Page 78 of Lost Echoes

I can barely breathe. “By who?”

A faint hum rises from ahead. Not machinery, but a voice. It’s steady, low, and repeats something over and over.

I strain to listen.

My name. “Kenzi…”

Sofia looks at me sharply. “Don’t respond.”

But the voice keeps calling in a soft, coaxing, familiar way.

“Kenzi, you know the way. Follow the thread.”

It’s Dr. Radley’s voice.

My knees weaken. “Not again.”

Sofia’s grip tightens. “We end this now. Are you ready?”

I nod, though I’m not sure I’ll ever truly be ready.

We follow the thread. It leads us into a circular chamber lined with glass panels and old observation rooms. Inside them, I see outlines of equipment, restraints, chairs. Dust covers everything, but it’s not enough to hide what they were.

They’re identical to the ones at Radley.

I know because I remember.

But I don’t have time to make sense of that because in the center of the chamber stands Dr. Radley himself. He’s disheveled now, his perfect composure cracked. Blood streaks one side of his face where the glass cut him, but he’s still smiling.

On the floor beside him kneels the figure from before. The mask is cracked, hanging loose at the jaw. The thread is spilling from his hands, pooling across the floor.

Sofia steps forward, her voice steady. “It’s over, Radley.”

He glances at her, almost looking amused. “You always did confuse endings with beginnings.”

I move closer, my pulse pounding. “What did you do to him?”

“To Phoenix?” Radley gestures to him like a magician revealing a trick. “He was my test case. The perfect survivor. Programmed to remember everything and obey only the cue. He was supposed to prove we could rewrite trauma itself.”

Phoenix’s head jerks up. The mask slips, and I see his face. He’s pale, with glassy eyes, but alive. “Kenzi…”

I take a step toward him. “It’s okay. We can get you out.”

He flinches back. “No. You don’t understand.” His voice glitching on syllables. “The system… still running inside me.”

Sofia’s voice sharpens. “He’s wired into the controls. It’s him keeping the network alive.”

Dr. Radley’s grin widens. “So you see the beauty of it now? The experiment never died. No, it evolved. Now it’s something bigger and better.”

My skin prickles. “We have to shut it down.”

“I can’t.” Phoenix’s eyes fill with tears. “It’s all threaded together. You, me, the others. You pull one line and it unravels everything.”

Something snaps inside me, and I turn to the maniacal doctor. “You built this on children!”

He only tilts his head, his expression serene. “And the world applauded.”

Sofia runs at him, crossing the space in a blink. She seizes his arm and slams a syringe into his neck.