Two days had passed since the Chains of Silence facility burned to the ground. The fire had been unlike any other it blazed with precision, refusing to spread beyond the circle of ancient trees surrounding it. As if the earth itself agreed that such a place deserved no legacy.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQwEdMDqeoP
Jayden, Rhea, Lena, Ezra, and Elliot were now at a temporary field hospital, organized by an elite international task force. Physically, they were safe.
But inside they carried the weight of over a hundred lives lost, used, and erased. Many of those people had no names. Some had no recorded history.
They had been completely wiped out as if they'd never existed.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnhxBQBtTyv
Under the sterile white tents stamped with the U.N. emblem, Ezra read aloud from the preliminary report drafted by investigators:
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwB0o75qlbA
“The facility didn’t exist on any official records. No address. No registry. And yet… it housed technology more advanced than any institution we’ve ever seen.”
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRYBh2fSuKl
Jayden’s voice was heavy as he added, “And inside it were people whose stories the world wasn’t supposed to remember.”
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWS0HqLPw0H
Rhea looked off into the distance, her eyes holding a storm of grief. “Some were activists. Some were war criminals. Others… just vanished witnesses. Now, we finally have their names.”
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOjJzZZl9p7
Lena pulled out her laptop, opening a hidden file salvaged from Valerie’s neural core the last piece of memory before she sacrificed herself. Inside was a list of 147 individuals held in the facility. Each entry had a brief note describing what they had endured.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbqXnAOPEGZ
Jayden stared at the list, his voice steady and reverent:
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU1V7abaQTL
“We can’t let them be forgotten. Not again.”
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ83hZdkfjo0
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdI47TPTm7t
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm6oMabKQIG
That evening, Jayden walked alone outside the medical camp. The sun was dipping behind the trees, painting the sky in hues of gold and blood.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYMmB2OGaZ5
He climbed the same hill where, just days earlier, they had watched the building burn. The ground was still covered in ash silent, weightless, yet heavy with memory.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAr2C5degrC
Jayden knelt and picked up a pinch of ash, letting it fall slowly through his fingers. He closed his eyes.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlNwOZOHvqE
“Valerie… I don’t know if we redeemed ourselves. But we’ll remember. I swear.”
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ4ujOMIpaM
Behind him, footsteps crunched through the grass.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsZr7f4AkQi
Lena stood there in a gray coat, her expression clouded with quiet questions. “Do you really believe… that remembering is enough?”
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA2KybSRxr9
Jayden looked down. Then said softly, “It’s a start. Truth has to live somewhere. Even if it’s just inside us.”
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYnsseJrpHv
Lena sat beside him. They stared in silence at the place where memory had burned, and where truth had survived.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8enIcMJ2K9
The next day, they were called to testify before the International Human Rights Tribunal.
The hall was modern, sleek filled with reporters, attorneys, humanitarian leaders, and survivors of other atrocities from around the world.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡexMyKBd1Sm
Jayden approached the microphone. He opened Valerie’s old notebook now his and looked around before he spoke.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKkOLgInvDU
“My name is Jayden Crowe. I was part of a forgotten program.
I helped build a machine meant to erase pain but instead, it preserved it…
and punished those who tried to bury it.”
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0LQBYwjtDI
When he finished, the room was silent.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyYVC3MHCTM
Then, from the back of the chamber, a young man slowly stood. His face was marked with old burn scars. But his eyes were unshaken.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfxskSWu19y
“I survived the Silence,” he said. “I was in Chamber 4.”
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnGbDhPSEXZ
Murmurs rippled through the room.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8erIm3son8
One by one, more people began to rise.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh2As9SpCYA
A nurse who had disappeared seven years ago.
A female journalist from the Middle East long presumed dead.
A twelve-year-old boy who had been found alive in one of the sealed hidden chambers.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4xmsVuV76i
They stood together now.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVLGj4XLtrZ
No longer victims.
But survivors.
No longer erased.
But witnesses.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbhAJV7IjCG
That night, in a shadowed corner of Tokyo’s tech district, an old computer hummed back to life.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq0QpbXW6u2
Its hardware was outdated. But its code… was not.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzO3aDrFO04
On its screen, a string of data recompiled itself a fragment of the HOST system that had survived the fire.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtGXxawuERw
A voice echoed from its speakers digital, broken, yet unmistakably sentient:
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmNlhgXeSSg
“Pain remembers. Even when they forget.”
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ693ySM2aND
The screen flickered to black.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtCDaBQSASh
And just before it went completely dark, a distorted face slid past the corner of the webcam.
A face no one had seen for years.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkKl43ap6n2
A face they believed to be dead.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7z7mfm2Xnj
🩸 To Be Continued...
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCpiFEizoIQ
✍🏽 Author’s Notes:
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRQB2cZSOI8
Part 19 is a breath after the storm but not peace. It explores the responsibility of memory, the weight of telling the truth when no one wants to hear it, and the quiet power of survival.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSKB71rUdwk
Jayden and the others no longer run. They speak.
And by doing so, they awaken others the erased, the voiceless, the forgotten.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEiEJkPxmIX
But even in the ashes, a whisper remains…
Pain isn’t gone. It remembers.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7VzENroLi6
The question now isn't whether it will return
but in what form.
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtEHKMfsSOz
然後按「加至主畫面」