The Voice Behind the Door

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Voice Behind the Door

ELENA

“Open the door.”

My voice came through the speakers again, older and colder than I remembered it being. It carried a quiet authority that made everyone in the room seem suddenly insignificant.

“I know which one of you is lying.”

Nobody moved.

Adrian stood in front of me with his gun raised, while the boy who claimed to be my brother stared at the locked door as though he had just heard a ghost call his name. The older Elias had gone completely still. Even Nathaniel seemed to have forgotten the control panel in front of him.

My father was the only one who appeared to understand what was happening.

He was terrified.

“Turn off the speakers,” Arthur ordered.

Nathaniel didn’t respond.

“Do it now.”

“I can’t. The system has locked me out.”

Arthur grabbed him by the shoulder. “Then override it.”

“I told you, I can’t.”

A sharp sound came from the door. Something metallic scraped against the other side, followed by a quiet laugh.

My laugh.

I pushed past Adrian before he could stop me.

“Who is out there?”

The laughter ceased.

For several seconds, there was only silence. Then the voice answered.

“Someone who remembers what you did.”

My fingers tightened around the edge of the control panel.

“What did I do?”

“You’ll remember soon enough.”

“Stop speaking in riddles and tell me who you are.”

A sigh came through the speakers.

“You always were impatient.”

I knew that tone. I knew the slight irritation beneath the words, the way the speaker seemed to draw out the last syllable when she was disappointed with me. It was a familiarity I couldn’t explain, like hearing a song from childhood and recognising the melody before remembering where I had heard it.

The boy moved beside me.

“Don’t open the door,” he whispered.

I turned to him. “Why?”

“Because whatever is out there isn’t the person you think it is.”

“How do you know?”

He looked at the floor.

“Because I’ve heard that voice before.”

The older Elias raised his gun towards him. “When?”

The boy didn’t answer.

“Tell me when you heard it.”

“During the transfers.”

The older man’s face tightened. “That’s impossible. She died before the final procedure.”

“That’s what Father told you.”

Arthur stepped forward. “Enough. Both of you.”

The boy looked at him with open hatred.

“You’re still doing it. Even now, when everything is falling apart, you want us to stop asking questions.”

“I’m trying to keep you alive.”

“No. You’re trying to keep your secrets alive.”

A violent shudder travelled through the floor. The lights dimmed, then returned with a faint red glow. On the control panel, the warning about Subject Three began flashing faster.

SUBJECT THREE REQUESTING MANUAL RELEASE.

Below it, another message appeared.

IDENTITY VERIFICATION REQUIRED.

Nathaniel stared at the screen.

“It needs a biological signature.”

“Whose?” I asked.

He looked at me, and I immediately knew I wasn’t going to like his answer.

“Yours.”

I stepped away from the panel.

“Absolutely not.”

“The system recognises your neural pattern as the primary access key. If you authorise the release, the door will open.”

“And if I don’t?”

Nathaniel hesitated.

“The containment system will eventually fail. We don’t know what happens when that occurs.”

“So you’re telling me I either open the door or wait for something to break through it?”

“Yes.”

I laughed, but there was no humour in it.

“Wonderful.”

Adrian lowered his gun slightly. “We don’t have to do this. There’s another way out.”

“Is there?” I asked. “Because every time someone tells me there’s another way, I discover another lie waiting on the other side.”

He looked wounded, but I couldn’t afford to care.

I had trusted him once. I had allowed myself to believe that whatever darkness surrounded my past, he was the one person who would tell me the truth.

Now I couldn’t look at him without remembering a child screaming behind glass.

I turned back to the screen.

“How do I verify my identity?”

Nathaniel pointed to a small panel beneath the display. It contained a narrow slot and a circular scanner.

“Place your hand on the scanner. The system will compare your biological signature with the original records.”

“And then?”

“If you’re recognised, you’ll be given the option to release Subject Three.”

I placed my hand against the scanner.

The glass felt cold beneath my palm.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then a thin line of light travelled across my fingers.

The panel beeped.

IDENTITY CONFIRMED.

A second message appeared.

WELCOME BACK, DR. ELEANOR WHITMORE.

I stared at the words.

Welcome back.

As if I had been away for a few days rather than twenty years of missing memories, false identities and carefully constructed lies.

A final prompt appeared.

RELEASE SUBJECT THREE?

Two options glowed beneath it.

YES.

NO.

I looked towards my father.

“What’s behind that door?”

Arthur’s eyes met mine.

“Something that should have remained buried.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I can give you.”

The boy moved closer to me.

“Please don’t open it.”

His voice was so quiet that I almost didn’t hear him.

I looked at him. “You said you wanted to find out who was down there.”

“I was wrong.”

“Why?”

He swallowed.

“Because I remember what happened the last time that door opened.”

A memory flickered through my mind. A long corridor. Bare feet against cold tiles. A woman in a white dress standing beneath a red emergency light. Someone crying behind a locked door.

