The Boy Who Begged Me To Forget

CHAPTER SIX

The Boy Who Begged Me to Forget

The man at the bottom of the stairs was crying.

I could hear him long before I saw him. His sobs travelled through the darkness in broken pieces, sometimes fading into silence, sometimes rising so suddenly that I had to stop and remind myself that I was not alone.

Adrian followed three steps behind me.

He hadn’t tried to stop me again.

Somehow, that frightened me more than if he had.

The staircase ended at a black iron door. There was no handle, only a small circular indentation in its centre, shaped exactly like the symbol engraved on the brass key.

I fitted the key into the opening.

The lock turned by itself.

Inside was a bedroom.

Not a laboratory. Not a dungeon. Not the place where I had imagined my first death would be recorded.

A bedroom.

Cream curtains hung beside a tall window. A small vase of dried roses sat on a dressing table, and a book lay open on the bed as if someone had abandoned it in the middle of a sentence.

The room smelled faintly of lavender.

It was warm, quiet, and painfully ordinary.

I stepped inside.

On the wall opposite the bed hung a portrait of a young woman in a white dress.

Me.

She wore the same silver chain I had seen in the mirror. Her hair fell over one shoulder, and her lips curved into a smile that looked almost shy.

Someone had written beneath the frame.

ELENA VALE. BELOVED WIFE.

I stopped breathing.

“Vale,” I whispered.

Adrian stood in the doorway.

“Your name was Elena.”

I turned towards him so quickly that the room blurred.

“You said your name was Adrian Vale.”

“It is.”

“And I was Elena Vale.”

“Yes.”

“So we were married.”

“Yes.”

The word hung between us, carrying a thousand years of things neither of us could remember properly.

I looked at the portrait again.

“Did I love you?”

Adrian didn’t answer immediately.

His gaze rested on the painted version of me, and something in his expression softened. For one brief moment, he looked less like a man hiding a terrible secret and more like someone standing beside a grave he had visited every day for a century.

“You used to steal the blankets,” he said.

I blinked.

“What?”

“You claimed you were cold, even in summer. Then you’d wrap yourself in every blanket in the house and insist there was nothing left for me because I was a perfectly capable adult who should learn to suffer quietly.”

Despite everything, a laugh escaped me.

It was small and uncertain, but it was real.

Adrian looked at me.

For a second, he seemed startled by the sound.

Then he smiled.

Not the bitter smile he wore when he was hiding something. Not the careful expression he used whenever I asked him a question he didn’t want to answer.

A real smile.

It transformed his face.

And I hated how badly I wanted to see it again.

“Did I really say that?” I asked.

“Frequently.”

“Sounds like I was unbearable.”

“You were.”

The answer came too quickly.

I narrowed my eyes.

He looked away, but not before I caught the faintest trace of amusement in his expression.

Something warm stirred beneath my ribs.

It was ridiculous. I was standing in a room belonging to a dead woman who had my face, speaking to a man who claimed he had once been my husband, while an unknown person sobbed somewhere beyond the walls.

And still, some foolish part of me wanted to stand closer to him.

I took a step forward.

Adrian went still.

The warmth disappeared.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“You look like I’ve threatened you.”

“Sometimes you did.”

I glanced at the dagger in my hand.

“Was that before or after I tried to kill you?”

His eyes met mine.

“Both.”

The answer silenced us.

I wanted to ask what had happened on October 19, 1897. I wanted to know why I had pushed a girl into a well, why the mirror had called me a liar, and why Adrian looked at me as if loving me had been the worst mistake of his life.

Instead, I asked the question that frightened me most.

“Did you ever stop loving me?”

Adrian’s face changed.

It was subtle, but I saw it. The way his jaw tightened. The way his fingers curled against his palm.

He looked as though I had placed a blade between his ribs.

“Elena,” he whispered.

“That isn’t an answer.”

“No.”

“Then answer me.”

He stared at me for a long moment.

“Not once.”

My heart twisted.

I wished he had lied.

A lie would have been easier to hate.

