I clung to this truth for as long as my mind would allow it.
Holding on to that thought as hard as I could, I lost myself to the sound of Jay’s wrecked voice as he called out for me over and over again.
It hurt more than anything I’d ever experienced… But soon, I forgot why he was crying.
I forgot whyIwas crying.
In minutes that felt like hours, my vision began to blur, and the excruciating sound of screaming began to fade.
Then, the world went dark as the NeuroExtractor finally wiped my mind clear of everything Jay Reynolds had ever done to make me love him.
NOVA play: Linger - SiriusXM Session by Royel Otis
(Present Day)
Gently, I ran the tip of the NeuroExtractor over Milo’s forehead as he relived every one of the memories he’d erased that day.
I soothed him when he cried, stroked him gently when he laughed, and kissed him softly on the head when he moaned.
I was following the story of our romance through the movie-like projection on the wall I’d managed to hook up with old equipment I’d found in my father’s lab.
In the months I’d spent at my father’s cabin physically recovering from what had been done to me, I’d also been working on a way to reverse the extraction Milo had performed on himself that fateful day.
I’d managed to develop a serum that I was pretty sure would work; the only missing piece had been the memories that were stored in the device itself, which was why it was so important I was able to get back into The Cave before Iattacked the campus.
It had taken a few weeks, but while I’d been working on finding a way to reverse the extraction, I’d also pushed my NeuroGlyph tech farther than I ever had before I’d been a captive.
No one had ever restored extracted memory before, and I wasn’t sure how it would work, so I wanted to make sure Milo had a way to see and understand them if they didn’t play through his mind the way I’d hoped.
I needn’t have worried. As soon as the serum I'd developed entered his cerebral cortex, he’d been thrown headfirst into his own mind.
I was watching this projection now almost for my own benefit.
It was one thing for NOVA to tell me when something was real or fake; it was another to see that same memory from another person’s point of view.
Most of these moments in my own head were now a dark, twisted mess.
Every one of Milo’s smiles was overlaid with a vision of me shooting some nameless soldier in the head.
Every tender kiss was twisted into gory explosions of flesh and shrapnel.
Even the memories of my own that I’d used to fill the gaps in Milo's version of events had needed to be carefully cleaned and modified to ensure Milo didn’t accidentally end up on some blood-soaked battlefield in the middle of the procedure.
To see how everything hadactuallyplayed out was rocking my entire fuckingworld.
Every scene that played was pure relief.
Each memory a confirmation.
Every moment so precious, I found the inside of my mask growing hot and wet with a sudden flood of tears.
But it was his last moments with me that I still couldn’t accept.
Those words he’d said, even hearing them now repeated to me in full technicolor… they didn’t feelreal.
I hated that feeling.
And unfortunately, after almost two years of having my brain scrambled repeatedly by war-mongering psychopaths… it was a feeling I was horrifically accustomed to.
