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Chapter 54
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2025-05-23 00:41:38Chapter 54: Echoes in the Dark
The storm had passed.
Not really.
Not in Isla's mind, not in her chest, where something still howled and cracked like thunder under her ribs. The skies outside were heavy and bruised, as if the heavens themselves had wept and were now holding their breath.
Inside the bunker, everything was too quiet. Unnervingly quiet. The kind of quiet that feels loud.
Isla was transfixed by the narrow window slit of the observation room—formerly a storeroom prior to Ethan's remodeling. Her eyes swept the misty landscape outside but saw nothing. She wasn't looking for peril. She was looking for answers.
Or clues.
Or shreds of herself she might have lost outside during the storm when it had burst into fury.
Her fingers flexed around the rim of the metal table beside her, knuckles pale. She had not even realized she was shivering until the tension began to ache. And still she did not let go. Not yet.
A door creaked open behind her. Quiet, but sharp enough to slice the silence in half.
Christopher.
He came home with that soldier's poise she was still getting used to—quiet, methodical, always watching. But his eyes lacked discipline now. They contained worry. And something else. Something more intimate.
"You didn't sleep," he declared, not questioned.
"No." Her voice was tight. Tiny. "Didn't want to."
He stood beside her, not touching, not crowding. Just there. A body. A reminder that she was not yet a ghost.
"You don't have to pretend anymore," he said. "Not with me."
She laughed, but it held no laughter. Only the sound of exhaustion. "I'm not pretending. I'm learning."
"To what?" he asked gently. "The you you're scared of?"
That hit something raw.
She said nothing for an eternity. The silence clung like the seconds between the lightning and thunder. Then finally, she hardly spoke above a whisper:
"She's still here. I can sense her. My mother. or at least the remnants of one. And another thing. Something that recalls things I've never experienced. A corridor. A voice. Directions. Memories that belonged to another—but now belong to me."
Christopher didn't flinch. He simply soaked up what she told him like a man bracing for impact.
"Does it hurt?" he demanded.
"No. The terrible thing is that it doesn't hurt. It feels good. Like something within me finally formed." She looked up at him. "But I'm not sure that form is to defend… or destroy."
He looked at her then, fixedly, inspecting her face as a man does when he's memorizing someone—just in case.
"If it comes to that," he said to her, "I'll stop you. But not before I remind you of who you really are."
She jerked away quickly, jaws bristling, eyes burning. "You say that like you're sure."
"I do," he replied, moving closer. "Because I've seen you fight for people you don't even know. I've seen you stay up nights running for three nights in a row to decode the Hydra intercepts. I've seen you bear the shame of what you think you are… but never once have I seen you give into it."
The words opened her up just wide enough.
"I'm afraid, Chris." Her voice broke. "What if the next version of me isn't someone you can reason with? What if she isn't someone you can love?"
Silence.
Then: "Then I'll learn to love her too. Or I'll fight her. But I will never stop looking for you under it all."
Her breath caught. Just a tiny bit. Long enough for her eyes to shine.
Then she stepped back. Not from him. Just from the emotion on the brink of overwhelming everything.
"We leave in two hours," she managed, regaining control of her voice. "Ethan's going through ECHO-3. We go by Victor's direction. If there are others like me out there, we have to know. We have to find them first."
"And if they don't want to be found?"
“Then we’ll force their hand. If they’re like me… they’re already listening.”
She began to walk away, her spine straight, her steps steady. But he stopped her with a single word.
“Isla.”
She turned.
His eyes met hers. Steady. Soft. “You’re not alone.”
A pause.
Then her lips moved—just barely.
“I know.”
She left, her shadow trailing behind her like a fading memory.
Outside, the world was quiet. But under that quiet, movement happened. Whispers awakened in the darkness, borne upon winds that were about weather as much as last week's rain was about predicting a storm.
And far from the bunker, in a long-forgotten room that hung with rot and specters of past experiments… something opened its eyes.
It recalled her name.
And it waited.
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