Then a little boy’s voice.

You promised you wouldn’t leave me.

I jerked my hand away from the scanner.

The image disappeared.

“What was that?” I whispered.

The boy’s face had gone pale.

“You’re remembering.”

“Remembering what?”

He looked towards the door.

“The first time we killed her.”

The room seemed to tilt.

“Who?”

He couldn’t bring himself to answer.

Then the speaker crackled.

“Eleanor, darling, I know you’re frightened.”

My mother’s voice again.

“You don’t have to believe them. You never did.”

I pressed my hands against my ears, but the voice continued through the speakers.

“Your father told you I died in the hospital. He told you your brother was lost in the fire. He told you that the woman wearing your face was the only version of you who survived.”

A pause.

“He lied about all of it.”

My father moved towards the control panel.

“Don’t listen to her.”

The voice laughed softly.

“Still trying to control what your children hear, Arthur? You haven’t changed at all.”

“She’s not your mother,” Arthur said to me. “Whatever is behind that door, it knows how to imitate the people you love.”

I looked at him.

“How would it know what my mother sounds like?”

His silence was immediate.

Too immediate.

I stepped towards him.

“You knew she was alive.”

“No.”

“You knew she was part of this project.”

“Eleanor, please.”

“You knew!”

He flinched at the force of my voice.

For a moment, I saw something beneath his fear. Something old and painful, buried so deeply that even he seemed reluctant to acknowledge it.

Then he spoke.

“Your mother was the first person we attempted to restore.”

My heart stopped.

“What?”

“Before you. Before your brother. Before the project had a name, she was the reason I began.”

I shook my head.

“No. You said you started this because of her death.”

“I did.”

“You said she died in the hospital.”

“She did.”

“Then who is behind that door?”

Arthur looked towards it.

“The part of her that never came back.”

I stared at him, struggling to understand.

Nathaniel spoke quietly from beside the control panel.

“The first restoration was incomplete. Your mother’s biological brain had suffered irreversible damage. We recovered fragments of her neural patterns, but the transfer couldn’t reconstruct a stable consciousness. What emerged was inconsistent. Some memories were intact, others were distorted, and her emotional responses changed without warning.”

“Are you saying you created a copy of my mother?”

“I’m saying we attempted to preserve her. We don’t know whether what survived was truly her.”

The voice behind the door answered before I could.

“Your father knows exactly what survived.”

A mechanical lock clicked.

Arthur rushed towards the control panel, but the system rejected his access.

The voice continued.

“He knows because he was there when I woke up.”

I looked at my father.

He was staring at the door as if he could see through it.

“What happened when she woke up?” I asked.

His lips trembled.

“She didn’t recognise me.”

The words came out barely above a whisper.

“She remembered the children. She remembered the house. She remembered the years before the hospital. But she couldn’t remember why she had died, and she couldn’t understand why her body was different.”

He looked at me.

“She became frightened. Then angry. She demanded to see you and your brother. I told her it wasn’t safe.”

“You locked her away?”

“I was trying to protect you.”

“You keep saying that as if it makes everything acceptable.”

His face crumpled.

“I thought I could repair what had happened. I thought if I gave her time, I could restore the missing memories and bring her back completely.”

“And when you couldn’t?”

Arthur looked at the floor.

“I began again with you.”

The room fell silent.

I felt something inside me break, though I couldn’t have explained what it was. Perhaps it was the last fragile piece of the childhood I had imagined for myself, the belief that my father had once been a man who loved his family more than his ambitions.

He hadn’t simply failed to save my mother.

He had turned her death into a reason to experiment on his children.

And when his experiment failed, he had tried to erase the evidence.

I looked at the screen.

The release prompt was still waiting.

My mother spoke again.

“Eleanor, do you remember the lullaby I used to sing to you?”

I froze.

She began to hum.

It was a simple melody, soft and uneven, the kind of tune a mother might invent while rocking a child to sleep. I couldn’t remember the words, but my body recognised the rhythm. My throat tightened, and tears filled my eyes before I could stop them.

The boy beside me began to cry.

The older Elias lowered his gun.

Even Adrian looked away.

Arthur stood motionless.

My mother continued humming until the final note faded.

Then she spoke.

“You used to ask me what happened to people when they died. I told you that the body returned to the earth, but the love stayed with the people who remembered us.”

A pause.

“You asked me what would happen if everyone forgot.”

I closed my eyes.

A little girl was sitting on a bed, her knees tucked beneath her chin. Her mother sat beside her, brushing dark curls away from her forehead.

Then you must remember me, the woman whispered.

The girl nodded solemnly.

I promise.

I opened my eyes.

The memory was gone, but the tears remained.

“I remember that,” I whispered.

The speaker crackled.

“I know, sweetheart.”

I looked at the release prompt.

My hand trembled as I placed it back on the scanner.

Arthur seized my wrist.

“Don’t do it.”

I stared at his hand.

