Myra followed Sebastian as he made his way purposefully to some kind of destination. He didn't seem to be looking for a way out like she thought; he was going back somewhere.
How long had he been here? His white button-up shirt and vest were torn and stained with blood; some splatters from enemies, some larger, darker patches from his own veins. His leather pistol holster was worn and scratched, the shotgun and crossbow that he both somehow fit onto his back were old, rusted, and stained.
He was all but infuriating to Myra, yet she felt she didn't have a choice but to stay nearby. If nothing else because he had weapons she didn't—maybe if she could swipe that revolver, she could leave. It would be better than her knife and single grenade.
There was something else, too. He wasn't familiar to her—too rugged, too distant to be anyone she'd ever known, or she would remember him—but she somehow had a very thorough understanding of him. Not his life, but his emotions. Even though he was a closed, chained, and safe-locked book, she understood what he was thinking.
Eventually he led her up a flight of stairs and into a small, attic-like area with pipes running across the walls and ceiling, some so low she had to duck under them. It was cold up here, and damp, but it was cleaner than most of the places she'd been so far. At the corner of the room, there was a thin bedroll, a lantern, a trench coat, and a sniper rifle.
"You can actually carry all that?" Myra asked with mild surprise. It wasn't a lot, really, but the four different types of weapons he had were something of a mystery.
"Not often. I find a new place to stay every few days so I can keep one weapon and a few things here while I scope out the area." He looked at the sniper rifle, then gave Myra a brief but scrutinizing look, then handed it to her. "It didn't used to be like this," he continued, hooking the lantern to his hip and rolling up the bedroll. "There used to be somewhere…else…I could go. A different layer of this nightmare. But I haven't found it again after I got—back."
"Back? This is your second time here?"
She could see the haunted expression behind his façade. "Yes."
Once he had gathered everything, he left without another word. She hesitated for a moment before following. She hadn't failed to see the three white scratches on the wall, like tally marks.
Lost track, huh?
Not far from that, on the floor, there was a document halfway slid into a folder stamped CONFIDENTIAL, which Sebastian had completely ignored. With a frown, she picked it up and skimmed through the page. It looked like a scientific or medical record of some sort:
Day 1:
System still down. Pt vital signs fluctuating but not threatened.
Day 2:
Pt unconscious but seems disturbed. Thrashing, groaning, often coinciding with system activation.
Day 3:
Pt vital signs approaching critical. System running.
Day 4:
Integration beginning. Vital signs still near critical.
Day 5:
Integration successful.
She shook her head. What did it mean, and why was it here? And why were there clear tally marks of days Sebastian had spent here when he said he'd lost count? What was his purpose in lying to her? He trusted her with his sniper rifle, but not with how long he'd been in this hellhole?
She started back down the stairs and caught up to him as quickly as possible so he wouldn't notice she'd been snooping. She was about to speak when everything rippled in front of her. Heavy waves not only through the air, but through the walls and floor and everything. Each wave throbbed in her ears as it went by.
Sebastian turned around, an almost panicked expression on his face, and started to say her name, but then he was gone, and she was gone.
She was in a different room now. She straightened—not even realizing she had crouched to brace herself. The room around her was dim, but not dark. It was lit by four candles sitting on the only object in the room: a large desk in front of an even larger corkboard. She took a glance at the rest of the room; brown-orange, peeling walls, scratched wooden floor still holding onto some gloss. It could've been cozy, once, but now it seemed old and dilapidated.
And there was no door.
A shot of adrenaline—panic—coursed through when she saw there was no way out, but she took a deep breath and stepped up to the corkboard. One thing at a time.
It looked like a diorama of madness. News articles, maps, a few book pages, blue string and tacks. Someone's scribbled, almost unreadable handwriting in various type of writing utensils, even highlighters. As if the writer had been so crowded with thoughts that they'd had to snatch the nearest thing and put down a thought before it disappeared. As she got closer to the papers, she could smell the faint, sour musk of cigarettes.
One paper caught her eye, even though it was partially covered by a newspaper clipping.
Because it was her.
"MYRA CASTELLANOS" it said in large print at the bottom, below a picture of her. "MISSING" it said at the top.
