The cafeteria suddenly felt too small.
Too warm.
Too loud.
Bianca stared at Ward across the table while her brain tried to catch up with what he’d just said.
“…no.”
Ward didn’t answer immediately.
Which was answer enough.
Maya looked confused beside her.
“What does that mean?”
Bianca laughed once.
Short.
Disbelieving.
“It means apparently my life wasn’t insane enough already.”
Ward slid the black folder closer across the table.
Bianca still didn’t touch it.
The thing looked radioactive now.
Around them, the cafeteria continued moving normally.
Children eating breakfast.
Staff walking between tables.
Snow drifting softly outside the giant windows.
Meanwhile Bianca’s entire reality had just taken a chair to the face.
“They had my name?” she asked quietly.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Bianca narrowed her eyes immediately.
“That sounded suspiciously diplomatic.”
Ward sighed softly.
“It means there are theories.”
“Oh good. Love theories. They’re always fun.”
Ward ignored the sarcasm.
Professional.
Annoyingly patient.
Bianca hated patient people.
“They found partial files connected to a project called Horizon,” he continued.
The name meant nothing to Bianca.
Which honestly made it worse somehow.
“No idea what that is,” she muttered.
Ward studied her carefully.
“Your mother ever work in research?”
That hit unexpectedly hard.
Bianca’s expression closed off instantly.
There it was.
The shift.
Ward noticed it immediately too.
“…touchy subject,” he guessed.
Bianca leaned back in her chair slowly.
“You ask very invasive questions for a guy pretending not to interrogate me.”
“I’m trying to understand why an illegal black-site organization had records on a civilian teenager.”
“Cool. I’m trying to understand why reality keeps cracking open around me. Guess we all have hobbies.”
Maya looked between them like she was watching a tennis match.
The younger children nearby had started pretending not to listen.
Terribly.
One little boy was literally holding a spoon upside down while staring.
Subtlety clearly wasn’t his strength.
Ward rubbed tiredly at his forehead.
“You remember anything unusual before the accident?”
Bianca almost answered automatically.
No.
Then stopped.
Because suddenly— small things came back.
Tiny details she hadn’t thought about before.
The feeling of being watched sometimes.
Strange calls her mother used to end abruptly whenever Bianca entered the room.
Arguments late at night.
Her mother constantly moving apartments growing up.
Never staying anywhere too long.
Bianca’s stomach tightened slightly.
“…that depends on your definition of unusual.”
Ward noticed immediately.
There it is.
The look investigators got when they smelled answers.
Bianca immediately regretted speaking.
The system flickered quietly across her vision.
[ Emotional Distress Increasing ] Visit g.com for the full chapter.
“Mind your business,” Bianca muttered.
Maya blinked.
“…who are you talking to?”
“Honestly? A parasite with attitude problems.”
Ward leaned back slightly in his chair.
“You’ve been doing that since we found you.”
Bianca pointed her fork at him.
“And you’ve been stalking me with concern since we met. Nobody’s perfect.”
Ward actually looked offended for half a second.
Interesting.
Human after all.
A staff member suddenly approached the table carrying another tray of food.
Bianca frowned.
“I didn’t order this.”
“You didn’t finish breakfast yesterday either,” the woman replied gently.
“You need calories.”
Bianca stared suspiciously at the extra pancakes.
“…this is how rich people lure victims.”
The woman blinked once.
Then walked away laughing quietly.
Maya looked genuinely confused.
“Why do you joke when stressed?”
Bianca took a long sip of coffee first.
“Because screaming in public is apparently frowned upon.”
“That explains a lot actually.”
“See? You get me.”
For a few minutes, nobody spoke.
Snow continued falling softly outside.
The quiet should’ve felt peaceful.
Instead Bianca’s brain kept replaying one sentence:
> They were looking for you before the accident.
Her appetite disappeared completely.
Ward finally opened the black folder himself after noticing Bianca clearly wasn’t going to touch it.
Inside were several damaged photographs and heavily burned documents.
Most were unreadable.
One photo survived almost intact.
Ward placed it carefully onto the table.
Bianca froze instantly.
It showed her mother.
Younger.
Tired-looking.
Standing beside several people inside what looked like a laboratory.
Bianca’s chest tightened painfully.
She hadn’t seen her mother in almost two years.
Not since the arguments got bad enough that Bianca left.
Not since her mother started acting paranoid all the time.
“Where did you get this?” Bianca asked quietly.
“Recovered archive.”
Ward’s voice softened slightly.
“We think the Red Room infiltrated a private research program years ago.”
Bianca kept staring at the photograph.
Her mother looked afraid even there.
Like she already knew something was wrong.
Maya glanced carefully at the image.
“That’s your mom?”
Bianca nodded slowly.
Silence settled again.
Then quietly—
Maya asked:
“…do you think she knew?”
That question landed like a punch.
Bianca immediately looked away from the photo.
“No.”
Too fast.
Too defensive.
Ward noticed instantly.
Bianca hated how observant this man was.
“She used to move us around constantly,” Bianca admitted quietly.
“Always said it was for work.”
Memory surfaced slowly now.
Boxes never unpacked.
Her mother checking locks three times every night.
At the time Bianca thought she was just anxious.
Now?
Now she wasn’t so sure.
“She ever mention Horizon?” Ward asked.
Bianca shook her head.
“No.”
Then paused.
“…but she did used to say weird stuff sometimes.”
Ward waited silently.
Bianca stared down into her coffee.
“She kept telling me if anything strange ever happened…” Bianca swallowed lightly.
“…I should run.”
Maya went still beside her.
Ward’s expression hardened slightly.
“Did she say from who?”
Bianca laughed weakly.
“No. My mother preferred vague emotional damage over communication.”
The joke didn’t fully land this time.
Because now she remembered how scared her mother used to look.
And suddenly—
Bianca didn’t feel angry anymore.
Just uneasy.
The system flickered again.
[ Memory Correlation Detected ]
[ Probability of Prior Exposure Increasing ]
“…I swear to God if I was secretly experimented on as a child—”
Ward immediately looked up sharply.
“Why would you think that?”
Bianca stared at him flatly.
“Ward. Reality broke around me.”
Fair point.
Even he couldn’t argue with that one.
A silence stretched between them.
Heavy now.
Different.
Then suddenly— an alarm chirped softly somewhere inside the facility.
Not loud.
Not dangerous.
Just a notification tone.
Still— every child in the cafeteria froze instantly.
Utter silence fell over the room.
Bianca felt it immediately.
Conditioning.
The Red Room carved reactions into these kids so deep their bodies moved before thought did.
One little girl nearly dropped her tray trying to stand automatically.
A staff member quickly raised both hands gently.
“It’s okay,” she said softly.
“Nobody’s in trouble.”
Nobody moved.
Bianca watched the fear spread through the room quietly.
Then something ugly twisted inside her chest.
Because she understood that fear now.
Ward saw it too.
His jaw tightened slightly.
The staff slowly calmed the children down after a minute.
Conversation eventually returned.
But quieter now.
Careful.
Bianca stared out the window afterward.
Snow falling endlessly through the mountains.
Free.
And somehow none of them actually knew how to feel safe yet.
Ward closed the folder carefully.
“We’re still investigating Horizon,” he said quietly.
Bianca nodded absently.
Then after a moment— she asked the question she’d been avoiding since waking up here.
“…did you ever find my mom?”
Ward didn’t answer immediately.
And that alone terrified her.
HELLO EVERYONE you must be wondering when did Bianca have a new mom in this new world to cut it shortz she already had a life in this world, I’ll leave the rest for you to uncover, don’t forget to share my book.