CHAPTER 7 – The Truth Hidden Inside Ethan
The steel vault door slammed shut.
BOOM!
Darkness swallowed the room.
Only the flashing red emergency lights illuminated the terrified faces inside.
Outside, dozens of armed men surrounded the underground chamber.
Richard's voice echoed through the loudspeakers.
"One last chance, Ethan."
"Give me the key."
"I'll let Claire live."
Ethan slowly stepped in front of Claire.
"No."
Richard laughed.
"I knew you'd say that."
Suddenly, explosions shook the walls.
The reinforced door began to buckle.
Federal agents aimed their rifles.
"Positions!"
Three...
Two...
One...
The vault door exploded inward.
Smoke filled the room.
Gunfire erupted from every direction.
The agents fought desperately, but Richard's mercenaries kept pouring inside.
Amid the chaos, Claire noticed something hidden beneath Jonathan's journal.
A thin metal card.
She picked it up.
Across the surface was engraved a single sentence:
"Only Ethan can unlock the final archive."
"What does that mean?" she whispered.
Before anyone could answer, Ethan felt a sharp pain explode through his head.
He dropped to one knee.
Fragments of memories flooded his mind.
A laboratory.
Doctors in white coats.
Jonathan arguing with Richard.
A frightened little boy strapped to a medical chair.
That boy...
Was Ethan.
"No..." Ethan gasped.
"I've seen this place before."
Richard smiled as he walked through the smoke.
"I was wondering when your memories would return."
Claire stared at him.
"What did you do to him?"
Richard looked almost proud.
"Nothing."
"I simply finished what Jonathan started."
Everyone froze.
Richard pointed at Ethan.
"Project Phoenix wasn't created to build an empire."
"It was created to build the perfect heir."
"The perfect mind."
"The perfect leader."
Jonathan had secretly funded a classified neuroscience program decades earlier.
The goal wasn't to create a super soldier...
It was to create someone whose memory, intelligence, and decision-making abilities could be enhanced beyond normal human limits.
The project failed.
Or so everyone believed.
Richard grinned.
"Ethan is the only successful subject."
Claire shook her head.
"You're lying."
Richard tossed a small device onto the floor.
A holographic recording appeared.
Young Jonathan stood beside doctors inside the laboratory.
His voice echoed through the vault.
"Subject E-17 has survived the procedure."
"If anyone ever discovers the truth..."
"Erase every record."
Silence.
Ethan's entire life had been built on a lie.
Before he could process the truth, Lily's frightened voice echoed from a nearby monitor.
"Daddy..."
Ethan looked up.
She was alive.
Tied to a chair inside an abandoned warehouse.
Behind her, a digital countdown flashed in bright red.
00:29:59
Richard smiled.
"You have thirty minutes."
"Save your daughter..."
"...or discover who you really are."
"You can't do both."
Then every screen went black.
For the first time in his life...
Ethan realized the greatest battle wasn't against Richard.
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It was against the terrifying truth hidden inside himself.
To Be Continued
