She hadn't said anything in twenty minutes.
Not since the name slipped out—Em. Not since the silence that followed, heavy and sharp, like the space left after a scream.
Eli didn't push her. He just sat beside her on the porch, elbows on knees, staring into the thick green woods like the truth might step out from between the trees.
Ava finally spoke, her voice cracked and quiet. "She had a scar. Right here."
She touched the inside of her left wrist, just below the bone. A faint shadow there, not quite visible, but her body remembered the way it used to look—pink and jagged.
"She hated the rain," she added. "But we used to run in it anyway."
A pause.
"She made up stories about the stars."
Eli tilted his head toward her. "You loved her."
It wasn't a question.
Ava nodded, but her jaw clenched.
"I don't know if she's alive, or if… or if she's part of what they erased."
"Do you remember what happened to her?"
Her eyes stayed on the trees. "Only the goodbye."
---
By mid-morning, they'd packed.
It wasn't a decision they made out loud—it just was. Ava moved through the cabin like someone shedding skin. She picked up only what mattered: the key, the photo, the chain. Left the rest behind.
Eli folded the papers, slid the audio logs into a small zip bag, then paused at the last file.
Ava's name on the cover again.
He opened it.
Inside: a note.
> "If Subject 7B begins spontaneous recovery, initiate Retrieval Protocol. Phase 3 must not begin without full reset."
His hands went still.
He slipped the note into his jacket pocket and didn't say a word.
---
The drive back into town felt different.
Too bright.
Too clean.
Like nothing in the real world should be allowed to exist while memories like that were crawling back into Ava's brain. Like people should at least feel it—the weight of someone forgetting themselves, the ache of a name that used to mean home.
She sat in the passenger seat, eyes fixed forward, holding the photo like it might fall apart if she let go.
"Where do we even start?" Eli asked.
Ava didn't answer right away.
Then: "She used to talk about the Bell Tower. It wasn't even that big, just this old broken thing in the forest. But we used to leave stuff there—drawings, notes, sometimes just... things we didn't want anyone else to find."
"Like a hideout?
"Like a graveyard for secrets."
She turned to him then. "If they didn't find it, maybe something's still there."
---
The Bell Tower wasn't on any map.
But Ava didn't need one.
Somewhere between remembering and instinct, her feet found the path before her brain did. The air grew thicker as they walked—more pine, more dampness. The kind of place where time slowed and sounds got swallowed whole.
It took nearly an hour before the shape appeared through the trees.
And when it did, she stopped in her tracks.
The tower was barely standing now. Moss-covered stone. Part of the roof caved in. Wooden steps leading nowhere.
But she knew it.
Every inch.
"I used to sit right there," she murmured, pointing at a low rock beside the foundation. "She would braid blades of grass and tell me we were gonna run away someday. That we'd fake our deaths and live under different names."
Eli gave a small smile. "Sounds like someone I'd like."
Ava didn't smile back.
She walked ahead, careful, like she was afraid the place might vanish if she moved too fast. Inside, the air was cold and stale. Light filtered through the cracks in the ceiling, cutting through the dust in soft beams.
She moved to the back corner.
There, beneath a loose stone—something white.
She knelt and pulled it free.
A tin lunchbox. Rusted. Faded stickers barely clinging to its sides.
Ava stared at it like it was a bomb.
Eli crouched beside her.
"You okay?"
She didn't answer.
Just opened it.
Inside:
— A folded piece of notebook paper
— A rubber bracelet, the kind kids make from loom bands
— A pink hairclip
— And a cassette tape
Ava's fingers trembled.
She unfolded the paper first. There were two lines:
> "If they find you, forget me.
If you remember, come back." —Em
Ava sucked in a sharp breath.
Eli reached over, steadying her hand. "That tape… you think it's hers?"
"I know it is."
---
Back at the car, they didn't wait.
The tape clicked into the player, and Ava closed her eyes as the static gave way to a soft voice.
Not a doctor. Not a therapist.
A girl.
EM (tape): "Hey, Ava. I don't know if you'll ever hear this. If you do… it means you remembered something. And I guess that means I failed, huh?"
She let out a small laugh. It cracked Ava in two.
EM (tape): "They said if you started remembering, bad things would happen. But I didn't believe them. I thought we could beat it. I thought if we held on tight enough to who we were, we'd get out together."
The voice wavered.
EM (tape): "But I was wrong. I'm sorry. I tried."
A long pause. Then softer:
EM (tape): "If you're listening to this… please find me. Before they do."
The tape clicked off.
Silence.
Ava stared out the windshield, breathing hard, like she'd just run through a storm.
"She's alive," she whispered.
"She could be."
"No. I'd know if she wasn't."
Eli nodded slowly. Then pulled the key out of his pocket—the one Ava had found in the black box.
"Think this opens something she left behind?"
Ava didn't blink. "I think it opens the door they tried to lock behind us."
---
The motel smelled like bleach and old secrets.
