The door opened another inch.
Nobody spoke.
I could hear Emily breathing behind me, slow and uneven, while the baby made a soft sound against her shoulder. Jason stood on my right. Michael stood on my left. Dr. Vale remained closest to the door, her hand hovering just above the handle.
Then the woman on the other side said my mother's name again.
“Evelyn.”
I knew that voice.
Not because I had heard it recently.
Because I had heard it in dreams.
A woman's voice speaking softly from the hallway when I was a child. A voice telling me to close my eyes. A voice saying that if anyone asked, I should say I had never seen the room behind the blue door.
I had always thought those dreams were fragments of childhood imagination.
Now I knew better.
“Open it,” I said.
Dr. Vale looked at me.
“You're certain?”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“But I'm done being afraid of things I don't understand.”
Dr. Vale opened the door fully.
The woman standing there was old.
Not ancient, but old enough that the lines around her eyes were deep and permanent. Her gray hair was pulled into a loose knot. She wore a plain dark cardigan over a white shirt.
And on her left wrist was a silver watch.
Not similar to Dr. Vale's.
The same one.
I looked at Dr. Vale.
She slowly removed the watch from her own wrist.
The older woman smiled.
“You finally gave it back.”
Dr. Vale stared at her.
“You were supposed to be dead.”
“I was supposed to be many things.”
The stranger stepped forward.
“Who is she?”
The older woman looked at him.
“You really don't recognize me?”
He shook his head.
She smiled sadly.
“You were young when you left.”
Then she looked at Michael.
“You weren't.”
Michael's face went white.
“Mother?”
The word barely escaped him.
Jason stared at Michael.
I couldn't move.
The woman walked toward us.
“I know what you're thinking,” she said.
Michael shook his head.
“No.”
“You always did that when you were frightened.”
“You died.”
“No.”
“Dad told me you died.”
“Your father lied.”
Michael's eyes filled.
“Mom?”
She nodded.
“I never died.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Evelyn Prescott stood in front of us.
My mother.
The woman whose funeral I had attended.
The woman whose photographs filled our house.
The woman I had spent years grieving.
Alive.
Jason backed against the wall.
“That's not possible.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“You were always the one who questioned everything.”
Jason laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“I don't even know who I am.”
“You are Jason.”
“But Michael is Jason.”
“No,” Evelyn said gently. “Michael is Michael.”
She looked at her first son.
“And you are the son your father created after they took him.”
Jason's face tightened.
“Then what am I?”
Evelyn walked toward him.
“You are the child who was given a chance.”
Jason looked away.
“I was made from him.”
“Partly.”
“But I'm not him.”
“No.”
She touched his cheek.
“You never were.”
Michael began to cry.
I had never seen him cry before.
He looked at our mother as though he were trying to reconcile the woman standing before him with the memory of the mother who had disappeared.
“Why didn't you come back?”
Evelyn looked at him for a long moment.
“Because if I came back, they would have followed me.”
“Who?”
“The people above us.”
Dr. Vale closed the door behind her.
Evelyn turned toward the sealed chamber.
“They've already found the house.”
“We know,” I said.
“No. You don't.”
She looked at the baby.
“They aren't here for Project Eden.”
Emily's arms tightened.
“Then what do they want?”
Evelyn answered quietly.
“They want what existed before Eden.”
The stranger stared at her.
“You knew.”
“I knew enough.”
“You told me Evelyn was dead.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“You believed what Edward needed you to believe.”
The stranger lowered his eyes.
“Edward asked me to protect you.”
“You protected the secret.”
“I thought they would kill you.”
“They nearly did.”
The words came without anger.
That somehow made them worse.
I stepped toward my mother.
“You knew about me.”
“Yes.”
“You knew what I was.”
“You were my daughter before you were anything else.”
“Subject 12?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“Your father used that number because numbers were easier to hide than names.”
“Then why did everyone call me that?”
“Because the program needed you to be a specimen.”
She reached for my hand.
I almost pulled away.
Instead, I let her hold it.
Her palm was warm.
Real.
“I remember you,” she said.
“From before I was born?”
“From before you knew me.”
I felt tears burn behind my eyes.
“What does that mean?”
Evelyn looked toward the Origin chamber.
“It means the fourth sequence isn't genetic.”
Dr. Vale inhaled sharply.
“Evelyn.”
“No more lies.”
The older woman walked toward the central console.
She placed her hand over the silver watch.
“The fourth sequence is memory.”
Jason stared at her.
“Whose?”
Evelyn looked at me.
“Yours.”
I shook my head.
“I don't understand.”
“You were born with memories that weren't yours.”
The bathroom.
The garden.
The red bicycle.
The blue blanket.
The scar.
The photograph.
They weren't merely memories of my childhood.
They were pieces of someone else's life.
“Whose memories?”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“Mine.”
Michael stepped closer.
“And mine.”
Evelyn nodded.
“And others.”
The room fell silent.
“The researchers thought they had discovered a genetic phenomenon,” she said. “They hadn't. They had discovered a biological ability to preserve experiences.”
“That's impossible,” the stranger said.
“It was impossible until it wasn't.”
Evelyn pointed toward the Origin chamber.
“Your father spent years trying to prove the fourth sequence came from me.”
She looked at me.
“He was wrong.”
A monitor activated.
One word appeared.
SOURCE.
Then beneath it:
UNKNOWN.
Evelyn smiled without happiness.
“That is why they have never been able to control it.”
The baby stirred.
The mark on her back began glowing faintly through the fabric of her clothes.
Everyone saw it.
Evelyn's expression changed.
“She's activating.”
Emily held her tighter.
“What do we do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Let her be herself.”
The laboratory above us shook.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
Someone had breached the upper chamber.
Dr. Vale looked toward the stairs.
“They're coming.”
Evelyn nodded.
“I know.”
Michael looked at his mother.
“Then why are you calm?”
She looked at him.
“Because Edward finally did what I asked.”
“What?”
“He left you a choice.”
She pointed toward the archive.
“Destroy Eden.”
Then toward the Origin chamber.
“Or open it.”
I looked at my daughter.
Then at my mother.
“What happens if we open it?”
Evelyn's expression became serious.
“You'll see where the memories began.”
“And if we destroy it?”
“You end the program.”
“Which means?”
“No one can ever use it again.”
The footsteps above us grew louder.
Jason looked at me.
“Then we need to decide now.”
I looked through the open doorway.
For twenty-eight years, my family had been living inside someone else's explanation.
I wasn't going to let them write the ending too.
I stepped toward the Origin chamber.
“Open it.”
Evelyn smiled.
The door began to unlock.
Click here to continue reading: PART 18: The First Memory
My Twin Brother Had Waited Years for This Child, Yet the First Thing He Saw After Her Birth Made Him Step Away
Part 17 of 20
