The Recall Trials Chapter 60: The Stranger They Once Knew II

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO ?!" I roared.

A voice.

But not from the speakers. Not from the walls.

Inside my head.

"Good morning, Vincent."

"You always were stronger than the others."

I froze.

My heart stopped for a beat. Sweat slicked my neck.

One wall blinked and dissolved completely into a massive digital screen.

It flickered.

"Show yourself!" I shouted, backing up.

"This is ."

"I’m inside you now. We just opened a few doors in your head."

"And you... opened them so beautifully."

Suddenly, the simulation collapsed. The walls retracted. The tallic table evaporated into the floor. And I was standing barefoot on a flat white surface that stretched endlessly in every direction.

Except for the screen.

It sparked, then settled into a new image.

A room.

Dark cold room.

And in the center of it....Jojo.

Tied to a chair. Arms wrenched behind her. Her face swollen, bruised. Her hair stuck to her cheek with blood. Head bowed. Eyes closed.

My heart cracked open.

"Jojo..." I yelled.

"She’s alive," the voice said. "For now."

"But that depends on you."

I stepped forward. Rage burned behind my eyes. My fists shook.

"What the hell do you want from ?! Why are you doing this?!"

The screen glitched again.

Now it showed footage. Surveillance.

Jojo and . Whispering. The extinguisher. The plan. The distraction. Our entire conversation. Every move. Every word.

We were watched. All of it.

"Did you think we wouldn’t know?"

"We’ve been listening. Every betrayal. Every whisper. Every breath."

I staggered back.

"You said no one dies this round," I growled. "You said it was psychological...no blood, no bodies."

"Oh, Vincent..." The voice chuckled. "It was. Until you broke the rules."

From above, sothing lowered from the void.

A chair.

Like a throne waiting for a prisoner.

"You have one chance."

"One seat. One decision."

I didn’t move.

"What happens if I sit?"

"You stay. Willingly. We erase the parts of you that resist. The rebel. The fighter. The leader."

"We make you... manageable."

"You’ll forget the escape. Forget Jojo. Forget Zaara."

"Forget who you are."

My chest rose and fell like a drum.

The screen twitched.

Jojo stirred.

Her lips cracked open.

"Don’t... you dare."

My knees nearly buckled.

"You bastards," I hissed. "You think I’ll just give up? Let you rewrite ?"

"No," the voice said calmly. "I think you’ll choose."

My hand hovered above the chair. Inches from surrender.

Then I turned to the screen.

"You’re gonna regret this," I said.

And I punched the white wall beside .

It cracked.

"I am not your puppet," I growled.

"Not your subject."

"Not your fucking experint."

Red lights blared.

Alarms scread.

The screen with Jojo began to stutter...her image was breaking up

"Hold on, Jojo," I whispered.

I stood before the chair...the throne of surrender, or rebirth, I didn’t know which yet.

I stared at it. Every nerve in my body scread not to sit. Every instinct told this was the mont....the one that changed everything.

"What happens if I sit?"

"Then we let Jojo live. The others too. You’ll be returned to the ga. No questions. No consequences."

"What’s the catch?"

A pause.

"The price... is you."

"Fine," I said. "But we make a deal."

Silent.

"Speak."

"Jojo lives. Zaara lives. Carter. Nomi. Even the ones I hate."

"You don’t touch them again."

A pause. The stillness was suffocating.

"And in exchange?"

I stepped closer.

"You get ."

"All of ." I sighed.

"Done."

I sat.

The mont my spine touched the chair’s cold back, sothing deep inside ... shattered.

Erasure Sequence Initiated.

My pupils dilated. My heartbeat slowed.

"Finalizing sequence," the system said.

"Subject: Vincent Aston."

"File locked: Code Serpent."

The screen flickered off.

Then, everything turned black.

A whisper. Not through speakers...but in my mind.

The flood began.

I saw my father first...his face blurry, shouting sothing I couldn’t hear. Then gone.

My mother’s smile. The accident. Her hand reaching for through shattered glass.

Deleted.

Nomi. The first person who smiled at in the Recall Trials. Her voice, her hopes. Gone.

Zaara.

Her eyes.

The way she said my na.

The way she pulled back when I wanted to fall.

Gone.

Theo. Dinesh. Jojo.

Gone. Gone. Gone.

Their nas were ashes.

Their mories? Smoke.

Then silence.

I was still breathing.

I was empty.

No fear. No nerves. No guilt. No pain.

I beca free.

I beca perfect.

"To control chaos... sotis you must beco it."

A smile stretched across my face.

"Welco to the Aetherions," the voices echoed.

And from the shadows, they stepped forward.

Not shadows....people.

Draped in black silk robes that shimred like oil in light that shouldn’t even exist. Their faces hidden behind golden serpentine masks...twisted into smirks, fangs carved into the tal. A serpent sigil burned on their robes. No nas. No voices. Only symbols.

