Chapter 14: The Man Living Inside Me
I could hear my father's breathing.
Not through the room.
Not through a speaker.
Inside my own head.
Slow.
Calm.
Patient.
Like he had been waiting there for years.
“Daniel.”
I covered my ears.
“Get out.”
Claire rushed toward me.
“Daniel!”
“Don't touch me!”
I pushed myself against the wall.
My head felt like it was splitting apart.
Alex shouted:
“Keep him awake!”
Claire grabbed my face.
“Look at me!”
I stared at her.
“I'm here.”
“No.”
“Daniel, listen to me.”
“He's inside me.”
“I know.”
My stomach dropped.
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
My father's voice laughed inside my skull.
“She knew everything.”
I screamed.
“Stop!”
Tommy began crying.
“Daddy!”
I looked at him.
For one second, I saw his face change.
Not Tommy.
My father.
Then it was gone.
Claire pulled Tommy away.
“Don't look at him.”
I stared at her.
“Why?”
“Because he can use your memories.”
“What does that mean?”
“He can make you see things.”
My father laughed.
“She's right.”
I shut my eyes.
Suddenly I was seven again.
Standing in the laboratory.
My father was holding a gun.
My mother was screaming.
A little boy stood beside me.
Alex.
I heard a gunshot.
Then everything changed.
I was twenty-eight.
Claire was holding my hand.
Emma was sleeping beside us.
My father entered.
Then another memory.
I was five.
Lily was running through the garden.
Then another.
Tommy was a newborn.
Then another.
A woman I didn't recognize.
She was crying.
“Please don't take my baby.”
My father said:
“Every memory becomes useful eventually.”
I opened my eyes.
“What is happening?”
Alex answered:
“He's searching your memories.”
“For what?”
“The original sequence.”
“What sequence?”
“The one that proves he can die.”
My father's voice became furious.
“Alex.”
Alex smiled.
“You're scared.”
“You were always jealous.”
“Of you?”
“Of what I created.”
Alex laughed.
“You created nothing.”
My father screamed inside my head.
The lights flickered.
Machines began turning on by themselves.
Claire backed away.
“What is he doing?”
Alex looked at the monitors.
“He's activating the archive.”
“But it's damaged.”
“Not all of it.”
A screen came alive.
A single file appeared.
PROJECT ECHO: FINAL SUBJECT
Then another line.
HOST: DANIEL REED
Then:
CONSCIOUSNESS STATUS: UNSTABLE
I stared.
“What does unstable mean?”
Alex looked at me.
“It means two consciousnesses are fighting for one brain.”
I felt a cold wave.
“Who wins?”
“The stronger one.”
I looked at Claire.
“How do we know which one is stronger?”
Alex pointed toward the screen.
“You.”
“Me?”
“Your father has decades of memories.”
“But I have my own.”
“Exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“He knows how to control you.”
I swallowed.
“And I know how to resist him.”
Alex nodded.
“But there's a problem.”
“What?”
“You're not the only one fighting.”
I looked at Tommy.
He was crying.
Then Emma stepped forward.
“Daddy.”
I knelt.
“What?”
“You need to remember the promise.”
“What promise?”
“The one you made to me.”
I stared at her.
“What did I promise?”
She smiled sadly.
“You said you'd always come back.”
I closed my eyes.
A memory appeared.
A hospital room.
Emma as a baby.
I held her.
“Daddy always comes back.”
I opened my eyes.
Something inside me changed.
My father's voice became quieter.
“Don't.”
I stood.
“I remember.”
Alex smiled.
“Good.”
“What now?”
“Go to the central chamber.”
“Why?”
“That's where the original memory is stored.”
“The vial?”
“Yes.”
“What do I do with it?”
“Open it.”
Claire looked horrified.
“No.”
Alex stared at her.
“You know what happens.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
She looked at me.
“If he opens it…”
She paused.
“…every memory will return at once.”
I stared.
“And?”
“You could lose yourself.”
My father's voice whispered:
“She knows you'll choose me.”
I smiled.
“No.”
He went silent.
I walked toward the chamber.
The door opened.
Inside, the remaining machines were glowing.
At the center stood the glass container.
The silver vial waited inside.
ORIGINAL MEMORY.
I reached for it.
My father's voice returned.
“Daniel, stop.”
I ignored him.
“If you open that, you won't survive.”
I touched the glass.
“You don't know what you'll become.”
I lifted the vial.
“You're my creation.”
I smiled.
“No.”
Then I opened it.
The world exploded.
Every memory entered my mind at once.
My birth.
My childhood.
Alex.
My father.
My mother.
Claire.
Emma.
Lily.
Tommy.
The laboratory.
The fire.
The hospital.