Before I could speak, the sobbing beyond the walls stopped.

A boy’s voice called out.

“Adrian?”

The colour drained from Adrian’s face.

I turned towards the sound.

“Who is that?”

He caught my wrist.

His hand was cold.

“Whatever you hear in this room, don’t open the wardrobe.”

I stared at him.

“Why?”

“Promise me.”

“I’m not promising you anything.”

His fingers tightened around my wrist, then immediately loosened.

He looked down at his hand as if he were ashamed of himself.

“Please,” he said.

It was the first time he had asked me for anything without trying to command me.

I hated that it worked.

“I won’t open it,” I said.

He let go of me.

For a few seconds, neither of us moved.

Then the boy spoke again.

“Adrian, she remembers the garden.”

A crash sounded from inside the wardrobe.

Adrian closed his eyes.

“Damn it.”

The doors flew open.

A young man tumbled out and struck the floor on his hands and knees.

He looked about twenty-five, with dark hair falling into his eyes and a thin scar running across his cheek. His shirt was soaked with sweat, and his wrists were covered in bruises.

He looked at Adrian first.

Then at me.

His face crumpled.

“Elena.”

I stepped backwards.

He scrambled towards me, stopping only when I raised the dagger.

“No.” He shook his head desperately. “No, please. It’s really you.”

“Stay back.”

He froze.

Tears slipped down his cheeks.

“I knew he’d bring you here.”

Adrian moved between us.

“You shouldn’t be awake.”

The young man laughed, a terrible, broken sound.

“And you shouldn’t have brought her back.”

“Silas.”

“Don’t say my name like you care about me!”

The shout shook the room.

I watched Adrian’s expression close, every trace of warmth disappearing behind something cold and familiar.

Silas wiped his face with his sleeve.

Then he looked at me.

“I need you to listen carefully. You don’t have much time.”

“For what?”

“For the next reset.”

The word sent a chill through me.

Reset.

The white room. The doctor. The identical girls. The feeling of dying and waking again.

I tightened my grip on the dagger.

“What do you know about the resets?”

Silas glanced at Adrian.

“Everything.”

“Then tell me.”

He hesitated.

Adrian’s voice turned sharp.

“Silas, don’t.”

Silas looked at me again.

“Do you remember the girl in the garden?”

A flash of blood-red moonlight crossed my vision.

A well.

A hand reaching towards me.

I swallowed.

“Yes.”

“Good. Then maybe this time you can remember what happened before you pushed her.”

My stomach twisted.

“Who was she?”

Silas opened his mouth.

Adrian struck him.

The blow was so sudden that I didn’t even see him move. Silas staggered into the dressing table, sending the vase crashing to the floor.

“Don’t you dare,” Adrian said.

Silas pressed a hand to his split lip.

For a moment, I thought he might attack him.

Instead, he laughed.

“You still think you’re protecting her.”

Adrian seized the front of his shirt.

“I’m warning you.”

“No, you’re terrified.”

Silas’s eyes shifted to me.

“Ask him why he chose you.”

I stared at Adrian.

“Chose me for what?”

Neither man answered.

Silas smiled sadly.

“Of course. He hasn’t told you anything about the others.”

“The others?”

“The girls who wore your face.”

My skin turned cold.

Silas counted on his fingers.

“One died in the fire. One drowned. One begged him to put a bullet through her heart. Another lived for six years without remembering her own name.”

He paused.

“And the last one?”

I could barely speak.

“What happened to the last one?”

Silas looked at Adrian.

Adrian looked back at him.

Something passed between them that I couldn’t understand.

Then Silas said, “She fell in love with him.”

My heart gave a strange, painful kick.

“That isn’t a death.”

“No,” Silas replied. “But it was the beginning of one.”

Adrian released him.

“Enough.”

“Tell her the rest,” Silas demanded. “Tell her what happens when she remembers you. Tell her why you keep bringing her back even though you know what it costs.”

Adrian said nothing.

Silas turned to me.

“He doesn’t just want you to remember, Elena. He wants you to remember him.”

