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June 17, 2023

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“Morgan to HQ. Do you copy? Over”

 

“Loud and clear, Lieutenant. You’re good to Plunge.”

 

“Roger that. Plunging in three, two, one.”

 

Morgan felt an icy sensation throughout his body. It reminded him of when he and his brother used to dive into their pool in the dead of winter. Geez, talk about a dormant memory.

 

The world formed around him like a video game simulation. In seconds, a fully constructed building stood before him. It was a decrepit Victorian-style mansion. Why would anyone store their Memories in a dump like this?

 

“Approaching now,” said Morgan as he followed the pathway up to the gate. “Getting a real Addams Family vibe here.”

 

“You're all clear, Lieutenant. Proceed with the mission. Over,” was the flat response.

 

The path led to a massive wooden door. Morgan inhaled deeply and smelled something sweet like the cotton candy they used to hand out at the county fair in his hometown. He pried the door open with his hands and peered into the dark, cavernous space before him.

 

“Looks like our man couldn’t afford to keep his electricity on,” he said and laughed.

 

He pulled a flashlight from his pack and clicked it on. A halo of light illuminated the darkness ahead, revealing a frayed carpet and the bottom of a broad staircase.

 

“Come in, Command. I’m inside. Where am I going? Over.”

 

“Standby, Lieutenant. We’re pulling up the schematics now.”

 

Morgan did a sweep with his flashlight. The layout seemed pretty standard. Two paths splitting from the foyer, a staircase leading up to the second floor. On the walls, he spotted several decaying paintings. He stilled the flashlight over one of them.

 

“Well, I’ll be,” he muttered, walking towards it. “That looks just like – ”

 

“Ok, Lieutenant. We got it. Left hallway, two doors down. The nightstand next to the bed. Over.”

 

The voice brought Morgan’s attention back to the present. The mansion was a still sleeping beast. Somewhere, he could hear a distant dripping, as if from a faucet.

 

“This place is starting to give me the creeps,” he said, breaking the silence.

 

He passed the first closed door and arrived at the second. Inside was a surprisingly well-kept bedroom. He found the nightstand and, in it, a small USB drive, curiously out of place with the rest of the mansion’s outdated decor. The Memory. Morgan pulled a small rectangular device from his pack and inserted the drive into it, initiating the neural link. A sequence of data appeared in his field of vision, and he blinked it away. HQ would extract it when he got back. It was time to leave.

 

“Alright, Command. I’ve secured the package and am heading back. Stand by.”

 

In the hallway, Morgan caught another whiff of the sweet cotton candy scent, stronger this time, unmistakable. He shook his head. In the depths of his mind, something stirred, stretched, awoke. What was it? I went somewhere, but I was coming right back. It would only be a few minutes. I left something behind.

 

He slapped himself. Get it together, Morgan. You’re falling to pieces. His hand came away wet. Am I crying?

 

Morgan picked up the pace but stopped dead in his tracks. The first door in the hallway was cracked open. He was positive it had been shut a moment ago. From the crack, he could just make out a faint, blue-green glow. His legs moved on their own towards the light. His fingers closed around the knob. He was trembling. Something nagged at him. He opened the door wide. What did I leave behind?

 

Morgan faced a shimmering pool. At the far end, something was floating in it, but he couldn’t see what it was. His radio kicked on.

 

“Lieutenant, come in. Lieutenant Morgan, this is Command. Do you copy? Over.”

 

Morgan’s attention was fixed on the object floating in the water. He needed to get a closer look at it. He walked around the pool’s edge and shined the beam of his flashlight on the dark surface. A small figure floated in the water. Morgan stared at a pair of lifeless gray eyes. He screamed.

 

* * *

 

“No! No! No!” Commander Fulton tore off his headphones and uttered a string of expletives. “We were so close!”

 

“Another memory bleed?” asked the psychologist sitting next to him.

 

“I thought he passed the psych eval.”

 

Both men looked through the glass partition. Two people lay convulsing, connected by a string of wires and nodes attached to their heads. Streams of blood flowed freely from their noses. The man on the left was an intelligence officer for a foreign government. On the right was Lieutenant Morgan Vanderbelt.

 

“He did,” the psychologist responded. “This is the risk with Plunging. Memories become muddled, old repressed ones resurface. It’s especially common with those who have undergone immense trauma. Whatever Morgan experienced was enough to trigger the bleed.”

 

Commander Fulton buried his head in his hands and groaned.

 

“What did we miss?”

 

* * *

 

Morgan climbs out of the pool, feeling the sun warm his head and shoulders. Luke follows after him.

 

“You stay right here,” he says, pointing at the spot where his brother is standing. "Don’t go in the water until I get back, okay?”

 

Luke looks at him and then casts an uncertain glance at their house.

 

“What about Mom and Dad?”

 

Morgan groans, pulling his shirt over his wet body.

 

“We’ve talked about this. They’re busy, and you want cotton candy now, right?”

 

Luke nods his head slowly.

 

“I’ll take the shortcut. It'll be five minutes, tops! But you can’t move, okay?”

 

“Okay,” says his brother.

 

Satisfied, Morgan tousles Luke’s hair and heads towards the gate. He looks back and sees Luke sitting patiently by the pool. Luke waves and smiles and Morgan waves and smiles back.

 

He takes one last look at his younger brother.

 

“I’ll be right back,” he says.

Copyright 2023 - SFS Publishing LLC

Memory Prison

Memories can bleed

Josue Lopez

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