chapter 1
Nobody knew why an eight-year-old girl was standing alone in the middle of the world's most secure government facility.
She wasn't crying.
She wasn't screaming.
She simply hugged an old leather journal against her chest as if her entire life depended on it.
The hallway was silent.
White walls.
Steel doors.
Armed security every twenty feet.
And four elite agents walking toward her with expressions cold enough to freeze anyone's blood.
Every camera inside the building was focused on the little girl.
Every scientist watched from behind reinforced glass.
Every soldier had already been ordered to shoot...
...if she opened the journal.
No one understood why.
Not even the agents sent to stop her.
"Sweetheart," the team leader said, slowing his pace.
His voice was calm, almost fatherly.
"You don't belong here."
The little girl looked up.
Her hazel eyes weren't frightened.
They looked...
...heartbroken.
"I know," she whispered.
"I'm just looking for my dad."
Several agents exchanged confused glances.
The file said she had no surviving family.
Her parents had died years ago in a classified laboratory explosion.
Or at least...
...that's what everyone had been told.
One female agent stepped closer and knelt in front of the child.
"What is your name?"
The girl hesitated.
Then quietly answered,
"Evelyn."
The name instantly changed everything.
One guard nearly dropped his rifle.
Another officer hurriedly touched the earpiece hidden beneath his collar.
"Control..."
His voice trembled.
"...did she just say Evelyn?"
Static.
Then a terrified reply.
"Repeat the name."
"Evelyn."
Silence.
The control room exploded into panic.
Scientists rushed toward computer terminals.
Ancient files began opening automatically.
Dust-covered documents appeared on screens that hadn't been accessed in nearly ten years.
Across the top of every file were two words written in bright red:
PROJECT EVE
Status:
TERMINATED.
Or so they thought.
The commander stormed into the surveillance room.
"Impossible."
He stared at the monitor.
"The child died."
One elderly scientist slowly removed his glasses.
"No..."
His hands were shaking uncontrollably.
"...the child disappeared."
Meanwhile...
Evelyn stood perfectly still.
She gently rubbed the worn leather cover of the journal.
Inside it were hundreds of handwritten pages.
Names.
Dates.
Coordinates.
Photographs.
Every page looked older than she was.
Almost as if someone had spent decades preparing it...
...for her.
The female agent noticed something strange.
"Sir..."
She pointed toward the journal.
"There are initials."
The commander zoomed the security camera.
Embossed into the cracked leather were three faded letters.
D.A.R.
The old scientist's face turned pale.
"No..."
He stumbled backward.
"It can't be his journal."
"Whose?"
Nobody answered.
Because everyone inside the room already knew.
The journal belonged to the man who had disappeared ten years earlier after exposing a secret experiment involving children.
The man every government claimed had died.
The man officially erased from history.
Dr. Adrian Ross.
Back in the hallway...
The commander finally approached the little girl himself.
He lowered his weapon.
"Where did you get that journal?"
Evelyn smiled sadly.
"My daddy told me..."
"...to give it back."
The commander's heartbeat stopped.
"Your father?"
She nodded.
"He said if people ever tried to take it..."
"...I should only open the last page."
Every scientist watching the cameras suddenly began shouting.
"STOP HER!"
"DO NOT LET HER OPEN IT!"
"TAKE THE BOOK!"
The agents sprinted toward the child.
But Evelyn was faster.
She quietly turned to the final page.
The paper unfolded by itself.
A small photograph slipped onto the polished white floor.
The commander picked it up.
At first...
He frowned.
Then his entire body froze.
The picture showed a smiling little girl sitting on a man's shoulders.
Nothing unusual.
Until he looked closer.
The little girl...
...was Evelyn.
The man...
...was Dr. Adrian Ross.
Standing beside them—
Wearing the same black government uniform he was wearing today—
was the commander himself.
Except the photo had been taken...
fifteen years before Evelyn was supposedly born.
The commander whispered only four words before collapsing to his knees.
"...That's... impossible."
And behind him...
May you like
Every security alarm in the building suddenly activated.
TO BE CONTINUED...
