We Were Never Meant to Wake Up

They didn’t stop running until they reached the outskirts of the valley. A dense thicket of trees provided some cover, but none of them felt safe. Jessica bent over, hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. Her body ached, not only from the escape, but from what she had seen.

She couldn’t get the image of the clone out of her head. She belongs with us.

Leanna paced, gripping the bridge of her nose. “We need to get back to the Jeep, put as much distance between us and that place as possible.”

Jessica nodded numbly, but Olivia didn’t move. She sat on a fallen log, rubbing her temples. She was shaking.

“This isn’t just some deep-cover operation anymore,” Olivia finally said, voice strained. “This is—I don’t even know what this is.” She pulled out her laptop, fingers trembling as she opened a document. “Vanguard’s been rewriting human identity. We knew that. But this?” She turned the screen toward them, showing notes from the journal she’d recovered. “This facility wasn’t about memory wipes or training operatives—it was about perfecting replacement.”

Jessica swallowed hard. “Replacement?”

“They weren’t just creating sleeper agents. They were making backups. Copies.” Olivia’s voice broke slightly. “If one died, another could step in.”

Leanna ran a hand through her hair. “Jesus Christ.”

Jessica clenched her jaw. “And I was one of them.”

In her head, she heard the number: JESS-014. One of how many? Was she the original? A leftover? A test that got lucky?

Her thoughts swirled like a drain, pulling her down into the possibility she’d tried so hard to ignore—that she wasn’t even real, but merely a functioning product. A placeholder. Subject 002. Jess-014. It didn’t matter what name they stamped on the shell. She was theirs, and she always had been.

“No.” Leanna grabbed her by the shoulders. “You are you. Don’t let them take that from you.”

Jessica looked away. It was easy for Leanna to say. She hadn’t just come face to face with herself.

Olivia exhaled sharply, rubbing her eyes. “You don’t get it. This was an old facility. That means Vanguard already perfected this. The program isn’t some abandoned relic.” She turned the screen again, showing recent encrypted files she’d pulled from the server. “They’re still doing it. Somewhere else.”

Silence. The wind howled through the trees.

Jessica sat down next to Olivia, staring at the screen. Her reflection stared back at her. But was it even hers?

Leanna broke the silence. “We need to figure out where they moved the project. If this was just a test site, the real operation is still out there.”

Olivia hesitated, then nodded. “We have a lead.” She tapped the encrypted files. “There are coordinates buried in here, but I need time to decode them.”

Jessica exhaled slowly. More running. More chasing ghosts. She looked up at the night sky. She wanted to be done. She wanted to go home. But… did she even have a home anymore?

Leanna placed a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll figure this out.”

Jessica forced a nod. But in the silence that followed, she couldn’t shake the fear that they wouldn’t. That this time, there might be nothing left to save.