FROM THE MOMENT I OPENED my eyes, I knew something was wrong. I was no longer laying on the living room floor...no longer struggling to breathe...no longer wondering where it had all gone wrong and no longer staring at her unconscious body being dragged against the carpet by her ankles. Instead, I was looking up at a white ceiling with multiple cracks and holes, indicating that wherever I was, it was old.

"Well, well, well," someone spoke up. "It's about time you decided to open your eyes and join us."

I recognized his voice immediately and was suddenly fighting back an intense feeling of panic. I threw myself forward, only to find myself restrained from doing much movement. My eyes frantically looked around the room, spotting only a metal table and a small chair a few feet away from it. Sydney was strapped down in a chair beside me, blinking furiously. Both of our hands were secured against the arms of the chairs we were sitting in.

"It is very nice to see the two of you together again."

I shrank back at the sound of the voice, confusion washing over me. God, how could it sound so familiar; yet, so unfamiliar at the same time? Who did the voice belong to and why was I struggling to figure it out? Sydney's eyes moved away from me and I followed her gaze, eyeing a man in the far corner of the room, his hands clasped behind his back. He was not facing us but I was able to make out some of his features.

He had salt and pepper hair and his shoulders slouched, indicating he was up in age. A brown suit covered most of his body and his black shoes were extremely shiny, expensive. Slowly, he turned around, a sinister smirk spreading across his face. Nothing about him seemed familiar but I felt like I knew him...like I knew I had to be afraid of him. There was something about him that made everything uneasy and I suddenly felt ten times smaller.

"It took you quite some time to wake up, Lucas," he continued. "I feared you weren't going to wake up, after all. I feared Cassandra had given you too much to put you to sleep." He stopped in his tracks and widened his smile. "However, you have awoken and my fears have been put to rest."

None of this was making any sense to me. Why was I strapped down to a chair? I understood why Sydney was here and why she, too, was strapped down. They wanted her but they never once said anything about me. What was the point of keeping me around? I did as I was told and I turned her in.

"What am I doing here?" I demanded. I was trying to sound strong but my voice came out weak and helpless.

The man laughed, "What do you think?"

I narrowed my eyes at him, "How should I know?"

He cleared his throat, "You'll find out soon enough; however, I'm intrigued. What's the last thing you remember, Lucas?"

"What do you think?" I sneered.

He grinned, "How should I know?"

My gaze dropped from his and went back to Sydney's. Her hands were balled up into fists and, despite how strong she was trying to look, I saw the fear in her bright, blue eyes. Her left foot constantly tapped against the floor and I knew she wanted to run. We both did. If we were not restrained, we would be on our feet trying to find a way out of here.

"Who are you?" she asked, surprising me completely. I thought she was going to stay mute.

The man clapped his hands together and sharply turned his head to look at her, "Oh, I'm sorry. I haven't even introduced myself. As none of my subjects have ever made it this far, you'll have to forgive me. I am Dr. Roberto Stanley. I used to be the head neurosurgeon at North Point Hospital, but now I am here. I've been here for a while, you see."

"And where is...here?"

His face glowed as if he had been waiting for one of us to ask, "Well, the city of Whitevale, of course."

I raised my eyebrows, "Where the hell is that? I thought we were in Seattle—"

"Seattle was taken down in 2072, I'm afraid." Dr. Stanley shook his head in disapproval. "The people there just lost control. Didn't end very well. They were wiped out in only a matter of days."

"2072?" Sydney choked.

"I don't think I stuttered," he frowned.

"What the hell is going on?" I nearly yelled.

He looked back at me, "Lucas, do you mind telling me what year it is?"

"What the fuck do you mean? It's 2016—"

"Wrong."

"What?"

"It's 2104," he corrected me.

Sydney snorted from beside me, "No way. You're shitting with us. There's no way it can be 2104. I remember watching the countdown on TV earlier this year. It's 2016." I knew a part of her was as confused as I was. A part of her believed every word that was coming out of his mouth.

"We have a lot of catching up to do," he sighed. "I'm afraid you won't understand your current situation unless we discuss your past. Gwen and Lucas Walker, are you ready to come back to us?"

"Gwen and Lucas Walker—" Sydney stammered.

"What do you mean come back to us?" I questioned and he started pacing back and forth in front of us. "Answer me, dammit!"

"The world is not what you believe it is," he calmly stated. "Wars are constantly upon us and we are continuously losing young soldiers who know nothing about the battles before them. Our enemies have gotten stronger as we have gotten weaker. Sooner or later, we will have no choice but to surrender and hand ourselves over. However..."

Sydney leaned forward, "However?"

