LOGINShare
Chapter 52
Last Updated:
2025-05-21 20:22:50Chapter 52: Ghost Signatures
The storm outside had not dissipated. Inside, something much worse was taking shape.
No one said anything for a very long time after Victor's fall. His body had not moved in ten minutes. The machines still beeped as if they held out hope. Isla did not.
She leaned back against the cold of the steel table, gazing at the dried blood beside Victor's mouth. Her mind would not stop—kept cycling with the phrases not her daughter… her continuation.
"You must sit," Christopher said gently behind her.
She didn't.
Ethan worked keys on the interface rig, downloading corrupted data into a broken decryption program. "He was uploading snippets," he said. "Or… dumping them. There are signs. Echoes."
"Whom?" Christopher insisted, voice taut.
Ethan tapped the screen. "It's hard to tell. His memory was dissolving. But some latent patterns are unfolding overlapping neural maps. These are not files. They're imprints. Conscious shadows."
Isla spoke up at last, breaking the silence. "How many?"
"Four signatures. Plus you."
That changed the mood.
Christopher folded his arms. "What does that imply? Four people with pieces of Lyra's consciousness?"
Not just Lyra," Ethan said, his voice firm. "Each of the survivors may be carrying pieces of her with them, but also. tests. Pieces. Constructs of alien minds. Maybe failed protocols. Whatever Victor was running, he seeded them like landmines."
Isla moved closer, gaze on the screen. "Locations?"
"Not precisely," Ethan said. "But the metadata leads back to satellite pings. Black sites. One labeled as 'ECHO-3'—Siberian border. Ten years abandoned.".
Something lurched in Isla's temple. A jagged, icy thrust.
Then—flash.
She was no longer in the room.
She was in a cold hallway. Red lights blinking. A woman's voice shrieked somewhere. Machines whirring. A hand—a woman's—stroked her shoulder. A whisper: "Don't forget me."
Isla gasped, almost toppling over.
Christopher rushed to her side, holding her upright before she hit the floor.
"What was that?" he insisted.
She blinked wildly. Her hands trembled. "A memory. Not mine."
Ethan turned around. "The emotional map is compelling. Your brain's syncing up with the imprint inside you."
Christopher's gaze met hers, his teeth gritted. "That's unsafe. This can ruin your brain."
"I know."
"We can suppress it," Ethan said. "There's a method to cut out the neural bridge. Keep you stable.".
No, Isla said, the fierce word. "I have to recall. That's how we find them. The others. Whoever still has a fragment."
Christopher glared at her like he wanted to punch her, but something in her eyes stopped him.
A moment of silence.
Then Isla went over to the gear wall and inserted a weapon.
"We leave tonight."
Ethan's eyes leapt up. "Where?"
Isla looked at him. "ECHO-3. If there are answers… they start there.".
Christopher grasped for his coat. "And if it's a trap?"
"Then we enter eyes open," she answered, already heading towards the door. "This is no longer just about Victor. It's about what he left behind."
She didn't say the rest out loud.
And what I am becoming.
---
Latest chapter
In love with my step father in law Chapter 61
Chapter 61: Shards of the MirrorThe silence was unbearable.Isla sat alone in the observation room of ECHO-3, a vast, high-ceilinged chamber lined with sleek glass panels and flickering holo-screens. A distant hum vibrated beneath her boots—the sound of a hidden world still turning.She stared at the holographic projection of her DNA spiral spinning slowly in midair. It glowed violet, like a cursed constellation. Data poured beside it—words she could no longer make sense of. Words that used to belong to scientists, not to monsters.Behind her, footsteps echoed. Steady. Purposeful.Christopher.“I thought you might come here,” he said quietly.Isla didn’t turn. “It’s strange. Seeing yourself... and realizing you're not entirely yourself.”“You’re not a thing, Isla. You’re not just a blueprint someone rewrote.”She let out a bitter laugh. “Tell that to the report I just read. Lyra didn’t just give birth to me—she embedded herself in me. Consciously. She planned it.”Christopher stayed
In love with my step father in law Chapter 60
Chapter 60: The Vaultbound RiseThe air in the underground chamber was thick—heavy with dust, expectation, and centuries-old secrets that clung to the stone walls like ivy. The Vault of Remnants had not been opened in over four decades, and its presence felt more myth than matter. But tonight, it pulsed.Isla stood in front of the vault door, her fingers twitching unconsciously. Behind her, Christopher and Ethan watched in silence, the tension among them as brittle as ancient parchment. No one spoke. Even the hum of the generators seemed to hush.She could feel it now—the magnetic tug that seemed to know her name. The lock on the vault was encoded to Lyra’s genetic signature, but the tech didn’t account for what Lyra had become. What Isla had become. Half her mother’s legacy, half... something else.Christopher stepped forward. "Are you sure you want to do this tonight? You’re still healing."She shook her head. "Healing is a luxury. And time is a blade pressed to our throats. I can f
