BLOODCAPE
Chapter 78: Ava’s Last Memory

Chapter 78: Chapter 78: Ava’s Last Memory

The Harvest ended. But something stayed behind.And Ava was starting to remember what she was never meant to.

The silence had grown teeth.

It didn’t soothe. It bit. And it lingered.

Two days after the sky dimmed and the Harvest ended, the Archive still hadn’t remembered how to breathe.

Ava moved like a ghost through the compound. Her boots made no sound against the polished metal floor. The lighting was too soft, too flickery—like the walls were afraid to fully illuminate themselves. Every few feet, a section of ceiling hummed without powering on.

Even the air felt wrong. Heavier. As if the Archive itself was trying to forget what had happened inside it.

She passed a woman in a technician’s coat sitting on the floor outside the neural calibration lab, legs folded beneath her, staring into her own hands like they weren’t hers. Down the hall, a man muttered into a blank data slate, arguing with someone who wasn’t responding.

Others just sat with their backs to the walls.

Not unconscious. Just... gone.

Their minds hadn’t broken. They’d been rearranged.

The alien fleet hadn’t fired a shot. It hadn’t needed to. It had reached into the minds of every linked soul on the planet and flipped pages. Read entire lifetimes. And then left the book open—spine cracked, bleeding memory into the present.

Ava had heard someone call it "soul lag." Like jet lag, but across timelines.

Some people remembered children they never had.

Others forgot birthdays, faces, names.

One woman swore she’d been married twice. The records disagreed.

Every screen that hadn’t shut down now displayed the same static loop:

RATIO: 51% REGRESSION / 49% REMEMBRANCESTASIS MAINTAINED

Just enough to survive.

Not enough to heal.

Ava hadn’t spoken since the ratio was announced.

She hadn’t seen Rook. Hadn’t checked in with Aya. Hadn’t asked where Echo had gone.

And above them—far above—one ship still blinked red every four minutes.

It had hovered motionless since the others vanished.

Not drifting. Not fading.

Just blinking.

Watching.

Waiting.

Most had stopped looking.

Ava couldn’t.

Back in her quarters, she sat on the edge of her bed, hands curled around the object she hadn’t let go of in twenty hours.

The crystal was small. Obsidian black, with edges that caught the light like wet glass. No signature. No activation key. No data code.

It wasn’t from the Archive. Not from any known node or vault.

No record of anyone sending it.

She had found it on her pillow two nights ago—minutes after the ratio was declared.

Etched into its casing—not printed, not digital, but scratched by hand—were five words:

You don’t remember everything.

She hadn’t shown it to Aya.

She hadn’t logged it.

She hadn’t dared plug it in.

Because the message wasn’t a warning.

It was a fact.

She had always trusted her mind.

Even when her world cracked.

Even when her father—the golden titan, the hero of memory—had died surrounded by lies and silence.

Even then, she had trusted her memory.

But now... there were gaps she didn’t recognize as gaps. Fragments that smelled like someone else’s past but lived in her hands. Questions she never asked, because she didn’t know they existed.

She ran her fingers along the smooth edge of the crystal.

It hummed.

Not like a machine.

Like a song buried under years of silence.

Waiting.

Outside her window, the red blink lit the sky again.

Then faded.

Four minutes. Always four.

Ava’s throat tightened. She closed her fingers around the crystal.

And whispered her first words in two days:

"What did I forget?"

The wind on the rooftop wasn’t loud. It was soft. Slow. The kind of wind that whispered across your skin like it knew things you didn’t want to remember.

Tonight, it didn’t whisper.

It hummed.

Ava stepped through the rooftop access door and paused.

The stars were too clear.

The red light still pulsed in the upper sky — the last of the alien ships. It hadn’t moved. Hadn’t spoken. Just blinked like a lighthouse for a storm that had already passed.

But Ava could feel it.

It was still watching.

Echo stood barefoot on the far edge of the roof, arms loose at her sides. Her silver-white hair drifted behind her like smoke from a dying engine. She didn’t turn as Ava approached.

The girl hadn’t spoken to anyone in a day.

Hadn’t eaten.

Hadn’t blinked when spoken to.

Now she whispered something that barely counted as language.

"Vurakai... en’selreth... vurakai..."

Ava approached slowly. Her boots rang too loud in the silence.

"Echo."

No response.

She stood beside her.

And Echo finally spoke — not to her, but to the sky.

"It’s still here."

Ava followed her gaze. "The ship?"

Echo nodded once. "It’s listening."

"Listening for what?"

Echo tilted her head. "A response."

Ava frowned. "From us?"

"No." Echo closed her eyes. "From something we forgot."

Ava looked closer.

Echo’s pupils had narrowed — slits, faintly gold. Her implants were glowing again. Not like tech. Like veins remembering how to beat.

"You’re not linked," Ava said. "There’s no feed."

"I know."

She touched her chest.

"They didn’t use the Archive. They used me."

Ava’s breath caught. "What does that mean?"

"I was never just a host," Echo said. "I was a relay. A seed casing. And something inside me just sprouted."

Above them, the red light blinked again.

Then twice.

Then three times.

Then five.

Ava stared. "That’s not the same pattern."

"It’s changing," Echo said.

"No. It’s... counting."

Echo shook her head. "No. It’s learning how to speak to me."

Ava stepped in front of her.

"Echo, this isn’t a joke."

"I know."

"You’re not connected to anything."

"I’m not hearing," she said. "I’m remembering."

A long pause.

Then Echo whispered:

"I remember a name."

Ava’s voice dropped. "Whose name?"

"Araven."

The moment the name left her mouth, the rooftop lights flickered.

Just once.

Just enough for the Archive to feel like it had exhaled.

"Is that one of the fleet?" Ava asked.

Echo shook her head.

"No. Not a watcher.""One of the buried."

She pressed her palm flat against her own chest.

"Araven isn’t in orbit.""She’s beneath us."

Ava’s thoughts raced — sealed levels, forgotten vaults, the low hum in the floor no one could explain. The pressure she’d always ignored.

Her voice was barely audible.

"What is she?"

Echo’s eyes glowed now — not with light. With memory.

"She was a memory that never wanted to be remembered."

"And now she’s waking up."

Ava took a step back.

"Why are you telling me this?"

Echo blinked slowly.

"Because she remembers you."