She frowned at the picture and leaned closer. She could tell it had been taken while she was at work; her hair was tightly smoothed back into a bun and she must have had contacts in, rather than the glasses she wore at home. Still, something about it seemed odd. She couldn't remember when it was taken, which wasn't terribly strange, but…unless it was lighting, her hair almost looked a little grayer than it was now. And why was it here? Was this sign out because she was gone, into STEM? If so, how did it end up in here? No one in the system should know about it if she had been here only a week.
And the map…it was a map of Krimson City and some of the surrounding area, some places marked with pins and others with circles of red pen. Most of the locations were familiar to her, not just because she lived in that city, but because she had a particular connection with those places. But it must have been coincidence; only someone who knew her well would know of all those connections.
She looked down at the desk. There was a single unmarked folder on it, which she opened to find more pictures of herself looking back. It was her file from KCPD. Was this part of her memory?
She flipped to the back of the folder. The last page was another copy of the "missing" flyer, but this time the word "Why?" with two questions marks was written to the right of her picture. The word, scribbled in the same slanting handwriting as on the diorama, struck her and she looked back up at the corkboard.
This person was looking for her.
"You don't remember any of it, do you?"
She started slightly and turned. Sebastian's shrouded expression didn't match the slightly bitter tone she had heard in his voice.
"How did you…?" she started to ask, but trailed off when she saw the door behind him. She was certain it hadn't been there before. "What do you mean?"
He stepped up to the desk next to her, looking at the mess of papers darkly, and it only occurred to her then that he, too, smelled slightly like cigarettes.
"This was you?" she asked, partly in awe and partly in horror.
He turned his head from her to look at nothing on the floor. "It doesn't matter. We should go." He turned and headed for the door.
"Wait," she demanded, catching his arm. "Don't you dare just walk away again. This," she said with a gesture to the board, "this is madness. This is obsession, and I need to know why." She let go of him. "Look at you! You won't even make eye contact with me. You say you don't know me, but you're expecting me to remember you. I saw the look on your face when you first saw me. Something is going on here and if it involves me, I need to know."
To her surprise and slight annoyance, Sebastian smiled a bit. It was a weary kind of smile, but it was there, for a moment. Then he shook his head. "What's your maiden name, Myra?"
This question caught her so off-guard it took her a moment to comprehend it. "I—it's…." She frowned. It was almost as though she had been about to say one. "What do you mean? I'm not married."
"Your name wasn't Castellanos," he said, looking at her carefully. "It was Hanson."
When she looked at him like he was insane, he moved closer and reached down to pull a file from one of the desk drawers. He offered it to her.
"It's my file," he said. "From KCPD."
She took it with a frown. "From…?" But she didn't finish. She opened the file to find a picture of Sebastian—a much younger Sebastian, with shorter, neater hair, a clean-shaven face, and an actually tightened tie—and some information about him.
Including a name.
Sebastian Castellanos.
She stared at it for a long time, and she wasn't even sure if she was surprised. It didn't seem wrong, exactly. But when she looked up at the man in front of her, who was watching her expression with slightly narrowed eyes, she couldn't associate him with the word husband.
She looked back down at the file. Thinking back, trying to remember, it occurred to her how little she could recall. Not just about this, or about how she got into STEM, but about everything. So many gaps in her life, so many things that didn't make sense, it was as though she didn't…actually…know who she was.
Suddenly, her knees buckled and she almost fell. Sebastian caught her by the elbows as the file and papers scattered to the floor by their feet. She grabbed his forearms and pulled herself back up, then gently pushed him away, her eyes fixed on the ground as she processed everything.
"So I…I'm married to you," she said slowly. "And this…." She turned back to the corkboard. "This was all your attempt to…?"
"Find you," he said. "Find out what you were looking for. You left, Myra. You left after Lily was gone and I had to find out why—"
"Lily? Oh god, don't tell me…."
"Our daughter," he answered, confirming her fear.
This time she sat back against the desk. How much of her life was missing? Was anything she remembered even real? This all seemed insane, but somehow she knew it wasn't fake.
The ground shook beneath them. Something was pounding behind her, something huge a few rooms away.
"We need to go," Sebastian said in a warning tone.
She couldn't get herself to move. The pounding got louder, and a boom sounded from whatever room was directly behind her. This time she could hear debris spread across the floor.
"We need to go," Sebastian said again, less of a warning and more of a demand. He grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the desk, forcing her to start moving. Then together they ran as the wall exploded behind them.
