Chapter 5 Fragments of a Forgotten Mind

The sirens wailed through the night.

Red and blue lights washed over the crumbling exterior of the lab as paramedics rushed past, carrying stretchers and shouting into radios. The air still smelled of smoke and copper.

Selena Ward sat on the back of an ambulance, the silver locket clenched tight in her palm. She could still feel the tremor of the explosion in her bones. Every sound every flicker of light made her flinch.

Briggs stood a few feet away, barking orders into his phone. His voice was steady, but his eyes kept darting back to her.

“Yeah, lock down the perimeter. No one leaves without ID. And get a trace on Ward’s comm line it’s been tampered with.”

Selena barely heard him. Her gaze was locked on the locket. The words burned into her mind:

You asked me to take her pain. I took yours instead.

She ran her thumb over the metal, whispering to herself. “What does that mean, Evelyn?”

Jamie approached quietly, her usual confidence replaced with worry. “Hey… you’re bleeding.”

Selena blinked down at her arm. A thin line of blood trailed from a cut near her elbow. She hadn’t even noticed.

“I’m fine,” she muttered.

Jamie frowned. “You almost got blown up. ‘Fine’ isn’t really on the menu.”

Selena sighed, her voice distant. “He knew my name before I said it. He knew things I’ve never told anyone. And Evelyn…” She swallowed hard. “She looked like she knew him.”

Jamie hesitated. “Selena, we’ll find her. But maybe you need to”

“I don’t need rest,” Selena snapped, standing abruptly. “I need answers.”

Briggs hung up and approached. “You’re off this case until the review board clears you.”

Selena turned to him, furious. “You can’t sideline me now. Evelyn’s still out there.”

“Exactly,” Briggs said calmly. “And you’re too close to this. Hell, you’re in this. That explosion could’ve killed half the precinct if you’d brought the team in faster.”

“Don’t do this,” Selena said, voice trembling. “I can fix it. Just give me time.”

Briggs’s expression softened. “Selena… this isn’t about fixing it. It’s about surviving it.”

She shook her head, stepping back. “No. You don’t understand. I am the case.”

The words slipped out before she could stop them.

Briggs frowned. “What the hell does that mean?”

Selena hesitated, then stuffed the locket into her pocket. “It means I’ll find her with or without clearance.”

She walked away before he could respond.

The next morning, Selena stood in front of her bathroom mirror, water dripping from her hair. The night’s events replayed in flashes the explosion, Evelyn’s voice, The Pale Man’s calm certainty.

She wiped the fog from the glass. For a moment, her reflection blurred not because of the steam, but because she saw something else. A younger version of herself, dressed in a white hospital gown, whispering something she couldn’t hear.

She blinked and it was gone.

Her phone buzzed on the counter. Jamie’s text glowed on the screen:

“Got something from the blast site. Meet me at HQ.”

Selena grabbed her jacket and left.

At the precinct, Jamie was hunched over a digital projector in the evidence room. The screen displayed fragments of distorted video pulled from the lab’s surveillance feed.

“Most of the data’s fried,” Jamie said, adjusting the playback speed. “But look at this right before the explosion.”

On screen, The Pale Man appeared, standing beside a hospital bed. Evelyn lay unconscious, electrodes attached to her temples.

Then another figure stepped into frame. A woman in a white coat, face hidden behind a surgical mask. She reached for the control panel.

Jamie froze the video. “Facial recognition’s incomplete, but… watch when I enhance it.”

The filter sharpened the image. The woman’s eyes became visible clear, sharp, and heartbreakingly familiar.

Selena’s breath caught. “That’s… me.”

Jamie looked at her. “That’s what I thought, too.”

Selena staggered back. “No. It’s impossible. I’ve never”

But memory fragments began to flicker like static behind her eyes the smell of antiseptic, the hum of machines, Evelyn screaming her name, a man’s pale voice whispering, “You wanted her to forget. You wanted peace.”

Her hands trembled. “Oh God… what did I do?”

Jamie turned off the projection. “Selena, listen. There’s a timestamp on the file it’s from nine years ago. Around the time Evelyn went missing.”

Selena pressed a hand to her temple. “Nine years ago, I was in the academy.”

Jamie hesitated. “No record of that year exists in your personnel file. It just… skips.”

The room seemed to tilt.

Selena backed away from the table. “You think I helped him?”

“I think you were part of it,” Jamie said softly. “Whatever they did to Evelyn maybe you volunteered.”

Selena’s voice cracked. “Why would I ever”

Jamie placed a hand on her shoulder. “You said it yourself. You am the case.”

Silence filled the room.

Finally, Selena straightened. “Pull every file connected to The Pale Man aliases, clinics, pharmaceutical ties, anything. I’m finding him.”

Jamie hesitated. “You sure you want to keep digging? You might not like what you find.”

Selena’s gaze hardened. “I’ve been living in a lie for nine years. It’s time I remembered what I buried.”

That night, Selena returned to her apartment. She couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Evelyn’s face in the red glow of the lab, whispering, You made it happen.

She poured herself a glass of whiskey and sat by the window. The city stretched below alive, unaware.

Her phone buzzed again. A new message. No number.

Just a single line:

“Ready to remember, Detective?”

Attached was a photo grainy, black and white. Two girls, standing outside an old brick hospital. One with dark curls and bright eyes. The other Selena herself smiling faintly, wearing the same locket now burning in her palm.

On the back of the photo, scrawled in Evelyn’s handwriting:

“Ward Institute for Cognitive Rehabilitation Room 47.”

Selena’s pulse quickened. She turned the locket over again. This time, she noticed something she hadn’t before a faint engraving on the inside hinge.

It read: Project Ward.

Her own name.

Selena whispered to the empty room, “What the hell did they do to us?”

Outside, thunder rolled across the skyline.

And somewhere in the dark, The Pale Man smiled.