Chapter 13: The Mother Beneath the Hospital
The darkness lasted only a few seconds.
But in those few seconds, everything changed.
Because the voice we had just heard…
The voice of a woman who should have been dead…
had destroyed the only truth we thought we knew.
Sarah Carter.
My mother.
Alive.
Hidden beneath the hospital.
And her final words kept repeating in my head.
“The child you call the original is not my son.”
I looked toward the screen.
It was black.
The live feed had disappeared.
Nobody moved.
Not Thomas.
Not me.
Not even the child’s voice from the speakers.
For the first time since I met him…
Subject Zero was silent.
Then Thomas whispered:
“She’s alive.”
His voice sounded broken.
I turned toward him.
“You knew?”
Thomas looked at the floor.
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Too quickly.
I stared at him.
“You knew something.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“I knew she might have survived.”
My anger returned.
“Might have?”
I stepped closer.
“My entire life is a lie, and you’re still hiding things?”
Thomas looked at me.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“Everyone says that.”
The words came out colder than I expected.
“Everyone keeps saying they’re protecting me.”
I pointed toward the dark screen.
“My mother.”
“The hospital.”
“Daniel.”
“You.”
I swallowed.
“Who was actually protecting me?”
Nobody answered.
Then the underground door opened.
A woman stood there.
Old.
Weak.
Connected to a portable medical machine.
But alive.
My heart stopped.
Sarah Carter.
My mother.
For several seconds, I forgot how to breathe.
I had imagined this moment.
Thousands of times.
A mother returning.
A family reunited.
But reality was different.
Because the woman standing in front of me looked at me like she had already lost me once.
And she was afraid it would happen again.
“Ethan.”
My name.
The way she said it.
Something inside me broke.
I had not heard that voice in my memories.
But my body recognized it.
I stepped backward.
“How do you know my name?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Because I gave it to you.”
Thomas looked shocked.
“Ethan?”
I looked at him.
“What?”
Sarah stared at me.
“That is your real name.”
The room became silent.
My identity.
Again.
Another piece of myself being pulled apart.
I looked at Thomas.
“You knew?”
He shook his head.
“No.”
Sarah walked closer.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Like approaching a wounded animal.
“You were never supposed to grow up like this.”
I felt anger.
“You left me.”
Her expression collapsed.
“No.”
A tear fell.
“I lost you.”
The difference between those words hurt.
“What happened?”
Sarah looked at the machines around us.
“The night Project 214 failed…”
She stopped.
“The hospital changed everything.”
I listened.
“Your body was dying.”
She looked at me.
“You were eight years old.”
I nodded.
“I know.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“You know the version they gave you.”
A pause.
“You don’t know what happened after.”
The lights above flickered.
Sarah continued:
“The procedure created something unexpected.”
She looked toward the hallway.
“Not copies.”
“Connections.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
She looked at me.
“It means every consciousness created after the first one was connected to you.”
My stomach tightened.
“Connected how?”
“Like branches from one tree.”
She pointed toward herself.
“The source was never a person.”
A pause.
“It was a pattern.”
I looked confused.
Sarah continued:
“Project 214 wasn’t trying to bring people back.”
“It was trying to create a permanent human consciousness.”
Thomas whispered:
“Immortality.”
Sarah nodded.
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
“And you were the first successful pattern.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Ethan.”
She stepped closer.
“You need to understand.”
Her voice softened.
“You are not a copy.”
A pause.
“You are the original pattern.”
The room went silent.
I looked at the child on the monitor.
Subject Zero.
“If that’s true…”
I swallowed.
“What is he?”
Sarah’s face changed.
Fear.
Real fear.
“The first mistake.”
The speakers suddenly activated.
The child’s voice returned.
“You always hated that word.”
Everyone looked up.
Subject Zero.
His voice was calm.
But something had changed.
He sounded older.
Colder.
“You created me.”
Sarah looked toward the speaker.
“I tried to save you.”
“No.”
The child answered.
“You tried to replace me.”
The screen turned on.
A camera feed appeared.
Subject Zero was standing inside Room 214.
But he was no longer an eight-year-old child.
His appearance changed rapidly.
A flicker.
A distortion.
For a moment, he looked like me.
Then Daniel.
Then Thomas.
Then Elizabeth.
Then finally…
A face I had never seen.
The original.
The person before all copies.
Sarah stepped backward.
“No…”
Thomas looked terrified.
“What is happening?”
The child smiled.
“I remembered.”
The room temperature seemed to drop.
“I remembered what I was before they changed me.”
Sarah whispered:
“That’s impossible.”
The child looked at the camera.
“Is it?”
A pause.
“You built a machine to preserve consciousness.”
His voice became darker.
“But you never asked what happens when consciousness refuses to stay the same.”
The screens around us turned on.
Hundreds of patient files appeared.
Every experiment.
Every failed subject.
Every person connected to Project 214.
Then one file appeared at the top.
SUBJECT ZERO
Status:
NOT HUMAN
Nobody spoke.
Sarah looked horrified.
“No…”
The child continued:
“I was not created.”
A pause.
“I was discovered.”
I felt a chill.
“What does that mean?”
The child looked at me.
“It means I existed before you.”
The countdown continued.
01:15:00
Sarah suddenly looked at the timer.
Her face changed.
“We need to stop the merge.”
Thomas looked at her.
“How?”
Sarah looked at me.
“You have to choose.”
I frowned.
“Choose what?”
She looked toward Subject Zero.
“The original consciousness must decide.”
My chest tightened.
“Between what?”
Sarah whispered:
“Between living as yourself…”
A pause.
“Or becoming everything.”
The child smiled.
Because he already knew my answer.
Then the underground alarm started.
A new message appeared.
MERGE PROCESS ACCELERATED
TIME REMAINING: 15 MINUTES
Sarah looked at me.
“They’re coming.”
“Who?”
The lights went red.
Heavy footsteps echoed through the underground hallway.
Not one person.
Many.
Sarah whispered:
“The people who built this hospital.”
The door at the end of the corridor opened.
A group of doctors entered.
But they weren’t wearing modern uniforms.
They wore the same white coats from the old recordings.
The same people who created Project 214.
The same people who should have been dead.
At the front of them stood one person.
The director of the project.
The man behind everything.
He looked at me.
Smiled.
And said:
“Welcome back, Ethan.”
A pause.
May you like
“We have been waiting thirty years for our creation to return.”
End of Chapter 13