He stopped pacing and watched her with a warm smile, "I believed I found a way to take our enemies down. At the time, the idea seemed so simple. What if there was a way to make them think they were on our side? What if I could make them believe they were American soldiers and they were supposed to be helping us, not their own country?"

"So...what? Your plan was to hypnotize them?" I scoffed. "Wave a clock in front of their faces? Make them sleepy and put false ideas into their heads?"

"Yes and no," he nodded. "I created a drug that would clear their minds of every memory they ever had. I was to fill their brains with new knowledge and to make them believe they were always on our side. I could make them believe they trained with us and were with us from the start. Unfortunately, we were never really able to capture their soldiers to test out the drug. I had no choice but to test it out on outsiders."

"Outsiders," Sydney repeated.

"People in the community," he told her. "Testing the drug out on our own soldiers could be risky. What if it did not work? On the first 211 subjects, the drug failed. It was too much on the brain and the person died almost immediately. Seizures were common and it was as if a switch went off. They were dead and I was left to figure out where I went wrong."

"You killed 211 people?" she squeaked. "That's...That's—"

"Insane?" He approached her chair and knelt down until his eyes were staring directly into hers. "Deranged? Murderous?" His hands grabbed her shoulders and he roughly began to shake her.

"Hey, cut it out!" I snapped.

"I was doing what I thought was right for this country!"

"By killing innocent people?" Sydney fired back.

"They all volunteered," he said, letting her go and regaining his perfect posture. "As did the two of you."

She gawked at him, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. He seemed to be pleased with her response and he turned his attention to me. I frowned when he started walking towards my chair and my stomach started to twist and turn. I had to tilt my head back a little to look at him and his haunting smile never failed to make an appearance.

"You were helpless just like the rest of them," he spat. "You think you're so rich in that glorious house of yours? That was just another thought we put into your head. See, the two of you never actually left these chairs. You were here the entire time. Everything you thought was real...everyone you thought you met...poof. They never existed. We fed you memories and you took them because your minds were greedy. Hungry minds is exactly what this corporation needs and we thank you, really, for proving that this procedure is no longer a failure. We made the two of you believe you were these assassins and your brains fed right into the lie!"

"Everyone?" Sydney whispered from beside me. "My mother...Jett..."

"Poof," he repeated, throwing his hands upward to give off more of an effect.

She flared up, "How dare you make me have feelings for people who were never actually there! I cared about them, you selfish son of a bitch! I was trying to protect them only to find out they were never real! You're sick!"

I heard the pain in her voice...the agony. I looked down at the floor and tugged my bottom lip between my teeth. If they never existed, what about Clare? Was she just another thought shoved into my mind? What about my parents? Were they who I thought they were or were they just another lie? My mind was not able to process everything that was going on and I wanted it all to stop. For all I knew, this man could have been lying to us. I stared at my shaky hands and focused on the little hairs sticking out of each finger.

"I'm sick?" Dr. Stanley chuckled softly. "I believe you are the one who wanted to do this, Mrs. Walker."

"I'm not married! I'm not—"

She cut herself off and I noticed she was looking down at her hand.

There was a diamond ring on her finger.

My lips parted at the sight and I wanted to get a better look. Were the two of us actually married? I let out a mirthless laugh and closed my eyes. In order for me to be with the woman I loved, I simply had to open my eyes and come back to reality? Both of my shoulders shook slightly as I laughed and my vision began to blur. The tears took their time coming out of my eyes and rolling down my cheeks, tickling my skin on their way down. They were tears of happiness, of course.

She and I were married.

"I don't understand," she murmured. "How is it I can't remember getting married to my husband? You took all of my memories?"

"Every last one," Dr. Stanley nodded. "If I hadn't, your actual memories would have affected the false ones. I'm sorry to tell you this but they're gone."

"Gone?" I choked.

"Now, Lucas," he turned to face me. "Although I added a bit of a twist to it for the experiment's sake, I allowed you to keep one memory. Do you think you can tell me what that memory is?"

Slowly, I shook my head. There were so many false facts roaming around in my mind. I had been forever corrupted. How was I supposed to know which memory he was talking about? Sydney watched me and I saw her bottom lip trembling, the jealousy clear. Why did I get to keep a memory when all of hers were taken? Nothing about that seemed right at all.

"You're telling me you don't have a single clue as to what I'm talking about?"

"No," my jaw tightened. "I don't know what you're talking about."

He sighed, looking at us once or twice, and turned around. We watched as he pressed his hand against the wall and a door appeared, sliding open for him to pass through. As soon as he left the room, the door slid closed and blended back in with the wall. My head hung low, brown locks of hair swinging back and forth to entertain themselves. A headache was starting to form and I squeezed my eyes shut.