The Aetherions.

They circled slowly.

The Illuminati had secrets. The Aetherions? They had control.

Control over minds. Over mories. Over ti itself.

"You’re one of us now," one of them whispered into my mind.

"You’ve ascended."

"We are the unseen."

"We are the puppeteers."

"We are the gods behind the ga."

They circled . Hands behind their backs.

And I...Vincent Aston...felt nothing but power humming through my veins.

One leaned in close. I could see their breath fogging under the mask.

"Your mind is rare. Adaptable. Resistant to sedation. Resistant to corruption... so far."

"You’ve broken every simulation. Shattered every protocol."

Another stepped forward. "Imagine what we could build with a mind like yours... if it were finally under control."

"We’re architects," the serpent-masked figure replied. "We see the trials as evolution."

I looked up.

And smiled wider.

"What’s my first command?"

The doors to the trial chamber hissed open like a beast exhaling smoke. I stepped through, barefoot, clothed in the sa grey uniform as the others...but inside, I was nothing like them.

No heartbeat trembled in my chest.

No panic gnawed at my thoughts.

No na, no past, no self.

I was... reset.

The Aetherions had done what they promised.

They erased the boy. The grief. The rage. The love.

Vincent Aston died on that table.

What remained now was their creation.

Caras blinked in every corner. Above us, the glass sphere pulsed with red light.

But I didn’t flinch.

Emotion was a concept. Not a feeling.

I was back where it all started.

I was an echo wearing skin.

Every eye turned to .

I stood there, unmoved.

The others had gathered in the shadows. All of them watching. Watching . Their stares weren’t of reunion or relief... but dread.

They stared like they’d seen a ghost.

Soone whispered my na.

Then I saw her.

Her.

She ran across the floor with urgency, barefoot, a thin cut on her leg like she’d been running for hours.

Black hair. Slim face. Skin pale like porcelain.

Bluish-green eyes locked onto mine. Desperate. Drenched with sothing I once might’ve understood.

Tears.

Salt. Water. Weakness.

Her arms flung around my neck before I could move.

"Vincent! Thank God, I was worried sick—it’s been hours, where were you?"

Her voice cracked at the edges like a record that’s been played too much. Familiar, maybe. But aningless.

I stood there.

Still.

Rigid.

My arms didn’t move.

Her warmth ant nothing.

I glanced at the wetness on her cheek. Salty.

Disgusting.

I gently pulled her off .

Cold.

Careful.

She stepped back, confused. Hurt. Like she was waiting for a hug or sothing.

My head tilted slightly.

I stared at her like a riddle with no answer.

"Who are you?" I asked.

She blinked once. Twice. The way soone blinks when the ground vanishes from under them.

"Vin... stop playing. It’s —Zaara."

The na didn’t register. All it did was echo through the dark void inside my skull.

Not anymore.

I tilted my head.

"You’re crying," I noted, like it was weather.

She took a step back, shaking her head. Her bottom lip trembled.

"No... No, what did they do to you?" she whispered.

I turned from her.

People were still watching. Whispering.

Suspicion oozed from their eyes like venom.

They felt Threatened.

Good. I like the sound of that.

I walked forward, like I owned the ground beneath .

Then—

SLAM.

The doors burst open.

Panting. Broken. Covered in dirt and bruises.

Her knees buckled the mont she entered the room.

Everyone turned.

"Jojo!" The zaara lady scread.

A guy with tattoos rushed forward and caught the Jojo before she fell. Her lips were cracked. Her arms scarred. Her eyes..

Her eyes scanned the room wildly.

Then landed on . She ran to .

The bruises on her jaw twitched.

Her lips parted.

She whispered:

"Vincent...?"

I didn’t blink.

Didn’t flinch.

No flicker of recognition. No twitch in my jaw.

"Do I know you?" I asked plainly.

The silence that followed that sentence... it was thunderous.

Jojo’s mouth opened slightly, like she’d just been stabbed.

Zaara stepped back, shaking her head in disbelief. Her hands trembling.

Soone else muttered, "What the hell did they do to you?"

Jojo tried to move forward. A middle age looking man held her back.

Her voice was fragile..

"No. No, no, no, that’s not you. That’s not your voice. That’s not how you look at . Vincent, it’s ...Jojo. You saved , rember? You—"

I tilted my head again.

"I don’t rember saving anyone."

She dropped to her knees.

"They got to you," she whispered.

"You’re not him anymore. I swear I’ll get you back"

The intercom buzzed overhead.

"Contestant 001 has re-entered the fold."

"Upgraded. Cleansed. He’s now perfect."

Gasps filled the room. A guy cursed at them.

Jojo stared at like I’d just shot her through the heart.

"But they turned him into the monster he was running from," jojo whispered.

But I didn’t feel the bullet.

I felt nothing.

I looked up at the cara, knowing exactly who was watching.

And smiled.