The drive was long and silent, the tires humming against forgotten roads while tension thickened in the cab of the truck. Melissa stared out the window, watching pine trees blur past in the moonlight. Ethan sat beside her, hunched forward, fists clenched. He hadn't said a word since they'd left the cabin.
Finally, the stranger broke the silence. "My name's Caleb, by the way. I figured you should at least know that, before we walk into hell together."
Melissa didn't look at him. "What happened to you, Caleb?"
He hesitated, then said, "Same thing that happened to Ethan. I was part of Requiem's early stages...a test subject. They used me to see how far memory can be rewritten. I escaped before they finished the program. But not before they tried to erase me."
Ethan's voice was gravel. "And you've been hiding ever since?"
"Watching," Caleb said, eyes on the road. "Learning. Waiting for someone brave or maybe reckless enough to fight back."
The truck slowed as they approached an unmarked access road. Caleb turned onto a narrow dirt path lined with rusted fences and faded military signage.
"This is it," he said. "We walk from here."
They left the truck behind and slipped through a break in the fence. Beyond the trees, nestled into a hillside, was a concrete bunker nearly swallowed by overgrowth. Cold air oozed from its rusted doors.
Melissa's breath fogged in the dark. "How do we get in?"
"Through the old maintenance shaft," Caleb said, kneeling by an overgrown trapdoor. "It hasn't been used in years. But it leads straight to the archival floor."
He pried open the hatch. A metal ladder disappeared into darkness below.
One by one, they descended.
The shaft was narrow and damp, the air thick with mildew and decay. Their flashlights flickered as they descended deeper, swallowed by the ground.
At the bottom, they found themselves in a forgotten corridor, pipes lining the walls, old code panels blinking faintly.
"This way," Caleb whispered.
They weaved through corridors until they found the archive room, rows of dusty servers, ancient terminals, and locked drawers labeled with names Melissa didn't recognize.
Except one.
In the farthest corner, printed in fading ink:
M. Kingsley
Melissa froze.
Her hands shook as she opened the drawer beneath it. Inside was a single manila envelope.
She opened it.
Photos. Surveillance reports. Conversations she didn't remember having. And one document, stamped in red:
SUBJECT APPROVED FOR STAGE II MODIFICATION – MEMORY INDEX: COMPROMISED.
Melissa's heart stopped.
Ethan leaned over her shoulder, reading.
"You were part of the program?" he whispered.
She shook her head, panic creeping in. "I—I don't remember—"
Suddenly, alarms blared through the corridor. Red lights pulsed overhead.
"They know we're here," Caleb growled.
But Melissa couldn't move.
Because in that moment, one horrifying truth burned in her mind:
What if Requiem hadn't been trying to stop her from finding Ethan?
What if they'd programmed her to?
And now that she had… what came next might not be survival.
It might be activation
Melissa snapped out of her trance as Caleb yanked the folder from her hands. "Now is not the time," he barked. "If you want to live long enough to understand what they did to you, we move."
Ethan was already pulling her toward the corridor exit. The red lights strobed like a warning heartbeat, casting twisted shadows as alarms shrieked through the underground complex. Melissa shoved down the panic clawing at her lungs and ran.
They barreled through an emergency hatch just as the thud of boots echoed down the main hall.
"This way!" Caleb veered left into a dim maintenance tunnel. Pipes hissed above them, and the air reeked of oil and ozone. Ahead, a metal door with a faded hazard symbol loomed.
Ethan paused. "What's in there?"
Caleb cracked his neck. "The control room. If we want to destroy what Requiem built, we do it from inside their brain."
Melissa blinked hard, memories slamming into her like freight trains—flashes of rooms she'd never entered, voices she'd never heard, faces she should have forgotten. Stage II Modification. What had they implanted in her? Why her?
They burst into the control room. A tangle of monitors lit the space in a ghastly glow. Streams of data flowed across the screens, names...so many names flashing in and out of existence.
"It's worse than I thought," Ethan murmured. "This isn't erasure. This is redesign."
Melissa stepped forward, drawn to one screen displaying dozens of neural maps. Her name blinked at the top, beside an active status bar.
ACTIVE.
She stumbled back.
