Chapter 10 - The Memory WarThe memories began falling from the sky.
One showed Elliot's first day at school.
Another showed Christmas.
Another showed his mother teaching him to ride a bicycle.
Another showed his father laughing.
Each photograph shattered when it touched the ground.
Elliot tried to catch one.
The instant his fingers touched it, he heard a voice.
“You don't remember this.”
The memory changed.
His mother screamed at him.
His father disappeared.
Noah stood in the corner.
Everything was wrong.
Elliot pulled his hand away.
“No.”
Noah grabbed him.
“That's how she wins.”
“By changing memories?”
“By making you doubt which ones are yours.”
Elliot looked around.
“How do I know what is real?”
“You don't.”
“That isn't helpful.”
Noah almost smiled.
“It isn't supposed to be.”
A giant shadow spread across the sky.
Evelyn appeared.
“You cannot defeat me.”
Elliot shouted:
“Why?”
“Because I am every person who ever loved you.”
“No.”
“I am your mother.”
“No.”
“Your father.”
“No.”
“Your brother.”
Elliot looked at Noah.
Evelyn changed.
She became Elliot as a child.
“I am you.”
Elliot's heart pounded.
Noah whispered:
“Don't believe anything she says.”
Evelyn reached toward them.
“You have one memory I cannot change.”
Elliot looked at Noah.
“What?”
“Your first memory.”
Elliot closed his eyes.
He remembered rain.
A red toy car.
His mother's voice.
A warm hand.
Then darkness.
He opened his eyes.
“That isn't my first memory.”
Noah shook his head.
“Exactly.”
“Then what is?”
Noah looked toward the horizon.
“You weren't born in the hospital.”
Elliot's body went cold.
“Where?”
Noah pointed.
The old psychiatric facility appeared.
At its center was a small room.
Inside stood a newborn baby.
Elliot.
Claire held him.
Daniel stood beside her.
And Evelyn watched from behind the glass.
Elliot realized something terrible.
He wasn't transferred into the machine before birth.
He had been created inside it.
A manufactured child.
A vessel designed from fragments of many minds.
His entire childhood had been built afterward.
Noah whispered:
“You were the experiment.”
Elliot stared at him.
“Then who were my parents?”
Noah smiled sadly.
“That's the question Evelyn is afraid you'll ask.”
The sky cracked.
The house appeared around them.
The real house.
The original living room.
The red toy car sat on the rug.
Elliot heard a child's voice.
“Mom?”
Claire appeared in the doorway.
But this time she was smiling.
“Come here, baby.”
Elliot stepped forward.
Noah grabbed him.
“Don't.”
The figure smiled.
Then whispered:
“No, sweetie…”
Elliot realized.
It was the creature.
And behind it stood the real Claire.
Bound.
May you like
Bleeding.
Alive.
