Kai Langford - March 2121
"Noah?"
My voice comes out so softly that it barely sounds like mine. I turn slowly, every muscle in my body tensing as I look towards the doorway, and for a moment, the entire world seems to stop around me.
It's him.
Noah is standing there.
For a second, I can't breathe or think. I can only stare at the face I've spent every second since his death trying not to remember because remembering him hurts too much. The same eyes, the same hair, the same familiar expression that used to make me feel as though, no matter what happened, he was by my side.
It really is him... But it can't be.
"How..." My voice catches in my throat, and I swallow hard before forcing the rest of the words out. "How are you here?"
He gives me that gentle smile I know so well and takes a careful step towards me, but my hands have already begun shaking violently. My brain feels foggy, struggling to catch up with what my eyes are telling me. I watched Noah die. I held him in my arms while the life left his body, felt his weight become heavier against me and heard his final words. I buried him by the lake, so how is he standing in front of me now?
Noah reaches out his hand, and I automatically take a step backwards and as I do his smile fades.
"Kai?"
His voice is exactly the same, carrying that familiar softness that makes something inside my chest twist painfully.
"What's wrong?"
I stare at him, unable to tear my eyes away from his face as my stomach drops. My shadows begin shifting around my feet, restless and uncertain, curling around me as though they're sensing something my mind hasn't fully understood yet.
Threat or not?
Noah or something else?
"I saw you die," I whisper, the words feeling impossible as they leave my mouth. "You died in my arms."
He shakes his head, confusion spreading across his face as he takes another step towards me.
"Dead? What are you talking about? I'm here."
That's what I want to know. How is he here? How can you be standing in front of me when I watched him die?
"No." I shake my head and step backwards again, refusing to let myself believe what I'm seeing. "You're not him."
His expression falls.
"Kai..."
"This has to be a trick."
My back hits the edge of the desk, leaving me with nowhere else to go. Noah moves towards me slowly, almost cautiously, as though he's afraid one wrong movement will make me run. When he raises his hand and gently cups the side of my face, I flinch at the contact.
His skin feels warm and so real.
His thumb brushes against my cheek in the exact same way Noah used to whenever he knew I was upset, and for one horrifying moment, every wall I've built around myself begins to crack.
"It's not a trick," he says softly. "I'm really here."
Before I can push him away, his arms wrap around me and pull me into a hug.
Every part of me freezes.
He smells like Noah. It even feels like Noah, and for one terrible second, my body forgets what my mind knows. My arm begins to lift almost automatically, instinct trying to reach for something I've spent days mourning, and I almost hug him back.
But then my shadows move. They seep around my hands and pull my arms away from him almost violently, as though they're warning me before I can make a mistake.
This isn't Noah.
The realisation hits me hard enough to make my stomach turn and I shove him away.
He stumbles backwards, and before he can recover, I grab him around the throat. His eyes widen immediately as his hands claw desperately at my wrist.
"Please, Kai, it's really me."
"This is nothing but a trick."
My voice is low and shaking with rage as I tighten my grip. I know he's not Noah. I know he can't be, but looking at that face makes every instinct inside me scream against what I'm doing.
"Turn back to normal before I make you regret it."
His breathing becomes strained as I pull him closer, forcing him to look directly into my eyes.
"I don't..."
"Remove his face."
I tighten my grip until we're only inches apart, my shadows already beginning to curl around his arms and legs.
"Or I will tear you apart piece by piece."
The shadows wrap tightly around his limbs as I force them apart, pinning him as he struggles desperately beneath my grip.
"Please!" he gasps, but I barely hear him. "Dr Langford!"
I freeze for the smallest fraction of a second.
Dr Langford... I knew it wasn't Noah.
My grip tightens, and my shadows respond to the fury rushing through me. One of them wraps around his arm and pulls with enough force to make the bone snap.
His scream tears through the room.
"Please! Please, I'm sorry!"
I stare at them, my breathing ragged, but I don't care that they're begging. Whoever they are, they used Noah's face. They used Noah's voice. They took the person I would give anything to have back and turned him into a weapon against me.
I begin tightening my shadows around their other arm when something strikes me from behind and pain erupts across my back.
My grip breaks, and I stumble as the fake Noah collapses to the floor beside me. Their disguise disappears almost instantly, the familiar face dissolving until I'm staring at a girl with ginger hair spilling across her face. She curls into herself, crying as she clutches her broken arm against her chest.
But I barely notice her because something is wrong.
My shadows are disappearing.
They retract towards me without me telling them to, slipping away from my body until there is nothing left. I reach for them instinctively, expecting to feel that familiar darkness answer my call, but there is nothing.
So I reach again, but still nothing.
A cold panic spreads through my chest as I realise I can't feel them anymore.
I turn towards whatever struck me, reaching behind my back until my fingers close around a small glass vial. I pull it free, and the moment I see the green liquid clinging to the glass, my heart drops... It's Noah's nullifier.