"They've already activated you," Caleb said quietly. "You're not just a witness, Melissa. You were the next prototype."
Before she could respond, a voice crackled through the overhead speakers.
"Ms. Kingsley. So glad you finally found your way home."
Melissa froze.
Vaughn.
His voice was calm, almost amused. "We hoped you'd lead us to Ethan. And you didn't disappoint. But you were never meant to dig this deep."
Ethan slammed his fist against the monitor. "Shut it off. Can we shut it off?"
Caleb was already working at the terminal. "Give me thirty seconds. Melissa, you need to keep Vaughn busy—whatever he's planning, it's keyed to you."
She stepped to the center of the room, staring up into the speaker grill like it was a staring contest with God.
"You're afraid," she said, voice steady. "Otherwise you wouldn't be talking to me."
"Not afraid," Vaughn replied smoothly. "Just nostalgic. You were the most promising subject. Until you started asking questions."
Melissa smiled something cold and fierce blooming in her chest. "Then you should've erased more."
Behind her, sparks flared as Caleb ripped wires from the mainframe. The screens glitched, names blinking and freezing.
"Now!" he shouted.
The facility shook with a low, seismic groan. Ethan grabbed Melissa's hand.
"Time to finish what they started," he said.
"No," she corrected, her grip tightening. "Time to rewrite it."
As they sprinted for the exit, the screens behind them crackled, smoked, and finally went dark along with Requiem's hold on every erased name.
But Requiem wasn't gone.
They had stirred the monster.
And monsters never die quietly.
Smoke curled from the ruined servers as the trio escaped down the maintenance corridor, alarms still howling like wolves in pursuit. Every step echoed like a countdown. Melissa's lungs burned, but her mind was racing faster.
They emerged into a lower sublevel, dark, concrete, abandoned. The emergency lighting here had for long died. Caleb fumbled with his flashlight, casting sharp shadows on the wall.
Ethan halted suddenly, holding up a hand.
Voices.
From the far end of the hall. Sharp. Precise. Speaking in clipped, coded commands.
"Security detail," Caleb whispered. "They're sweeping the lower levels. We've got maybe three minutes, max."
Melissa's hand pressed against the wall to steady herself only to feel it give slightly beneath her touch. She turned.
A panel. Disguised, sealed at the edges, but not well enough.
"There," she breathed, sliding her fingers underneath. With a grunt, she yanked it open to reveal a narrow passage no larger than a vent.
Ethan peered inside. "Where does it lead?"
Caleb crouched to inspect. "Old filtration shaft. It should bypass the whole west wing."
Melissa was already crawling inside. "Then let's go."
The shaft was tight and slick with condensation. They slithered through it, hearts pounding, until they emerged into another chamber cold, humming softly. Walls lined with tall, black storage tanks.
"What is this place?" Ethan murmured.
Caleb's face hardened. "Cryo-lock."
Melissa's stomach twisted. In the tanks, shapes floated. Human. Immobile.
Dozens.
Each one had a nameplate.
Each one had a date.
Some were still active.
Melissa crept toward the nearest one, fog blurring her reflection against the tank's curved glass. The face inside—
She gasped.
It was her.
But different—her hair cropped short, her expression blank. The same cheekbones, same eyes, but not.
Caleb grabbed her arm. "That's not you. It's a backup. In case you ever failed your programming."
Ethan reeled. "They kept copies?"
Caleb nodded grimly. "Requiem doesn't delete people. It replaces them."
Melissa looked at the tank again. The truth curdled in her gut.
If that was a backup… who was she now?
Then a new voice crackled through the room's intercom.
"No more running, Melissa."
Vaughn again.
"We gave you purpose. Now you've broken it. But there's still time to bring you back."
She stared at her double. Her ghost.
"No," she said, straightening, her voice steady. "You didn't give me purpose. You tried to manufacture it."
Behind her, Ethan and Caleb had already begun rigging charges around the cryo-chamber.
Melissa reached up and placed her palm against the glass, one last time.
"Time to burn it down."
And with that, they ran.
As the tanks hissed and the chamber exploded behind them, one thing was certain—
Requiem's ghosts were no longer haunting.
They were hunting.