LOGIN"Mommy, why did you let me die?"Sharon gripped the radio so hard her fingers ached.Years had taught her that the hardest thing a person could lose was the memory of a person they loved. She would never have believed that remembering the love before the loss was equally as devastating as forgetting the loss in the first place."Emily," she whispered. "Sweetheart, can you hear me?"There was a static crackling,then a soft sobbing."Mommy?""I'm here. I'm listening. Tell me where you are.""I don't know."Sharon's throat suddenly tightens."Can you see, Luna?""Yes.""Is she safe?"There was a long pause before the answer."She's sleeping," was her reply, "but the woman said she'll not awake until the house is finished."Alex leaned closer to the radio."What house, Emily?"The child's breathing changed."Who is that?""I'm your father, sweetheart."Another pause, then her voice came through again, whispering."You look different."Alex's face contorted with something like pain, then
"Now, let's see which daughter you choose this time."The woman's words chased Sharon into the darkness.Sharon found herself standing in a white room, unable to move as the little girl sat with tearful eyes on the floor, the stuffed rabbit with the torn ear lying between them."Mommy?" the child wimpers again.Sharon's heart twists painfully in her chest, as she feels an inexplicable grief."What is your name?" Sharon asks.The girl looks up at her and tucks her head in a strange way."You... gave me my name."Sharon reaches out to her, but the moment Sharon's fingers graze the child's shoulder, the room shudders.The white walls crack open, revealing flashes of silver light beneath.The girl grabs Sharon's wrist."Don't let them..." her voice trails off as the child's small fingers curl tighter around Sharon's arm."Who took you?" Sharon asks."The ones who told you to forget me."Sharon sinks to her knees in front of the girl."I won't forget you," Sharon promises.The child looks
Sharon had seen monsters wear human skin before.She had seen zombies drag loving faces through bloodstained streets, and she had learned that the deadliest lies were often the ones that sounded the most like the truth.But she had never heard her voice laughing from the other side of a locked door."Thank you for opening the door, Mother."Mira was shaking so hard that Sharon had to fight to keep from dropping herAs soon as Sharon's fingers brushed against her skin, a cold wave of something unnameable ran through her veins and she found herself standing at the end of a white corridor.A glass chamber stretched before her, hundreds of silver threads running through the darkness.And a woman stood in the center, her face exactly like Sharon's own.Sharon stumbled back, nearly dropping Mira."Mom?" Alex grabbed her shoulder. "What happened?"" Don't touch her!"Mira's voice froze him in his tracks." Don't touch me," she repeated, staring at Alex. "Not until we know what it did to her.
"Mom, please! Open the door!"That unmistakable, frightened voice had belonged to Mira.The young soprano in the strange transmission, the one who should have died when Sharon's car had plunged down the embankment.But at the same time, the voice inside Sharon's skull was equally insistent.Don't let her in. That's not our daughter.Sharon pressed against Alex's outstretched hand. The security doors battled, but the emergency lighting was failing. Somewhere in the distance, there came the dull thud-thud of alarm bells. A heartbeat later, the screams of the settlement's guards reached Sharon's ears, a terrible warning that what ever Mira's pursuers had let out of their containment unit had reached the safety of the compound."Nobody opens that door," Daniel growled."That's my daughter, you bastard," Sharon snapped. "Out there! This has gone far enough!""And the woman who has been guarding Luna could have that same strength," Daniel reminded her. "You know what they were saying in the
"Every time, you chose the wrong daughter."The words came out of Luna's mouth, but they didn't sound like her at all - it was as if something else was talking through her, something that shouldn't be able to speak.Sharon gazed at her daughter, and her mind struggled to connect the face she knew so well with the eerie silver rings that seemed to be taking over her eyes. It was as if she'd been transported back to a time she thought she'd left behind - a time of sterile labs and harsh lighting, where some people thought it was okay to sacrifice lives for the sake of science. The memory hit her like a punch to the gut, leaving her breathless and disoriented. For a moment, the past and present collided, and all she could see was the fear and uncertainty that had haunted her for so long. Her daughter's face, once a symbol of hope and joy, now seemed to be a reminder of the horrors she'd tried to escape.Then Luna's fingers tightened around Alex's arm."Mom?"Her own voice had returned.A
For several agonizing seconds, nobody in the room moved after the words appeared on the photograph.MOTHER, PLEASE DON'T SAVE ME.The silver line on Mira's forehead seemed to shimmer in the image, vanishing into the folds of her skin before it faded away to nothingness, as though it had never been there at all.Sharon stared at the message, her breath coming in short gasps as she tried - and failed -to steady herself.Months of self deception lay bare before her eyes.The world had truly survived the apocalypse; The organism below had finally been freed from its endless cycle of imprisonment and vengeance; For the first time in what felt like several lifetimes, she would wake up next to Alex and not have to wonder if she would still be alive when morning came.And now some girl who had supposedly died twenty-three years from now was speaking to her motherand asking her not to save her."Play the transmission again," Sharon said.Daniel Cross stood beside the radio equipment, his feat