"We just can't catch a break, can we?" Sydney laughed. "I thought being a traitor to a world of assassins was bad. Being a part of this wild experiment? I honestly think that's worse. God, Harry, we're the first people this thing hasn't killed. Can you imagine how much the other people suffered before they were wiped out?"

Cassandra had referred to us as Subject 212 and Subject 213. At the time, I had no idea what it meant but it made so much sense now. The 211 subjects before us were dead because of this experiment. What did this doctor do so differently? We survived and I wanted to know why. I wanted to know why we would volunteer ourselves for something such as this. Were our lives so pitiful that we figured this experiment would solve all of our problems?

"So, what? Do we get a prize for surviving?" Sydney continued. "Hooray! They didn't die this time! Let's give them a cookie and a glass of milk to celebrate!" Her voice cracked and she sniffed. "They took our memories. How can they just take away something so precious and personal? I don't remember anything from our past lives and I need to know some things. I want to know how our wedding went or...or how you proposed to me. I want to know how we met, dammit!"

I refused to look at her. It was obvious she was the one crying now and those were not happy tears coming out of her eyes. She was hurting and there was nothing I could do to help. There was no way I could get her memories back so she could piece the puzzle back together. We thought we were screwed before but we were most definitely screwed now. I tugged at my wrists, hoping the ropes would magically come loose and set me free. If I could just hold her hand for a second, I would have. I wanted to feel her soft skin for just a moment.

"How are we supposed to live our lives after this? We can't possibly survive out there with all of these forced memories roaming around in our minds. We'd crack from underneath the surface, Harry. We don't stand a chance out there! The world is different from what our minds were fed. How can we possibly adapt? I don't...I don't think I can do it. Who's to even say he'll let us go? We know about his plan to brainwash the other soldiers. We can't leave here knowing that!" Sydney paused and then snorted. "Oh, wait. They'll just take those memories away from us, too. Piece of cake."

The door slid open again and Dr. Stanley stepped inside. He was carrying a chair and there was a small bag slung over his shoulder. Sydney closed her mouth and remained silent as we watched him carry the chair closer to us. Once he put it down against the floor, he made himself comfortable on it and removed the bag from his shoulder. He just held it, his eyes glued on me. I still had no idea what he wanted me to say. None of the memories in my mind stood out from the others.

"I'm assuming you're still lost, Mr. Walker."

"No shit," I snarled. "What's in the bag?"

He opened it without a single problem and pulled out an object that made my heart nearly drop into the dark pits of my stomach. I immediately knew who it belonged to but I was lost for words. How was this possible when he said everyone we thought we met and knew never existed? I felt weak and if this chair was not holding me up, I would have collapsed. I wanted to get up and take the object from him. He had no right to hold it...no right to have it.

"Do you know what this is?"

Of course I did.

It was a cup—her cup.

A bright pink cup with different color butterflies on them. From where I was sitting, the cup did not look as bright as I thought it was. It did not look happy nor cheerful. The sight of it only brought me sadness and I wanted him to put it away.

"Do you know who this belongs to?"

Sydney asked me, "Why is he holding a cup?"

I looked down at my lap and choked back a sob. Too much was happening too much and I was about ready to explode. Sydney had no idea what was going on but what was going to happen once she found out? It was now my foot that was impatiently tapping against the floor, wondering what this man had hiding up his sleeve.

The door slid open once again and a woman stepped inside. She was dressed in all black from head to toe. Her hazel eyes watched me as she reached behind her. A soft squeak filled the room and I felt as if I was in a dream. The woman pulled her arms back around, a small child being pulled against her will. Her brown curls had been straightened, stopping just below her shoulders. She was wearing a yellow sundress and white sandals covered her feet. By the look of her outfit, it had to be warm outside. Maybe spring or summer?

"Go on," the woman pushed her forward a bit. "You can't hide behind me forever."

"B-But—" the little girl roughly shook her head.

"I told you I couldn't watch you forever. It's time for you to be reunited with your family. Go on, now."

Amira was pushed forward again and she looked at me with those big, blue eyes of hers. The eyes that reminded me so much of her mother. In that moment, I knew what the memory was and the twist Dr. Stanley had added to it. Amira was real and she was in fact my daughter; however, Cassandra was never her mother.

Sydney was.

***

I've been waiting for sooooooooo long to get the story to this point! Lol, I just want to thank you for those who decided to stick with the story. I love you all so much and I just can't quite put into words how much I appreciate you. Only a few chapters left before the epilogue! xxx