Flickering neon buzzed outside the window, casting sharp pink flashes across the peeling walls. Ava stood in the corner of the room, arms folded tightly across her chest, like she could hold herself together if she just squeezed hard enough.
Eli was on the bed, turning the key over in his hands.
Neither of them had spoken in the last five minutes—not since they replayed the tape again, and Ava memorized every breath Em took between words. Like she could hear something else hiding in the static. Like Em was trying to say more, but the tape ran out too soon.
"Where do we even begin?" Eli asked quietly.
Ava stared at the key. "It's not just a key. It's a message."
He glanced up. "How do you mean?"
"She gave it to me after they wiped everything. That means she knew. She planned for this."
Eli nodded, slowly. "So, she planted something. Left you a trail."
Ava moved to the window, looked out at the dark parking lot like maybe the next clue was hiding behind a soda machine or in the crack of pavement. But all she saw was the weight of everything she didn't know pressing against the glass.
"I keep getting pieces," she whispered. "But not the moment everything broke. Not the why."
"You think this key's gonna unlock it?"
"I think it'll unlock her."
---
They didn't sleep.
At sunrise, they were already in the car, engine humming like a low drumbeat under a rising sky. The air was crisp, golden, full of the kind of quiet that only exists right before something changes.
Ava clutched the note from the lunchbox in one hand.
> If they find you, forget me.
If you remember, come back.
That word again—remember. Always circling her like a shadow she couldn't turn fast enough to catch.
The GPS didn't help. They weren't headed anywhere specific, just letting instinct—or maybe muscle memory—guide them. Every town looked the same. Every billboard, every stretch of empty road.
Until they passed the overpass.
Ava sat up straighter. "Wait. That sign."
Eli slowed. "What about it?"
"'Ridgeview Behavioral.' I've seen it. I've been there."
He glanced at her. "You're sure?"
"No." She looked away. "But my stomach is."
---
The place was buried deep in the woods, half-swallowed by vines and years of abandonment. It looked like something out of a dream—too real to be fake, too fake to be trusted. The front gate was chained, rusted, barely hanging on.
But the side fence?
Loose.
Almost like someone had peeled it back, long ago, and never bothered to fix it.
Inside, the building groaned with old wind and broken things. Soggy papers littered the hallways. Empty gurneys. Cracked tile. A file cabinet tilted like it had lost the will to stand upright.
"This is it," Ava whispered. "I can feel it."
Eli stayed close, one hand in his jacket, the other holding the flashlight low. He didn't say anything, didn't need to.
They reached a locked door at the end of the west wing. The kind with a keyhole small and old.
Ava pulled the key from her pocket, fingers shaking.
It slid in smooth.
Clicked.
The door creaked open.
And there it was.
A room.
Simple. Clean, in a way the rest of the building wasn't. Dust, yes—but untouched. Like no one had dared come in since... since her.
Drawings lined the walls. Scrawled words. Maps that made no sense unless you saw them the way Em must have. And in the center—taped to the wall, yellowing but still legible—was a photo of Ava.
Not the Ava of now. Not the fractured, stitched-back-together version.
A younger Ava.
Smiling.
Free.
Underneath, in tiny handwriting:
> "Don't forget who you were before they told you who to be."
Ava sank to her knees.
It wasn't grief.
It was something older. Something heavier.
It was recognition.
---
Eli crouched beside her, eyes scanning the walls.
"These drawings," he said, "they're maps. She was tracking something."
"Locations," Ava murmured. "Hideouts. Maybe places we were... or where we tried to run."
Her hand hovered over a symbol—two overlapping circles with a line through the middle.
It felt familiar.
"She was planning something."
"Or warning me."
Eli pulled a drawer open on the far side. Inside: more tapes. Labeled with dates. Some recent. Some old.
One simply said: "Last one."
He held it up. "You ready?"
Ava hesitated.
Then nodded.
He clicked the recorder on.
EM (tape): "If you found this, it means you've remembered too much."
A beat.
EM (tape): "And it means I don't have much time left."
Ava's hands clenched around her sleeves.
EM (tape): "They wanted to turn us into blank slates. Make us weapons. Or maybe ghosts. I don't even know anymore. All I know is… they couldn't erase everything."
There was a long silence. Like she was choosing her next words carefully.
EM (tape): "Ava, if you're listening… don't let them make you forget me again. Don't let them turn you into someone you're not. You're more than the name they stamped on your chart."
A small, almost-sob.
EM (tape): "And if you find me—don't be afraid of what I've become."
Click.
Silence.
Eli looked over.
Ava's eyes were wet, but not broken.
"I'm gonna find her," she said.
"Yeah," Eli replied. "You are."
They stood in the center of that forgotten room, surrounded by the echoes of a girl who had fought like hell to leave a breadcrumb trail behind.
And for the first time, Ava didn't feel like she was drowning in someone else's past.
She felt like she was waking up in her own.