I stared at Adrian.

“Is that true?”

His silence was answer enough.

Something inside me broke—not because I knew he was lying, but because I couldn’t tell whether I wanted him to stop.

I had no memories of loving him.

No memories of marrying him.

No memories of standing beneath a blood-red moon while he held me in his arms.

But when I looked at him, my chest ached with a tenderness that had no right to exist.

I hated him for it.

I hated myself more.

“Why?” I whispered.

Adrian’s gaze fell to the floor.

“Because every time you come back, you look at me like you might love me again.”

The room went silent.

Even Silas stopped moving.

Adrian looked up, and I saw the truth he had been trying to bury beneath his warnings and half-answers.

“I know what I did,” he said. “I know what you did. I know what this place has turned us into. But for a few minutes after you wake up, before the memories return, you look at me as though we still have a chance.”

His voice cracked.

“And I am selfish enough to keep hoping.”

I couldn’t breathe.

For the first time, I understood that Adrian’s fear wasn’t only about what I might remember.

He was afraid of what I would do once I remembered loving him.

Or perhaps he was afraid that I never had.

I looked away before he could see how deeply his words had affected me.

A soft click came from the dressing table.

Silas went rigid.

“No,” he whispered.

A small black device had appeared beside the broken vase. Its surface glowed with a thin red line.

A voice emerged from it.

Calm. Female. Familiar.

“Iteration Seven has recovered emotional recognition.”

My blood turned to ice.

The voice continued.

“Memory restoration is now authorized.”

Adrian lunged for the device.

Too late.

A bell rang somewhere above us.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Silas stumbled backwards.

“It’s starting.”

The portrait on the wall changed.

The smiling woman in the white dress disappeared. In her place was a photograph of me strapped to a metal table, my mouth open in a scream.

Beneath the photograph, new words appeared.

SUBJECT SEVEN: ELENA VALE.

STATUS: UNSTABLE.

PRIMARY TRIGGER: ADRIAN VALE.

I stared at the words until they blurred.

“I’m not a subject,” I whispered.

The device crackled.

“Correction,” the female voice said. “You are the only successful subject.”

A second line appeared on the portrait.

ORIGINAL SUBJECT: SILAS VALE.

I turned towards the young man.

He had stopped crying.

His expression was empty.

“Silas Vale,” I repeated. “You’re Adrian’s brother?”

He looked at me.

“No.”

The device emitted a short burst of static.

Then the female voice spoke again.

“Original subject identified. Silas Vale. First successful transfer completed October 19, 1897.”

I looked between the two men.

Adrian’s face had gone pale.

Silas began to laugh.

Not the broken laughter of someone losing his mind.

The quiet, bitter laughter of someone who had waited a very long time for the truth to come out.

“You see?” he whispered. “He told you I was the boy who begged you to forget.”

My hands trembled.

“What does that mean?”

Silas took one step towards me.

“It means you weren’t the first person they tried to bring back.”

He pointed at Adrian.

“He was.”

The room seemed to tilt.

Adrian reached for me.

I stepped away.

His hand fell.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

I shook my head.

“No. Don’t.”

“Elena—”

“Don’t call me that.”

The hurt in his eyes was immediate, almost unbearable.

But I couldn’t afford to care.

Not when every answer had become another lie.

Not when the man who claimed to have loved me might have been the first monster this place had created.

I turned to Silas.

“Tell me everything.”

He nodded towards the portrait.

“You need to see what happened that night.”

The photograph began to burn.

Not with fire, but from the inside, its edges curling into black ash. Beneath it, another image emerged.

A garden.

A stone well.

A young woman in a white dress.

And a boy kneeling beside her, his hands covered in blood.

The boy lifted his head.

He had Adrian’s face.

But he was much younger.

Perhaps seventeen.

He was crying over a body.

My body.

I stumbled backwards.

“No.”

The image shifted.

The boy pressed his forehead against the dead girl’s hand.

“Please,” he whispered. “Please, Elena. Wake up.”

