“Shh, they might hear us,” he whispered to the girl, who was now crying. They hid behind a large tree. The boy scanned their surroundings, checking for anyone following. He told the girl to be ready to run if they were spotted again.

Kenji watched them. They wore hospital gowns and were barefoot. One look at them told him they had escaped the building.

“Are you okay? Where are your parents?” Kenji asked. In the distance, he saw three men with flashlights searching through the woods.

“They’re here! Run!” But the kids didn’t move. The little boy covered the girl’s mouth with his hand. She cried silently as the lights drew closer.

“Please, keep quiet,” he pleaded. His voice was soft, but fear lingered in every word.

One of the men shone his flashlight directly at them.

“They’re here! I found them!”

The little boy positioned himself in front of the girl, who now sobbed uncontrollably behind him. Kenji screamed, demanding to know who they were, stepping in front of the children.

“You’re not taking them. You’d have to go through me first,” Kenji said.

“Papa!” the girl cried.

A man in his forties emerged from behind the others.

“Take them. Bring them to the emergency facility. We must leave before the cops arrive,” the man said.

The men seized the children. They fought back, but Kenji watched in horror—not because they were taken, but because he realized he had no power to stop them. His courage had vanished. Fear gripped him; he feared for his own life.

“Please… can anyone see me?” he asked, voice trembling.

Amid the chaos of the struggling children, he froze. The man called Papa pulled out a syringe. First, he rendered the little girl unconscious, then turned to the boy, who screamed for help. Kenji stared as the man moved the boy’s hair aside—and then he saw it.

2001-007.

Tattooed behind the boy’s left ear. The same tattoo Kenji had.

He watched the men leave, carrying the kids. He dropped to his knees on the forest floor. He didn’t cry. He didn’t know what to feel. Kenji felt an unbearable headache. Then he realized—he was not dead. Dead people don’t feel physical pain. He was in a memory. A memory he didn’t remember.

He shut his eyes tight, hoping the pain would stop. When he opened them again, he was in a room. Two beds stood before him. The kids were strapped to them, sleeping. Behind a glass panel, a woman sat, observing.

Kenji studied the children’s faces. He recognized himself—his own face stared back at him, the same as in the family albums. Then he looked at the little girl and froze. She looked like Risa.

The room was filled with beams and machines, like the control rooms from the sci-fi movies he had watched. Papa walked in, stared at the children, and exhaled heavily.

“I think we should start now,” he said to the woman beside him. She nodded.

She pressed buttons on her panel. The machine above Kenji whirred to life. Then he heard the little girl’s voice.

“Hey, can you hear me?” she said, though her mouth wasn’t moving.

“Yes. What is it?” the boy answered, his mouth still.

“I’ve done this before. Pretend to sleep, okay? They’re going to give us those big needles if they see we’re awake.”

“Why are we here?”

“Papa does this to me sometimes. When I do something bad or go too far during lecture time. He puts me here, and then I wake up with no idea why I was asleep. I don’t remember what happened before that. But I’m not punished here all the time. It used to be in our big house. I don’t know where we are now.”

“Are we being punished? For burning our house?”

“Maybe. But listen. I learned how to block those lights. Papa thinks he erases my memories every time. I just pretend he did. I can help you so you won’t forget.”

“What will you do?”

“I will sing a song. Remember the one Papa plays in the playroom? Mary Had a Little Lamb? I’ll sing it and you’ll listen. I’ll block the lights for you so you won’t lose your memories. When he’s done, pretend you’re still sleeping. When you wake up, pretend you don’t know where you are.”

“Will this work?”

“I did it with Number Three. It will work.”

They laughed in their minds, remembering how the guard screamed for help earlier. The boy told her he screamed like a girl. Then they heard the final hiss of the machine.

“It’s starting now. Remember, listen to my voice.”

A blinding white light shone above them. The little girl began to sing—then stopped.

“Hey, did you forget the song?” the boy asked.

“No… I realized something.”

“What is it?”

“After this, they might let us go. We won’t live in the big house anymore.”

“That’s cool. We can find a new house.”

“Or we can find a different Papa.”

“We’ll share the same Papa, okay?”

“No.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I want you to live a normal life. I don’t want you to remember what happened here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want you to find your own Papa. You burned the building because of me. I’m not a good sibling.”

“I wanted to protect you.”

“And now it’s my turn.”

The little boy kept calling for her. He could feel the heat of the light on his skin. He could feel his memories slipping away.

“Listen to me. Your name is Kenji. My name is Risa. You’re not Number Eight, and I’m not Number Fourteen. We have real names, not numbers.”

“Please help me…” he pleaded.

“You deserve a life without remembering this place. Kenji, I will find you. We can still be siblings even if we have different Papas.”

The boy wanted to protest, but the light consumed him. His memories vanished.

Papa entered the room and placed a wristband on each child. Their first names were printed on them—Kenji and Risa.

“What should we do with them?” the woman beside him asked.

“Bring Subject Number Eight to an orphanage. As for Subject Number Fourteen…” He paused. “Leave her in the woods. It’s not safe for anyone. She might open the gate again. We could all die.”

“Are you sure, doctor?”

“Affirmative.”

“Noted, Dr. Kurosaki.”

Two different cars carried the children out of the small laboratory. Kenji followed like a dead ghost. He didn’t know how to react—not to a childhood memory he never knew he had. His younger self had admitted that he burned the lab. And Risa… she had erased herself from his life to give him a normal one.

Everything around him turned dark. From a distance, like a portal, he saw a glowing rip in the shadows. He followed it, and it led him to another memory—the ones he actually remembered.

He saw himself beating up the other kids at the orphanage because they teased him for having amnesia. He saw himself hiding in his room whenever someone came to visit to adopt. He had always thought no one would want a boy who didn’t remember anything. He remembered the days he would cry and punch himself in the stomach for not knowing his own past. He remembered everything.

Except for Risa, standing and watching him from afar. She was still in her lab gown, now worn and frayed. The once light pink color had turned brown. Her hair was a mess, and she looked malnourished.

Then he saw his adoptive parents. His dad handed him a can of Dr. Pepper and patted his head. The couple visited from time to time, until one day, they left with Kenji. Risa was still there, watching him find a new Papa. She smiled, then disappeared into the woods.

Kenji felt the ground shake. He thought he might be dead again. He remembered that people, before they die, sometimes see a seven-minute flash of their life. Maybe this was his. He sat on the ground, facing the tree where Risa had hidden as she watched him, and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he was back in his car. Morning had broken. The man was gone, but the windows were still down. Sirens blared in the distance. An ambulance arrived and carried him to the hospital.

Once he was assured he was okay, he called his mother. His parents arrived, accompanied by his friends. They told him he had been missing for two days. Someone had found his crashed car near the cliff—an area locals knew well, but few outsiders dared to go. Kenji was lucky someone saw him, or else he would’ve died there. Risa stood quietly behind everyone. Her father had driven her to the hospital, and he, too, looked worried.

A doctor came to check his vitals. Kenji requested five minutes to breathe. They all nodded and waited outside. While checking his pulse, the doctor said something.

“You weren’t supposed to remember,” he murmured.

“Excuse me?” Kenji asked.

The doctor looked at him, confused, and said nothing more.

After the doctor left, Kenji asked to speak with Risa privately.