Lupine: Awakened-Chapter 13: Her Voice in Static
**"Memories. They don’t always come back in pieces.
Sometimes... they come back screaming."**
Black screen.
A heartbeat. Slow.
Then faster.
Louder.
In my ears.
In my teeth.
FLASH. A corridor— sterile, white, humming with lights.
The hum builds. Like the world’s about to remember something it shouldn’t.
FLASH. A girl laughing, her face obscured by static.
FLASH. Claw marks on steel. Blood smeared across a door labeled: RESTRICTED.
Then silence. A silence so loud it hums.
A voice crackles through the dark, distorted and familiar:
—Jay...
------------------------
Jay
I wake up choking on static.
Not air.
Not sweat.
STATIC.
It clings to my skin like frostbite—sharp, invisible. The bunk sheets are soaked, but I don’t feel cold.
Just hollow.
Like something crawled in while I slept and carved me out with its teeth.
The kind of hollow that still echoes when you breathe.
My heart races. My hands tremble.
And then I hear her —
A voice through the base intercom. Too faint to be real.
—You promised you’d come back...
My pulse spikes. The sound doesn’t come from the intercom—it seeps from the walls.
I sit up too fast.
The world tilts.
I grip the mattress, breathing through the surge.
The barracks are silent—except for the hum of power lines, the cough of vents, and the occasional creak of a base pretending it’s not alive.
I scan the dark.
No movement.
Then I hear it again.
—Jay... I remember.
The voice crawls through the static—soft, melodic, impossible.
I slap the comm beside my bunk, dialing into the base frequency.
Only white noise.
But white noise shouldn’t feel alive.
Beneath it, something pulses—faint, steady. Like a heartbeat reaching through the wire.
It wasn’t just a recording. It was someone breathing.
That voice... I know that voice.
I press my knuckles to my mouth.
Because saying her name would make her real.
She was in my dream.
Burned face.
Eyes full of fire.
Standing in a field of ruined white flowers.
She laughed like we’d shared every secret.
And whispered:
—They took your name. Not your love...
------------------------
War Room — Briefing
08:00 Hours
Jay
We file in like ghosts.
Third’s chair is empty.
Parker won’t meet anyone’s eyes.
Malcolm stands in the corner.
Otto stares at his coffee like it wronged him personally.
Philip paces.
Dave bites his nails.
Gabby’s leg won’t stop twitching.
The last time we looked this broken, we were pulling out of Site Delta with one less man and two souls we couldn’t carry back.
General Speed’s already talking—protocol, political oversight, civilian intel.
I tune it out.
My ears are still ringing.
From her voice.
From her.
His voice cuts through the fog like static through a dream.
"—and memory inconsistencies will be reported directly to Bureau command. Which means, every Alpha member will undergo daily scans until we get this under control."
Speed’s eyes cut across the room, sharp as bayonets.
"Any questions?"
No one answers.
Sage leans forward, fingers steepled beneath his chin. "We’re not fine. And pretending we are is how we get killed." His voice is calm, but there’s no smile.
No quip.
Just warning.
And that silence feels worse than shouting.
Philip snaps. "You think we don’t know that?"
Gabby kicks his chair back. "We’re unraveling. Like a ball of yarn... We all feel it."
Parker finally speaks — low, brittle:
"What if we’re not unraveling? What if we’re just... remembering?"
The room freezes.
Speed narrows his eyes.
"You’re dismissed."
No protest.
Just tired eyes.
Just silence.
Something in my chest twists. The word doesn’t sound like hope—it sounds like grief.
We all just leave like soldiers.
But no one walks straight.
------------------------
MedBay - Routine Scans (That Aren’t Routine)
10:00 Hours
Jay
I hate the smell here.
Disinfectant.
And too much quiet.
Naira doesn’t meet my eyes as she wires me to the neural scanner.
Her hands are steady.
Her jaw locked.
Like she’s bracing for me to break.
"Close your eyes, Jay."
I do.
The machine hums.
Then buzzes...
Then—something cracks through the hum.
The sound deepens.
Becomes something else.
A resonance.
Like music under the skin... A song I almost remember.
It’s supposed to map neural pathways. But what if it finds someone else’s?
My spine stiffens.
—You used to hum that song to me...
I bolt upright.
Naira jumps.
"What did you say?"
"I didn’t say anything," she whispers.
Her eyes wide now. "Jay... what did you hear?"
I rip off the sensors.
"Nothing. Just—static."
But that’s a lie.
Not static.
Her.
Again.
Naira wanted to stop me as I bolted to the door.
Her eyes weren’t just wide—they were the eyes of someone who’s reading a name on a gravestone.
But she let me go.
But she didn’t. Because maybe she heard it too.
I didn’t linger.
Her eyes stayed. Like she knew something I didn’t.
Or maybe I just refused to believe them.
The hours bled together after that. Every hallway hummed with quiet I didn’t trust.
Even the lights seemed to flicker in code, whispering names I couldn’t remember.
I didn’t sleep. Couldn’t.
By midnight, I found myself walking toward the comms tower—like something was calling me back.
------------------------
Comms Tower
23:00 Hours
Jay & Third
I shouldn’t be here either. But sleep feels dangerous.
The tower isn’t supposed to be open this late.
Techs clock out at 19:00.
Doors lock.
Lights dim.
