Chapter 6 - The Voice From The Past
The message stayed on the screen.
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
For several seconds, the only sound in the archive room was the quiet hum of the computers.
"If you are seeing this, it means they failed to erase you."
I read the sentence again.
Then again.
Because my mind refused to accept what my eyes were seeing.
They.
Not someone.
Not an accident.
They.
A group.
A decision.
A deliberate attempt to remove something from my life.
I looked at Admiral Cross.
"Who wrote this?"
She didn't answer immediately.
That worried me.
Because I had started recognizing the signs.
The pauses.
The careful expressions.
The moments when people knew more than they wanted to admit.
Davis stepped closer to the screen.
His face had changed.
He looked older.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
Like he had been carrying something for years and finally realized he couldn't carry it alone anymore.
"I know that handwriting."
My eyes moved toward him.
"You do?"
He nodded slowly.
Then he looked at me.
"It was your team leader."
The room became silent.
My heartbeat stopped for a moment.
"My team leader died."
Davis looked down.
"I know."
"No."
My voice became sharper.
"I saw what happened."
Everyone looked at me.
I closed my eyes.
And suddenly I was back there.
The sound.
The fire.
The dust.
The screaming.
The impossible weight of everything collapsing around me.
I remembered reaching for someone.
I remembered calling a name.
I remembered a hand grabbing mine.
But everything after that was broken.
Fragments.
Memories that came and disappeared like smoke.
Davis looked at the screen.
"Sarah, your memories from that day were incomplete because of the trauma."
I shook my head.
"No."
I looked at him.
"You're saying someone did something."
He didn't answer.
Which meant he was.
Admiral Cross walked toward the terminal.
"Open the file."
The security officer entered the command.
The screen changed.
A video appeared.
No title.
No description.
Only a date.
The day before the explosion.
My breathing slowed.
Because I knew that date.
It was the last normal day before my life changed forever.
The video started.
Static.
Then a face appeared.
My heart stopped.
Because I knew him.
Lieutenant Mark Ellis.
My team leader.
My friend.
The man who had trained me.
The man who always told us that a good leader never left anyone behind.
He looked tired.
Different from the person I remembered.
The video quality was poor.
But his voice was clear.
"If you're watching this, then something went wrong."
I covered my mouth.
Davis looked away.
Admiral Cross remained completely still.
Ellis continued.
"I don't know who will find this."
A pause.
"But if it's Sarah..."
My name.
Hearing my name from someone who was gone almost broke me.
Ellis looked directly into the camera.
"Then I need you to know something."
I stepped closer.
"I tried."
His voice became quieter.
"I tried to stop them."
My chest tightened.
"Stop who?"
I whispered.
But the video continued.
"The mission was changed twelve hours before deployment."
Admiral Cross looked at the screen.
The security officer immediately began recording.
Ellis continued.
"The information we received was not the original briefing."
A pause.
"Someone replaced the intelligence report."
My hands became cold.
The explosion.
The mission.
The deaths.
Everything I believed was suddenly uncertain.
Ellis looked down.
"If anything happens to us, the investigation cannot stay inside the chain of command."
The video flickered.
Then returned.
"There are people protecting the mistake."
The words stayed in the room.
Protecting the mistake.
Not fixing it.
Not admitting it.
Protecting it.
Ellis took a breath.
"The person who can prove what happened is the person they will try to silence."
The screen froze.
Then his voice continued.
"That person is Sarah Mitchell."
The video stopped.
Nobody spoke.
I stared at the frozen image of my friend.
A man who had died believing nobody would know the truth.
But he had prepared for this.
He had known.
"Why me?"
My voice was barely audible.
Admiral Cross looked at me.
"Because you survived."
I shook my head.
"That doesn't make sense."
Davis answered.
"It does if you remember something they couldn't remove."
The anger came before the fear.
"I don't remember anything."
Davis nodded.
"I know."
"Then why am I the answer?"
He looked at me.
"Because you saw something before the explosion."
I felt my hands tighten.
"No."
But even I didn't believe myself.
Because deep inside...
A small part of me remembered.
Not everything.
Just pieces.
A voice.
A conversation.
A warning.
Something I had buried because it hurt too much.
Admiral Cross noticed my expression.
"Sarah."
I looked at her.
"What?"
She lowered her voice.
"Do you remember the last conversation you had with Mark Ellis?"
I froze.
The question unlocked something.
A memory.
A hallway.
A quiet moment before the mission.
Mark standing beside me.
His serious expression.
His hand on my shoulder.
"Sarah, if something feels wrong tomorrow, trust yourself."
I had forgotten.
Or convinced myself I forgot.
Because after the explosion, everything became too painful.
But now...
The memory was returning.
"He knew."
I whispered.
Davis nodded.
"He knew something was wrong."
I looked at the file.
"My father knew too."
Nobody corrected me.
And that hurt more.
I walked away from the screen.
For the first time that day, I wasn't thinking about the wedding.
Not my father.
Not my scars.
I was thinking about the people who never came home.
The people whose names I carried.
The people who deserved answers.
"I want the entire file."
Admiral Cross looked at me.
"Sarah..."
"No."
I turned toward her.
"My entire career, people have told me what I could handle."
I looked at the archive.
"I'm done being protected from the truth."
The admiral studied me for a moment.
Then she nodded.
"Okay."
The security officer opened another section.
More files appeared.
Reports.
Photos.
Communication logs.
Then one file appeared at the top.
Access restricted.
The title made everyone stop.
POST-OPERATION PERSONAL INTERVIEW.
I frowned.
"Personal interview?"
Davis looked confused.
"I've never seen that file."
Admiral Cross stepped closer.
"Neither have I."
The security officer looked nervous.
"This file was created after the incident."
"By who?"
He checked.
Then his face changed.
"I don't know."
"That is not an answer."
He swallowed.
"The creator information was removed."
My stomach tightened.
Someone had deleted the creator.
Someone had hidden the person who made it.
Admiral Cross entered her authorization.
Denied.
She tried again.
Denied.
The security officer looked at the screen.
"Someone with higher clearance locked it."
My eyes moved toward the file.
"Open it."
The officer hesitated.
"Lieutenant, I can't."
I looked at him.
"Why?"
He pointed at the screen.
"Because the system is asking for one final authorization."
"What authorization?"
The screen changed.
A message appeared.
ENTER ORIGINAL SUBJECT IDENTIFICATION.
Everyone went silent.
Davis looked confused.
"Original subject?"
Admiral Cross stared at the screen.
Then slowly turned toward me.
Because she understood before I did.
The system wasn't asking for an officer's name.
It wasn't asking for a command code.
It was asking for the person the file was created about.
The officer looked at me.
"Lieutenant Mitchell..."
The screen began flashing.
And then it displayed the final requirement.
"Confirm identity of original witness."
I stepped closer.
My reflection appeared on the dark monitor.
Then the archive unlocked.
May you like
The first line of the hidden interview appeared.
And the person speaking in the recording was me.
