
A young man looked toward her.
His expression carried no anger.
No fear.
Only emptiness.
"What happened to them?" Emily asked.
Daniel answered quietly.
"They volunteered."
Sarah corrected him.
"Some did."
Emily counted at least thirty people inside the laboratory.
Every wrist carried a numbered bracelet.
No names.
Only numbers.
A woman's bracelet read 047.
An older man's bracelet read 112.
Then Emily noticed something impossible.
One woman wore bracelet 001.
She slowly raised her head.
Her face looked painfully familiar.
Not because Emily had met her.
Because she had seen old family photographs.
The woman looked exactly like Emily's mother when she was young.
Emily stepped forward.
"My mother died when I was sixteen."
The woman smiled faintly.
"That's what they wanted you to believe."
Daniel immediately grabbed Emily's arm.
"Don't."
"Why?"
"Because memories can be implanted."
The woman wearing bracelet 001 began crying.
"I've waited twenty-four years for you."
Emily felt tears forming without understanding why.
She wanted to believe.
She wanted to run toward the woman.
Yet every instinct warned her that emotion had become the easiest weapon inside this place.
Then bracelet 001 quietly said something only Emily's mother had ever told her as a child.
"The stars only disappear because morning forgets to look for them."
Emily froze.
She had never repeated those words to anyone.
May you like
Not even Daniel.
---