A second figure appeared behind him.

A woman in a long black coat.

Her face was hidden, but I recognized the silver chain around her neck.

The same chain I had seen in the mirror.

She placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“You have to choose,” she told him.

The boy looked up.

“Choose what?”

The woman leaned down and whispered something in his ear.

His expression changed.

His grief hardened into something desperate and terrible.

Then he looked directly out of the photograph.

Directly at me.

And spoke the words that made my blood run cold.

“If I have to destroy the world to bring you back, I will.”

The photograph went black.

Behind me, Adrian whispered my name.

Not Elena.

My name.

The one I had been born with.

The one no one had spoken since I woke in the stone room.

I turned towards him slowly.

“How do you know that name?”

He looked at me with tears in his eyes.

“Because,” he said, “I was the one who gave it back to you.”

The floor shuddered.

The red light on the device turned white.

And the female voice announced the final sentence.

“Emotional recognition confirmed. Beginning forced memory restoration.”

Every mirror in the room shattered at once.

I screamed as the memories rushed in.

A garden.

A wedding.

A kiss beneath a staircase.

A boy with blood on his hands.

A woman holding a syringe.

Adrian whispering that he loved me.

Silas begging me to run.

And me, standing before a mirror, looking at a face that wasn’t mine.

Then came the last memory.

The one buried beneath all the others.

I was lying on a metal table.

Adrian stood beside me, crying.

Silas was strapped to another table across the room.

The woman in the black coat held a needle between her fingers.

“You can save one,” she told me.

I looked at Adrian.

Then at Silas.

I tried to speak, but my throat had been cut.

The woman smiled.

“Choose.”

And I did.

I chose Adrian.

The needle entered his arm.

His eyes closed.

The monitor beside him flatlined.

I watched him die.

Then I turned towards Silas.

He was screaming my name.

I reached for him, but the woman held me down.

“You chose,” she whispered. “Now you must live with it.”

The memory ended.

I collapsed to the floor.

Adrian dropped beside me, reaching for my face.

“I’m here,” he whispered. “Elena, I’m here.”

I slapped his hand away.

He froze.

Tears blurred my vision.

“You died.”

His face crumpled.

“Yes.”

“And I chose you.”

He closed his eyes.

“Yes.”

I looked towards Silas.

He was staring at me with an expression that held no anger at all.

Only grief.

“You chose him,” he said quietly. “And I was the one who had to watch you do it.”

My chest tightened so violently I thought I might stop breathing.

“I’m sorry.”

Silas shook his head.

“You were dying too.”

“I still chose him.”

“Yes.”

He looked at Adrian.

“And he has been making you pay for it ever since.”

Adrian rose slowly.

“That’s enough.”

“No,” I whispered.

Both men turned towards me.

I forced myself to stand, though my legs trembled beneath me.

“I want the truth. All of it.”

Adrian looked as if he wanted to reach for me again.

He didn’t.

“Then there’s something else you need to know,” he said.

I waited.

He swallowed.

“The woman in the black coat wasn’t the one who created the resets.”

“Who was?”

His eyes met mine.

“You were.”

The silence that followed was absolute.

Then the device spoke one final time.

“Memory restoration complete.”

A pause.

“Welcome back, Doctor Vale.”

I stared at Adrian.

He stared at me.

And somewhere deep inside my mind, a door opened.

Behind it was a room full of mirrors.

A room full of bodies.

A room full of girls with my face.

And a woman wearing my smile.

I finally remembered her.

I remembered building the first machine.

I remembered writing the rules.

I remembered deciding that death was merely a problem that needed solving.

And I remembered the promise I had made to Adrian on the night he died.

I will bring you back.

No matter how many times I had to die.

No matter how many lives I had to destroy.

No matter what I had to become.

I had kept my promise.

The worst part wasn’t that I had loved Adrian enough to do it.

The worst part was that, even now, with the truth tearing me apart, a small and terrible part of me was relieved he was still alive.

Because I had not finished saving him.

And he had not finished paying for it.