The storm had passed, but the silence it left behind wasn't peace—it was calculation. The kind of stillness that comes when a predator stops pacing and waits for you to blink.
Sienna stood alone in the lab module beneath the island bunker. The metallic tang of blood still clung to her fingertips, even after scrubbing them raw. Silas was upstairs, resting under sedation. For now, at least, his vitals were stable.
But she couldn't rest.
Not after what he said.
Not in her voice. In her master's voice.
"…You're the last blood of Yao Wang Valley…"
And the memory is wrong.
She repeated those words to herself as she paced, trying to recall every syllable her master had ever spoken, every coded phrase he'd tucked into prescriptions and lectures and bedtime stories.
Her hand drifted to her waist and pulled out the small jade slip she always wore under her belt—her master's final gift. She'd never been able to decode the strange carvings etched along its back edge. At the time, she thought they were ornamental.
But now she wasn't so sure.
She slid the slip into a scanner tray, overrode the encryption, and zoomed in on the calligraphy.
There were fifteen symbols.
Five ancient Chinese numerals.
And one sequence that didn't fit—Latin letters in a loop: MnOFeCuZnCa.
A mineral sequence.
She stared at it, brain igniting.
The symbols matched the ancient acupuncture script her master had been researching before his death—a hybrid system that used trace mineral absorption patterns to trigger temporary memory reactivation.
Memory.Not biology.
She gasped.
What if the jade slip wasn't just a keepsake?
What if it was a key?
She jumped to the databank and searched for any experiments filed under "M-O mineral fusion therapies." The system flashed: Access denied. Encrypted via Tier-5 biometric lock.
She reached for the encryption key Silas had given her weeks ago—the one he'd said was for "emergencies only."
"This counts," she muttered.
She slid the key in.
The screen unlocked.
And a single folder appeared:
PROJECT: ALECTO.
Inside were dozens of files.
Medical reports. Dosage logs. Brain scans.
And at the bottom, one final entry: S.A.S. – Personal Archive.
Silas Adrian Sterling.
She opened it.
What she saw made her knees buckle.
Rows of tiny vials.
Each labeled in Silas's handwriting.
Each tagged with one code: "S. Chen."
The screen played a timestamped video.
Silas appeared, younger—maybe twenty-two. No scar. No sarcasm. Just clarity. And fear.
"I don't know how to stop what's happening to me. But I know she might."
"If she ever finds this… If she remembers who she is… tell her I made these for her. For when the rest of the world decides she's too dangerous to live."
"Tell her… I never wanted to hurt her."
Sienna reached for the tray on the wall behind her—the one marked with a radiation seal.
Inside: seven vials.
She scanned one.
Confirmed: Antidote Variant 3. DNA-matched to S. Chen.
Tears blurred her vision.
Silas had been making her cures long before she even knew she was sick.
Before she knew what she was.
A beep startled her.
The monitor froze.
Then flashed black.
A red light blinked.
And a message typed itself—line by line—like a ghost at the keys.
Hello, Little Snake.
Sienna froze.
Then the text continued.
You broke the lock. Clever. He always said you'd be faster than the rest.
But speed doesn't mean survival. You're in the wrong memory, Sienna. This isn't your life. It's mine.
Then came the video feed.
A live stream.
K.
Seated in shadow.
Bronze half-mask gleaming. Behind him, dozens of monitors, each showing footage from different parts of the bunker—Silas sleeping. The greenhouse. The surgery room. The corridor where Jenna had stood just last night.
Do you know why I left the antidote there? K asked, voice smooth and cold. Because I wanted you to find it. I wanted you to ask the question you're too afraid to say out loud.
Why does your DNA unlock my research? Why do your childhood memories… not belong to you?
Sienna stepped back.
He leaned forward.
Because you were never supposed to exist.
The feed cut.
Alarms blared.
A lock re-engaged somewhere above her.
She raced upstairs, bolting into the main medical ward.
Silas was gone.
The sheet was bloody.
The wall smeared with a fingerprint.
One word.
Written in crimson.
"SWITCHED."