“Let go.”

“You don’t understand what you’re releasing.”

“Then explain it.”

He looked at me with desperation.

“If that thing comes out, it will destroy everything. The project, the evidence, every surviving record. It will not stop until everyone involved is dead.”

“Everyone involved?”

His eyes flickered towards Adrian.

I followed his gaze.

Adrian had gone still.

And suddenly, the pieces began to fall into place.

The boy’s accusation. The memory of the knife. The way Adrian had reacted when Elias spoke about the children.

My mother wasn’t the only person he had helped my father silence.

“Were you there when my mother died?” I asked.

Adrian looked at me.

“Eleanor—”

“Answer me.”

He lowered his head.

“Yes.”

The word was so quiet that I almost wished I hadn’t heard it.

My father released my wrist.

I stepped away from both men.

“What did you do?”

Adrian’s eyes were wet.

“I was young. Arthur told me the restoration had become dangerous. He said your mother was suffering and that the only way to end it was to shut down the system.”

“Did you?”

“I followed his instructions.”

“And she died.”

He nodded.

Something inside me went cold.

“You stood beside my father while he destroyed my family, and then you came back and pretended to protect me.”

“I never wanted to hurt you.”

“But you did.”

He reached for me, then stopped when he saw my expression.

“I loved you.”

I stared at him through my tears.

“No. You loved the person you wanted me to be. The woman who didn’t remember what you’d done. The woman who trusted you because you were the only person who seemed to understand her nightmares.”

He said nothing.

I turned back to the control panel.

Arthur moved towards me again, but the boy stepped between us.

“Don’t touch her.”

My father stopped.

For the first time, he looked afraid of his son.

I placed my hand on the scanner.

IDENTITY CONFIRMED.

The system displayed the release prompt once more.

I pressed YES.

The locks disengaged one by one.

A heavy mechanical sound echoed through the laboratory as the door slowly opened.

Cold air rushed into the room, carrying the faint smell of antiseptic and something sweet, like flowers left too long in a closed room.

Beyond the threshold was a narrow corridor illuminated by red emergency lights. At the far end stood a glass chamber.

Inside it was a woman wearing a white dress.

Her hair fell loosely over her shoulders. Her hands rested at her sides, and her head was bowed as though she were sleeping.

I took one step forward.

The boy caught my hand.

“Whatever happens, don’t let her touch you.”

I looked at him.

“Why?”

His face crumpled.

“Because the last time she touched you, you stopped being Eleanor.”

I couldn’t speak.

He released my hand.

“And the last time she touched me, I stopped being alive.”

A figure moved inside the chamber.

The woman slowly raised her head.

Even from a distance, I recognised her face.

My mother’s eyes.

My mother’s mouth.

The small scar beneath her chin from the accident she had told me about when I was little.

She looked exactly as I remembered her.

Then she smiled.

Not at Arthur.

Not at Adrian.

At me.

“My baby,” she whispered.

I took another step towards her.

Tears blurred my vision.

“Mother?”

She pressed her palm against the glass.

I lifted my hand instinctively, stopping just short of touching hers.

For one terrible moment, I was a child again. I wanted to run into her arms and ask why she had left me. I wanted to tell her about the nightmares, the missing years, the people who had lied to me. I wanted her to promise that everything would be all right.

Then I noticed the words engraved on the metal frame of the chamber.

SUBJECT THREE. ORIGINAL SOURCE: MARA WHITMORE.

Mara.

The name from my memories.

The little girl behind the glass.

The child who had screamed while I watched from the other side.

I stared at the inscription.

My mother was not Subject Three.

She was the source.

The woman inside the chamber pressed her hand harder against the glass.

“Eleanor,” she whispered. “Please.”

I looked back at Nathaniel.

“What does this mean?”

He couldn’t meet my eyes.

The boy began shaking his head.

“No. No, it can’t be.”

The older Elias stared at the chamber with an expression of utter devastation.

Arthur covered his mouth.

And then the woman behind the glass spoke again.

Only this time, her voice wasn’t my mother’s.

It was the voice of a little girl.

“Eleanor, you promised you would come back for me.”

I stumbled backwards.

The chamber door clicked open.

The woman stepped out.

And as she walked towards me, her face began to change.

My mother’s features faded.

Her hair darkened.

Her body grew smaller.

Within seconds, the woman standing before us had become a little girl with dark curls, a pink ribbon and a familiar mole beneath her left eye.

Mara.

She looked at me with the same frightened eyes I had seen in my memories.

Then she reached for my hand.

“You left me in the room,” she whispered.

I couldn’t move.

“You told them I was ready.”

A sob escaped my throat.

“No.”

Mara’s fingers closed around mine.

“You said you would save me.”

The lights went out.

In the darkness, I heard the boy scream my name.

Then came a sound I would remember for the rest of my life.

A child’s laughter.

Right beside my ear.

And a voice whispered, “Now you remember what you did to me.”