My father's voice comes from behind me.
"I was never particularly fond of Noah's idea of creating a nullifier." I look up to see my father standing there. "But I suppose it does have its uses."
Dizziness crashes over me. My knees buckle, forcing me to stumble sideways until I catch myself against the large window, gripping the frame as my head suddenly feels like it's splitting apart.
My shadows are gone.
Completely gone.
I try to call them again, desperate enough that my fingers begin trembling, but nothing answers. My chest tightens as the terrifying reality settles over me. They're gone.
My legs give out and I fall down next to the window.
My father steps towards me and grips my chin, forcing me to look at him. I grab his wrist instinctively, but even that small movement feels like more than my exhausted body can manage.
Without my shadows, I realise just how much I've been relying on them to keep me standing. I've been using them to move faster, to block attacks and to take the weight from my body whenever I couldn't carry myself anymore. They weren't just a weapon I was taught to use. Somewhere along the way, they had become an extension of me.
And now they've been ripped away.
There is nothing left.
"Look at you," my father says, studying me with that same cold, calculating expression I've spent my entire childhood fearing. "Powerless and weak."
His fingers tighten around my jaw.
"You forgot your place."
He jerks my head forward before throwing it backwards, and my skull crashes against the window. Glass fractures behind me, spiderwebbing across the pane as my vision blurs.
"I am the one who created you."
His voice is almost calm, which somehow makes it worse.
"I am the one who gave you that power."
A sharp kick to my stomach forces the air from my lungs. I fold forward, coughing violently as pain tears through my abdomen, barely able to remain standing.
My father turns towards the girl still lying on the floor.
"Leave."
She looks up at him, terrified, before forcing herself to her feet. She cradles her broken arm against her chest and hurries from the room without saying another word.
I barely have time to breathe before my father's hand closes around my hair and yanks my head backwards, forcing me to look at him again.
"You may have destroyed GeneX," he says, almost amused, "but I will rebuild it."
My stomach twists.
"I will find those people you tried to protect at the school, and I will turn them into my next test subjects."
"No." The word barely leaves my mouth.
His grip tightens.
"And when I find Test Subject 012..."
My blood runs cold and he smiles.
"I'll make sure he suffers."
I stop breathing.
"I'll torture him every second of every day until he regrets ever meeting you."
Everything inside me goes completely still. Ethan. He will go after Ethan next.
Even after everything I've done, even after I've destroyed GeneX headquarters and taken everything I could from him, he'll keep coming. He'll keep searching for Ethan, and if he finds him, he'll hurt him.
The thought tears through whatever is left of me.
I can't let him.
I can't let him touch Ethan.
With every ounce of strength I have left, I drive my fist towards my father's face. My knuckles connect with his jaw, snapping his head sideways as he staggers backwards, releasing my hair. Blood immediately begins running from his split lip.
I drop towards the floor, gasping for air as I struggle to remain conscious.
Again.
I only need to hit him again.
But instead my eyes find the gun I dropped earlier, and I reach towards it, dragging myself across the floor. Every movement sends another wave of pain through my body, but I keep crawling, stretching my arm until my fingers finally brush the edge.
I almost have it but then another hand closes around it and my father gets there first.
He stands slowly, wiping the blood from his mouth as he looks down at me. The gun rises until the barrel is pointing directly at my head.
"Enough is enough."
I stare at the weapon, listening to the sound of my own heartbeat beneath the faint hum of the city outside. I can feel the pain in every part of my body, the exhaustion dragging at my limbs and the emptiness where my shadows should be, but strangely, I'm not afraid anymore.
I've spent my entire life afraid of this man. Afraid of his anger, his punishment, of failing him and of GeneX. I've been afraid of losing Noah, afraid of losing myself and afraid that one day there would be nothing left of me beneath everything he had created.
But I've already lost everything I was afraid of losing.
The only thing I still have is Ethan.
And if this is where my story ends, then at least I know I gave everything I had to keep him safe. He's strong, I know he will find a way to survive.
My father stares down at me.
"Failed experiments need to be terminated."
I close my eyes, not because I'm frightened, but because I'm too tired to keep them open.
For the first time since Noah died, I don't fight. I don't reach for my shadows that are no longer there or try to crawl away. I don't search for some impossible escape route or force myself to stand when my body is screaming at me to stay down.
Instead, I simply think of Ethan.
His smile.
His voice.
The way he looks at me like I'm something worth loving.
I remember the warmth of his body beside mine, the feeling of his hands against mine and the way he always managed to make me believe, even if only for a little while, that I could be more than what GeneX and the Facility created.
More than what my father made me.
More than a weapon.
More than a failed experiment.
I'm sorry.
The thought comes quietly as I picture his face one last time.
I'm sorry I left you.
I'm sorry I failed you.
The gunshot tears through the room.
BANG.