Chapter 6 - REWRITE
The amber liquid dissolved into Eleanor’s bloodstream in less than two seconds.
For three terrifying heartbeats, nothing happened. The LED lights in the basement room flared brightly, the diagnostic tower chiming with a high-pitched, rhythmic beep... beep... beep...
Then, Eleanor’s eyes rolled back into her head. Her body stiffened against the leather straps, her feet kicking out in a violent, involuntary muscle spasm that shook the steel chair.
On the diagnostic monitor above her head, green brainwave traces spiked wildly, turning from smooth, rhythmic waves into a chaotic, jagged mountain range of electrical activity.
"Neural pathway opening," Dr. Vane murmured, stepping closer to the screen, her dark eyes wide with an intense, euphoric obsession. "Cortical baseline dissolving. Subject is in full plastic state."
She grabbed a black microphone attached to the console and pressed it to her lips. Her voice was broadcast through two small speakers directly above Eleanor’s head—magnified, deep, and commanding.
"Eleanor," Dr. Vane spoke into the microphone. "Can you hear me?"
Eleanor’s head fell back against the padded headrest. Her face, previously etched with decades of grief and confusion, suddenly smoothed out. Every line of tension, every shadow of pain vanished, leaving her skin looking like blank, unwritten wax.
"Yes... Barbara," Eleanor whispered, her voice completely flat, devoid of emotion, pitch, or humanity.
"Where is Arthur?" Dr. Vane asked.
"Arthur... is at peace," Eleanor responded instantly, as if reading from an invisible script projected inside her mind.
"Did Arthur burn in the laboratory fire?"
"No," Eleanor said, her eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. "Arthur died peacefully in his sleep at the age of ninety. There was no fire. There was no pain."
I watched in absolute horror from my chair.
Dr. Vane wasn't just erasing a traumatic memory. She was constructing a completely fabricated history—installing a false memory layer over the real one, locking it into place with the chemical catalyst.
"And the research journals?" Dr. Vane continued, her voice pressing harder now, demanding. "Where are the remaining pages of the formula?"
Eleanor’s fingers twitched against her armrests. For a split second, a micro-tremor crossed her blank face—a tiny, heroic resistance from her authentic subconscious fighting against the drug.
"The... the journals..." Eleanor stammered, her flat voice wavering. "Arthur... hid them..."
"Where did he hide them, Eleanor?!" Dr. Vane demanded, leaning over the chair, her composure finally cracking into frantic impatience. "Tell me!"
"In... in the..." Eleanor gasped, her chest heaving as the brainwave traces on the monitor spiked into the dangerous red zone.
"Where?!"
Before Eleanor could answer, a loud, heavy explosion rocked the ceiling above us.
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The white plastic wall panels buckled inward. Plaster dust, shattered glass, and thick black smoke poured through the ceiling vent, plunging the basement room into absolute darkness.
The emergency alarms screamed—a high, piercing siren that drowned out Dr. Vane’s furious shouts.
