The road to the cabin was long and winding, bordered by forests that grew darker the deeper we drove. Elara said nothing for hours, focused on the GPS coordinates she'd extracted from the tablet. I stared out the window, the trees flickering like pages of a forgotten book — too fast to read, too important to ignore. It had been three days since we left the warehouse. Three days since I learned I wasn't just hiding from something — I was hiding something inside me. A map encrypted in my wiped memories. A key only the original Aiden knew how to unlock. And I wasn't sure anymore if I wanted to become him again.
"We're close," Elara said softly, breaking the silence. "How do you know?" She lifted a slip of paper from the glovebox — an old photo. It showed a young boy standing beside a log cabin nestled in the hills. His hair was messy, and his shirt was two sizes too big. But the eyes... They were my eyes. "Elara… is that me?" "You once told me this was your sanctuary," she said. "You'd go there every year, even after your parents died. You said it was the only place that remembered who you really were." I stared at the boy in the photo, wondering what that version of me had hoped to become — and whether I had betrayed him.
The path narrowed until we couldn't drive any farther. We continued on foot, crunching over dead leaves, the air sharp and pine-scented. A sudden wind made the trees groan above us like old men whispering secrets.
Then we saw it. The cabin. It stood on a hill, half-swallowed by nature, but still intact. Smoke curled faintly from its chimney. I stopped cold. "Elara…" "I see it," she whispered. "Someone's already here."
We crept up slowly, moving like shadows. The front door was ajar. Inside, the fire crackled. The room smelled of cedar and time. A man stood at the table, facing away from us, flipping through a dusty notebook. He didn't flinch when we entered. "Elara," I said, hand inching toward the crowbar on my belt. But she lowered my arm. "Wait…" The man turned. He was tall, mid-forties maybe, hair graying at the temples, a deep scar running across his cheekbone. He smiled. "Hello, Aiden." I froze. "Who are you?" "You used to call me Locke," he said. "I was your mentor. Before the fall. Before RESET."
My stomach tightened. Something about him was familiar — not his face, but his voice. "Elara?" I asked cautiously. She looked shaken. "He worked at Verne Labs. I thought he died in the fire." Locke chuckled darkly. "A fire that someone started. To erase the trail. To destroy the prototypes." "You were one of the designers?" I asked. "I was the first," he said. "And you were my prodigy."
We sat around the fireplace while Locke poured us tea. It felt strange — like sharing drinks with the devil after learning he helped build the dungeon. "So," I said slowly, "why are you here?" "To help," he said. "I know what you're looking for. And I know what happens if the wrong people find it first." "You mean the map." Locke nodded. "The code you buried isn't just data. It's a construct — a psychological matrix. It adapts. Evolves. It's alive in a way. And it only responds to you." "What does it unlock?" Locke met my gaze, and for a moment, his facade slipped. "The truth," he said. "About who you were. About what you created. About why you had to forget."
He pulled out a worn journal from his coat. It was mine.Handwritten entries filled every page. Diagrams. Emotional rants. Confessions. But the middle section had a cipher — a pattern of symbols and scrambled coordinates. A path. "This is the first part of the map," Locke said. "The rest is buried in your subconscious. You created mental locks for each phase. Memories that have to be triggered in a certain order." "And if I get the order wrong?" "You'll collapse," he said flatly. "Your mind will shut down to protect itself." I swallowed hard. "So how do I remember safely?""That," Locke said, "is why I'm here."
He led us down a narrow hallway to a hidden door behind a bookshelf. Inside was a small room — stone walls, flickering candles, and in the center, a strange device resembling a modern confession booth with biometric sensors. "You built this too?" I asked. "No. You did," he replied. "You called it The Mirror. It scans your neural patterns while guiding you through memory projections. But it only works with someone who knows your mind." I raised an eyebrow. "Like you?" Locke smiled again, but this time, it didn't reach his eyes. "Or like Elara." I turned to her. She looked pale but nodded. "I'll guide you." "You sure?" I asked. She gripped my hand. "You brought me into this. I'm staying until the end."
I sat in the chair. Electrodes were placed against my temples. A scanner locked onto my pupils. I exhaled. "Ready," I said. Locke flipped a switch. The room vanished. I was standing in a hospital hallway.Everything was grey-tinted, slightly blurred at the edges like a dream. A nurse rushed past me. A child cried down the corridor. The air smelled of antiseptic and fear. Then I heard her voice. "Aiden, please—just come inside." I turned. A woman was standing at the doorway. Her eyes were red from crying. She was holding a boy's coat. My coat. "Mom?" I whispered. She walked through me like smoke. I entered the room. A child lay on the bed — hooked to machines, breathing shallow. Around him stood doctors arguing in hushed tones. I recognized the child immediately. It was me. But dying.
Suddenly, memory surged. The illness. The diagnosis. The miracle trial. RESET wasn't just a memory project. It was a survival mechanism. A way to reprogram terminal minds. It started with me. "You were Patient Zero…" I murmured. The memory dissolved. I woke up gasping. Elara was holding my face, whispering my name. Locke leaned over me. "Well?" he asked. "What did you see?" I looked at them both. "I saw the beginning."
That night, I stood outside the cabin, staring up at the stars. I wasn't just the creator of RESET. I was its first subject. And if that part of the map had been hidden inside a childhood trauma, I couldn't begin to imagine what the next pieces would cost me to recover. But I had to try. Because now I understood the stakes. RESET didn't just wipe memories. It rewrote identity. And if someone else used it — truly weaponized it — the world wouldn't just forget. It would believe the wrong thing forever.