The transfer.
The truth.
And then I saw the memory my father had hidden from everyone.
The first experiment.
I wasn't Subject Zero.
Alex wasn't Subject Zero.
There was another.
A little girl.
My sister.
She was born before us.
Her name was Sarah.
My mother held her.
My father took her.
“She died,” my mother whispered.
“No,” my father replied.
“She was transferred.”
“Into whom?”
My father smiled.
“Daniel.”
I gasped.
The memory shifted.
I saw myself as a baby.
Then Sarah's consciousness was transferred into me.
Not Alex's.
Sarah's.
I had carried my sister's memories my entire life.
But my father had suppressed them.
Then another memory appeared.
The truth about Emma.
She wasn't simply my daughter.
She carried Sarah's remaining memories.
That's why she remembered the laboratory.
That's why she knew things no child should know.
Then Lily.
She wasn't a replacement.
She was created from my original DNA.
And Tommy?
Tommy carried the final fragment.
My father's consciousness.
The entire experiment was designed around one goal.
To reconstruct Sarah.
My father hadn't been trying to become immortal.
He had been trying to bring his dead daughter back.
I opened my eyes.
My father was screaming inside my head.
“You weren't supposed to remember that!”
I laughed.
“You killed all those children for her.”
“I was trying to save her!”
“You destroyed everyone.”
“She was my daughter!”
“You turned me into her prison.”
Silence.
Then my father whispered:
“And she is still alive.”
I froze.
“Who?”
The lights went out.
A little girl's voice came from behind me.
“Me.”
I turned.
A young girl stood in the doorway.
She looked about ten years old.
Dark hair.
Pale skin.
My eyes.
Alex's face.
Emma's expression.
I couldn't breathe.
“Sarah?”
She smiled.
“Yes.”
Claire covered her mouth.
Alex stared at her.
“No…”
Sarah walked toward me.
“Hello, brother.”
I couldn't move.
“How?”
She touched my face.
“Because you remembered me.”
My father's voice inside my head became strangely quiet.
Then Sarah whispered:
“Daddy isn't the one controlling you anymore.”
I looked at her.
“What do you mean?”
She smiled.
“He's afraid.”
“Of what?”
Sarah looked toward Tommy.
“Of him.”
Tommy stopped crying.
He looked directly at Sarah.
Then smiled.
“Sarah.”
She smiled back.
“Hello, little brother.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“Little brother?”
Sarah nodded.
“Tommy isn't carrying Grandpa.”
“Then whose memories are inside him?”
She looked at me.
“Yours.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Tommy is the part of you that your father couldn't erase.”
My heart stopped.
“The part that remembers everything.”
Sarah stepped closer.
“He is your original consciousness.”
I looked at Tommy.
He smiled.
And suddenly I understood.
The child I had been trying to protect wasn't a replacement.
He wasn't Alex.
He wasn't my father's vessel.
He was me.
The part of me that had survived every transfer.
Every experiment.
Every lie.
Every death.
My father's voice screamed:
“NO!”
Sarah looked at me.
“Now you know how to defeat him.”
“How?”
She pointed toward my chest.
“Choose yourself.”
I closed my eyes.
My father's voice became louder.
“I made you!”
I remembered Claire.
“You belong to me!”
I remembered Emma.
“You are nothing without me!”
I remembered Lily.
“You are my creation!”
I remembered Tommy.
Then I remembered the promise.
Daddy always comes back.
I opened my eyes.
“You're wrong.”
The voice inside me went silent.
I whispered:
“I don't belong to you.”
The room shook.
Machines exploded.
The lights flashed white.
My father's consciousness screamed.
“DANIEL!”
I felt something tear inside my mind.
Then silence.
Absolute silence.
I collapsed.
Claire caught me.
“Daniel?”
I opened my eyes.
She was crying.
“Is he gone?”
I listened.
Nothing.
“No voice.”
Alex approached.
“Then it's over.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
He frowned.
“What?”
I pointed toward the doorway.
Sarah was gone.
“So where did she go?”
Alex looked around.
His face changed.
“She shouldn't have been able to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because Sarah's body was destroyed twenty years ago.”
I stared at him.
“Then who was that?”
A cold silence filled the room.
Then Tommy whispered:
“Mommy.”
I turned toward Claire.
She looked terrified.
“What?”
Tommy pointed behind her.
I turned.
A little girl stood in the doorway.
Sarah.
But this time she wasn't smiling.
She was crying.
And behind her stood my mother.
Holding a gun.
My mother looked at me.
“I'm sorry, Daniel.”
She raised the gun.
“But if Sarah has returned…”
May you like
Her finger moved toward the trigger.
“…then everyone in this room has to die.”
