Chapter 4

The numbers displayed on the screen remain the same. Elera was still trying to wrap her head around what she was seeing. She stared at the screen till her eyes became blurry. 

“TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, How did this happen?” The words kept echoing in her head. Elera was having difficulty processing the information. It was too heavy for her to process. 

Her emotions were everywhere. She can feel the calmness inside her fading as her panic rose. 

She can’t just understand what is happening. “I have to calm myself down. This has to be wrong”. She tried to calm herself so she could process what was happening.

The room felt cold all of a sudden. The white sterile walls no longer felt calm. Even the sound of the machine felt deeply disturbing. 

Elera tries to focus on moving her body. Her fingers twitched this time. “ Wow, this is better than before.” 

“ Although the movement is small, let me focus on something I can control for now.” 

The movement wasn’t much, but Elera felt it was something. Voices broke the silence of the room, disrupting Elera’s train of thought. 

This time, it sounded further away. Elera immediately stilled her body. She moved her head slowly to be able to hear what was being said in the room. 

The voices this time were not directly beside her, but they sounded like it was coming from outside the room. 

Although a wall separated them, Elera could still hear what they were saying faintly. 

“You shouldn't have done that….” one of the voices said. “ But I only followed the procedure…” the other person replied. 

“That wasn’t even the procedure to follow….” The tension in their voices was very visible. They sounded so agitated. 

Their words caught Elera’s attention. Elera tries to focus on the voices. “Do you know the implication of this?”.... The voices continued. 

“But I didn’t even trigger it…. Something tampered with the system and changed it…” 

Another person said, “ That’s not possible at all….” “It already did, look at the data we got…” 

There was a pause…. “ Someone or something breached the protocol”.

The words hung heavy in the air. “Protocol breach… I woke up because of an error.” Elera couldn’t help but frown. 

Elera felt her pulse pick; she tried to calm herself again. “How is my waking up a breach?”...

The question kept repeating itself in Elera’s mind… everything is so hazy… 

Another voice cut in, “You think they won’t have noticed?”....A second voice responded immediately.

“ Of course they would have”... “Then what do we do?...

There was silence once again. The tension in the air was very high. 

The last statement made Elera tense; she tried to breathe slowly and slightly. 

She needed to listen more to what they were saying. 

“We need to report it.” “NO.” The response was very firm. “No, we can’t.” 

There was a pause. “ That’s not your decision to make… “It's not yours to make either!” 

Elera could feel the tension in their conversation, just from where she was lying. 

“They gave us a guideline and timeline to follow,” The voice continued, “They gave clear instructions, she wasn’t supposed to wake up yet.” 

That word again.” Yet.” Elera curled her fingers slightly. “They meant for me to wake up, but not yet.” She felt a cold settle in her chest. 

Elera shifted her gaze around the room. Her gaze stopped at the machines around her. For the first time in a while, she saw a faint reflection of herself on the curved surface beside her. 

She looked very pale and weak, and she felt unfamiliar. “What have they done to me?” 

The voices outside continued their conversation. “.....we can’t hide this, you know, right?” “The system already logged the change… so I think it is a little late for us to fix anything.”  

“We can still fix it…” another voice chimed in. “How, how can we fix something the system has already logged?” 

Nobody could answer the question. The silence outside stretched, which made Elera feel uncomfortable.” 

Then someone spoke in a whisper. “If they find out she is awake….We are in deep trouble.” 

Those words lingered in the air before silence followed. Elera stilled herself and didn’t move.