In love with my step father in law Chapter 59
Chapter 59: The Threshold ChildrenThe outpost was silent long after the file closed.No one moved. The shadows seemed to cling tighter to the corners, as if even the walls needed time to process what had just been revealed.Threshold Children.Subject Zero.Ark.None of them said it aloud, but the same question hung heavy in the air:What had Lyra made Isla into?And more terrifying—why?---By morning, they were moving again.They left the outpost behind with only a faint heat signature trailing in the snow, covered fast by the wind. Isla walked ahead, wrapped in her insulated gear, hood pulled low, but even now, the light from her hand flickered faintly beneath the glove.Like a heartbeat refusing to slow.The journey to ECHO-3 was brutal.Ice plains gave way to jagged mountain spines. There were no roads. No settlements. Just sky and snow and silence.Ethan navigated using the drive’s coordinates. It pointed to a location that wasn’t on any public map—a place scrubbed from known c
In love with my step father in law Chapter 58
---Chapter 58: Echoes of What WasThey didn’t speak for a long time.The snow muffled their steps as they moved through the tundra, putting distance between themselves and the buried ruin of the vault. The wind whispered around them—soft now, almost reverent, as if the storm itself were holding its breath after what had been unleashed.No one said it aloud, but they all felt it:Something had changed.In Isla.In the world.In what was coming.Ethan was the first to break the silence. “We need shelter. This isn’t the kind of cold you just outrun.”“There’s an outpost thirty miles east,” Christopher said. “Old Cartel relay. Abandoned.”Isla barely heard them.The glowing lines on her hand hadn’t faded. The faint pulse beneath her skin continued, rhythmic and unsettling, like the ticking of a new clock.Inside her, memories surged like tides.Not just hers.Not just Lyra’s.Others.Children’s voices. Screams in sterile corridors. An old song, sung out of tune. A name spoken like a pray
In love with my step father in law Chapter 57
Chapter 57: The Vault of SilenceThe ground trembled again as the vault door split down the middle with a groan older than time. Snow slid from its curved surface like dust falling off forgotten bones. The low-frequency hum built into a thrumming pulse, a sound that didn’t just echo in their ears—it resonated in their chests.Isla took the first step forward.“Wait,” Christopher said, still gripping his rifle. “We don’t know what’s in there.”She glanced at him. “We do. We just haven’t remembered it yet.”Behind them, the sentinel—the pale man—stood still, unmoving. “Only the awakened may enter,” he said, monotone.Christopher looked ready to argue, but Ethan, bleeding from a shallow cut above his brow, stopped him. “He’s not going to stop her. He’s waiting.”Isla crossed the threshold.And the world changed.As she stepped inside the vault, the air grew thicker. Not heavy—dense. Like walking through time itself. The interior walls shimmered, not metal, not stone—something between the
In love with my step father in law Chapter 56
Chapter 56: The Ghost in the SkyThe shadow was fast.It didn’t fly like a drone or a standard aerial unit—it glided, almost silent, but with a strange distortion trailing behind it, like light warping around something not meant to be seen.Ethan’s hands moved rapidly over the controls, flipping off the main nav to manual override. “They’re jamming passive radar. I’m flying blind.”Christopher was already at the rear hatch, rifle ready, eyes scanning the external screens. "Do we engage?""Not unless they do first," Isla said.But she didn't sound sure.Because something in her bones told her this was no ordinary hunter. The pressure in her head was building again, like hands squeezing inward. Her fingers curled into fists."I've seen this thing before," she snarled.Ethan looked back. "Where?"In a dream. Or a memory. I don't know any longer."The shadow dropped altitude. Now it flew alongside them, just out of vision—a shimmering echo on the edge of the skimmer's screen.Then it spok
You may also like
The Divorced Billionaire Heiress
I Wanna Eat Meat16.1M viewsMr. Ford Is Jealous
Boat of Peaches750.4K viewsRude Awakenings
Turquoise Grace1.1M viewsI Kissed A CEO And He Liked It!
LiLhyz1.5M viewsMARRY ME AGAIN (SPG)
Lanny Rodriguez562 viewsThe Billionaire She Rejected.
Maraz_Pen155 viewsTHE BRIDE WHO NEVER COME BACK
James J. Monroe22 viewsDear Ex-Husband, I'm Only Here to Save Your Son
Sofia Castella523 views
