The night was ink-dark, bleeding into the edges of Maya's mind like a dream unraveling too fast. Streetlamps blinked far below her hospital window, their glow casting long, golden veins across the floor like the city was trying to touch her… remind her she was still real.
But Maya felt anything but real.
She stood barefoot on the cold tiles, her IV pole casting a shadow behind her like a second self—silent, looming. Her fingers trembled as they brushed the windowpane. The glass was warm from the day, but her skin felt like frost.
Something inside her was shifting again. The edges of her memories had started to shimmer—like old film reels glitching mid-frame.
She closed her eyes.
Flash.
She was in a field. Wind roaring in her ears. A sky full of stars that shouldn't exist. Liam was there, laughing, his voice like gravity pulling her in.
Flash.
A lab. Her body shaking. Screams. Cold wires on her skull. A woman with silver eyes. "Do you remember who you are, Maya?"
Flash.
Liam crying into her lap. "You said you'd stay. You promised me forever."
She gasped, staggering back from the window, her heartbeat pounding like a war drum. The room tilted sideways. Reality stretched… then snapped.
"Maya!"
Liam's voice.
She looked up to see him running to her, the red file clutched to his chest. He caught her just before she collapsed, arms wrapping tight around her as if to hold the fragments of her together.
"It's happening again," she whispered. "I'm breaking apart…"
"No, you're remembering," he whispered fiercely. "They took pieces of you, but they didn't destroy you."
He guided her back to the bed, brushing damp hair from her forehead as her body trembled in his arms.
She looked at him, and something flickered in her gaze.
"Liam… do you remember the rooftop in Florence? The fountain lights? The yellow scarf I stole from you?"
His breath caught.
"You… you remember that?" he whispered.
She smiled, but it was heartbreakingly fragile. "Only for a second. But it was real."
He cradled her tighter. "Then we're winning. Even if it's second by second."
The monitors around them beeped softly, a lullaby of borrowed time. Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the window, as if the world was warning them: nothing stays safe forever.
Suddenly, the door creaked open.
A figure in black. A man with a scar over his right eye and a presence that filled the room like smoke.
"You shouldn't have opened that file," he said, voice calm but sharp.
Liam stood, placing himself between Maya and the intruder.
"I don't care who you are. You're not touching her."
The man's lips curled into a smile. "Oh, I'm not here to hurt her. I'm here because I'm the only one who knows how to stop what's coming."
Maya's eyes widened. "Stop what?"
The man's gaze fixed on her—intense, unsettling. "The virus inside you… it wasn't a mutation. It was planted. And if we don't erase it soon, you'll lose not just your memories… but your soul."
Lightning flashed outside the window, igniting the shadows like the strike of a match. The storm had finally arrived.
And the real war was just beginning.