Unremembered (Unremembered #1)(48)

A voice. ‘Sera?’

A voice I don’t recognize.

But somehow it knows my name.

How does it know my name?

With shaking hands and uneven breath, I press my finger against the reader. When it beeps, I open the door a crack and peer through it. There’s a boy standing on my front porch.

A boy I’ve never seen before.

I muster my strength, puff up my chest, and demand of him, ‘Who are you?’

‘Seraphina.’ He says my name with such intimacy it makes me tremble slightly. ‘It’s me. Lyzender. I was here yesterday.’

I open the door a little wider and poke my head out, looking him up and down, trying to jog my memory. But it doesn’t work. I don’t recognize him.

‘No, you weren’t.’ I retreat back inside and slam the door shut. My breathing still has not stabilized.

Go away, I think to myself. Please just go away.

But he doesn’t.

He knocks again. ‘Sera, please.’

His plea immediately pulls me out. Back to the present moment. Back to now.

I recognize those words. I recognize that desperation. I heard it in the parking lot of the supermarket.

‘Please, Sera. Try.’

How many times have I forgotten this boy?

How many times has he begged me to remember?

‘I don’t understand,’ I say slowly, forcing myself to stay calm. ‘Why didn’t I recognize you? Why was I behaving like we’d never met?’

‘Because,’ he states in a measured tone, ‘they erased me from your memory.’





28


FABRICATIONS


His answer punches me in the chest. And suddenly I feel like I’m back in the ocean. The cold, ruthless waves slapping against my face.

‘W-w-what?’ I barely manage to squeak out.

‘Actually, erase is probably the wrong word,’ Zen admits. ‘Removed is a better one. Because the memory still existed after they took it from you.’ He pats the silver cube on the table in front of him. ‘It just didn’t exist in your mind any more.’

‘Why?’ I cry out. My control over my emotions is slipping. ‘Why would they do that?’

‘Control, Sera,’ he says with such gravity I have to look away. ‘They tried to manipulate everything. Everything you remembered and everything you didn’t. They controlled what you knew. What you thought. What you experienced. But most of it was a giant lie. Your childhood, your friends—’

‘My friends?’ I ask in surprise. ‘I had friends?’

Zen shuts his eyes and rubs his face. When his eyes open again, I see that they’re tormented and bloodshot.

‘You thought you had friends,’ he clarifies. ‘You thought you had a whole life outside of the compound. With family and birthday parties and shopping sprees at the mall. But none of it was real. It was all fake.’

‘Fake?’ I repeat dubiously. ‘How do you fake friends?’

‘By implanting artificial memories of them into your brain.’

I shake my head, refusing to believe it. ‘No. I would be able to tell the difference.’

‘That’s the thing,’ he says. ‘You can’t. No one can. They have computer programs that can generate such flawless memories that the brain can’t differentiate them from the real ones. They fill your mind with these happy, comforting experiences that blend right in like they belong there. It’s all the same to you. Once the memory has been uploaded, whether or not it really happened is irrelevant. Your brain thinks it did.’

I feel hot tears pricking my eyes. ‘I just don’t understand why anyone would do that,’ I choke out. ‘Why would they need to implant happy memories in my brain?’

‘To replace the unpleasant ones,’ Zen replies darkly. ‘It was part of a grand illusion. To hide the fact that you were actually a prisoner. They decorated your cell to look like a real house, they crammed your head full of bogus memories. All so they could continue to do whatever horrendous things they were doing to you and you would never even know. Because you could never remember.’

My head is starting to throb. I stand up and pace the floor. Counting the tiles. The tables. The chairs. But it’s pointless. Nothing alleviates this sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach.

‘What kind of horrendous things?’ I’m finally able to ask.

‘That I don’t know,’ he admits. ‘Although I’ve assumed it had to be pretty bad if Diotech went to so much trouble to cover it up. We were never able to figure it out because every time they took you from the house, you came back with a memory of something blissful and benign. A trip to the beach. A sleepover at a friend’s house. Always these perfect little excursions.’

My feet slow to a halt. Something is happening. His words must have triggered some kind of reaction because I can feel another memory forming.

I look anxiously towards the hard drive, wondering what horrors it has in store for me now. Wondering if I can even cope with whatever it’s about to show me when I can barely handle what I’ve already seen.

I reach up towards the sides of my face, ready to rip the rubber discs from my skin. But it’s too late. The images have already infiltrated my brain. They’ve already started their dizzying chaotic loops.