Comms sleep.
But the panel near the door is blinking—active.
Someone overrode the lock.
I know who...
Third... He leaves fingerprints in silence.
I entered the room and the cold hits first—not temperature.
Presence.
That strange chill of a space that knows you’re there.
The console glows, slatting his face in blue and red.
He doesn’t turn.
He knows it’s me...
Currently, he’s not jamming signals. He’s rerouting them. Looping frequencies through channels I don’t recognize.
Each line hums with ghost frequencies. Someone—or something—is talking back.
Ones I’m not supposed to.
"Midnight’s a little late for war games," I say.
He finally speaks. "You heard it too."
Not a question.
A declaration.
"She said my name. Twice. Like it meant something."
"It does," I say. The words leave too fast, too bare. My throat burns before I even realize I believe them.
For a second, I swear I can still feel her hand in mine — heat without source, memory without mercy.
Silence thickens.
"You know who she is."
His fingers still.
"No."
My forehead creased. "That’s a lie."
He turns.
His eyes—flint under lightning.
"It’s not a lie... if I wish I didn’t know."
The air between us fractures. Some truths are small explosions.
The words hit harder than they should.
Third doesn’t break loud.
He breaks quiet.
Precise. Surgical. Like cutting a wire.
I glance at the screen.
There’s a voice log—garbled, half-corrupted.
But I recognize the waveform.
Same one I heard in the medbay.
"You recorded her."
Silence.
"What is this, Third?"
"Echoes. From BEFORE."
"Before what?"
He closes his eyes.
"Before they tore us apart."
The console buzzes. A phrase bleeds through—like breath breaking after being held too long:
—Jay... why didn’t you come back?
My knees nearly give.
She’s real.
Not a dream.
Not a glitch.
She knows us.
"Third..." My voice cracks. "Who... who is she?"
He meets my eyes.
"I don’t remember everything. Not yet. But I remember this —" He places a shaky hand over the speaker. "She died for us. And they made sure we’d never know why."
I step back.
Because the air feels wrong.
And I realize—
The real ghosts aren’t in the past.
They’re buried inside us.
Still screaming to be heard.
------------------------
Supply Wing
04:17 Hours
Jay & Parker
I wasn’t supposed to find him in the dark.
But darkness has a way of finding me first.
I’d been looking for Parker—Third said he’d been hoarding extra medkits again.
Maybe it was true.
Maybe it was just another excuse to check on him after the mission.
I found him crouched between two crates of med-grade rations—the kind they send to teams who don’t always come back.
Parker’s hands were clamped over his ears—like he couldn’t tell if he was holding something in, or shutting something out.
His breath hitched in ragged pulls. Knuckles white, buried in his scalp.
Each inhale sounded like a confession.
I didn’t speak.
Didn’t move.
There’s a kind of storm you don’t walk into.
You wait until it sees you.
On cue, he looked up.
Eyes red.
Pupils wide—not drugs.
Panic.
The kind that fractures time.
"I can’t hear anything except her voice," he said. "Jay—she’s in my head. And she’s angry."
I crouched beside him.
"What did you see?"
He laughed.
Sharp.
Hollow.
"Not see. Remembered."
He pulled something from his jacket.
It smelled faintly of burned metal and cedar... Why did that hurt?
A chain. Twisted.
A broken charm.
Familiar... I know I’ve held this before.
I’d seen it.
In a dream I wasn’t supposed to have.
And yet it aches in my chest like I once gave it to her too.
Parker was shaking.
"I gave this to her. In the Before. She used to call me—"
The word wouldn’t come out.
"They cut it out, Jay," he whispered. "They... they did something more to us."
I swallowed hard.
The silence pressed, thick and suffocating, like the air itself was grieving.
We’re not soldiers anymore. We’re evidence.
"You think someone in Horizon or the Bureau did it?"
He shook his head.
"No. I don’t know who yet. But I know why. They used it. Project Remembrance. They made us into graves."
And I realize—I’ve been carrying a body I can’t see.
Parker paused and there was silence.
"They hollowed us out... and filled us with something else. I can’t seem to pinpoint what or how, but I know they took more than names. Jay... I think they hollowed me out."
"Graves for what, Parker?"
The silence stretched.
"What did they bury inside us?"
He looked at me like he was finally seeing me.
"Do you feel it too?"
I didn’t answer.
I didn’t have to.
Because ever since Site Delta—
I’ve felt like I was missing something...
NO.
I’m not missing something. I’m sure of it.
It’s just Site Delta. Stress. Lack of sleep...
That voice. Just a dream.
That’s all it has to be.
...Right?
In the dark, the static hums back an answer I don’t want to hear.
And somewhere, beneath all the noise—I think I hear her breathing.
*********
Chapter 12:
"Sometimes the dead things don’t stay buried. Especially when one of them is you."
------------------------
Hello, Petals.
Thank you for walking through this Chapter with me. Every read, every comment, every tiny Power Stone you drop—it all breathes life into Lupine: Awakened.
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> QOTD (Question of the Day): Which Alpha Team member do you think hides the darkest secret?
Your answers always surprise me, and sometimes even inspire future scenes.
*To the ones who feel too much, dream too dark, and love the broken things—welcome, Petals.
You’ve found your place among the shadows.
Stay wild. Stay haunted.
— M. Poppy
