Breaking Into Zone E Part 2

I slammed my fists against the cold, unforgiving metal of the door, the impact sending jolts of pain shooting up my arms. My breath came in ragged gasps, my knuckles burning with the raw force of each desperate, futile hit. Beside me, Dad mirrored my actions, his weakened frame shaking with the effort, his face a mask of grim determination. But it was useless. The reinforced door remained stubbornly sealed, an impenetrable barrier between us and Lumina who was now in Volkov’s clutches.

I gritted my teeth, refusing to stop. One more hit. One more time. But after an hour of trying—trying to fight, trying to break through, trying to undo what had just happened—I felt it. The ache spreading through my fingers. The bruises forming along my wrists. I stared at my hands, raw and trembling, and for the first time since Volkov left, a tiny, unwelcome thought crept into my mind.

We were trapped.

I sucked in a shaky breath, forcing the rising tide of panic down, desperately trying to smother the suffocating tendrils of despair. We would escape. We had to. Lumina was counting on us.

Then – my gaze fell on Aiden.

He was hunched over, slumped against the cold floor, his hands fumbling with scattered tools, his breath shallow and uneven. Blood still seeped through his hamster onesie, staining the fleece in deep, worrying shades of red. The battle suit should have absorbed most of the damage—it wasn’t normal. He was losing too much. I moved toward him, panic spiking in my chest.

“Aiden, stop,” I snapped.

He didn’t even seem to hear me. His head was bowed, his focus entirely consumed by the task at hand.

His fingers trembled violently as he connected tiny wires, adjusting minute circuits – building something, even now, even while his own body was betraying him. Dad exhaled slowly, watching him with a grim, knowing expression that sent a fresh wave of dread washing over me.

“As a clone,” he murmured, his voice soft but carrying a chilling weight of understanding, “Aiden was born with a weak heart.”

I froze, my breath catching in my throat.

“No,” I whispered, the denial a fragile, desperate plea against an undeniable truth.

Dad continued, his voice heavy with a knowledge I didn’t want to hear, a premonition of loss that chilled me to the bone. “Volkov designed him to be…temporary. A means to an end.”

Designed him to fade. Designed him to die. I turned back to Aiden, the stubborn, brilliant boy who had always defied expectations, who had never let anything hold him down, never let anyone tell him what was impossible. And he knew. He had known all along about the ticking clock within him.

I dropped to my knees beside him, my grip tight on his arm, forcing his shaking hands away from the delicate tools.

“Aiden, please,” I begged, my voice thick with unshed tears. “You have to stop. You’re bleeding too much. You’re not going to survive this if you keep pushing yourself.”

Aiden’s fingers loosened their grip on the tools, allowing me to take them from him with a terrifying ease. He was getting weaker, his life force visibly ebbing away. I swallowed hard, the fear a cold knot in my stomach, but when I looked up, Aiden was smiling. Not his usual cocky smirk, the one that always hinted at some mischievous plan. This was different. Softer. So…sad.

“I promised her,” he murmured, his voice barely a whisper.

I blinked, my grip tightening on the stolen tools, my mind reeling. “What?”

Aiden leaned back against the cold steel wall, his eyes distant, unfocused, as if he were already drifting somewhere else, a place beyond the confines of this prison. His breath hitched, a shallow, painful sound.

“I promised Lumina,” he repeated, his voice even quieter now, the words fading at the edges, like a dying ember. “That I’d make sure…we would see the sun again.”

The simple words hit me with the force of a physical blow, a stark reminder of the hope that had driven us, the promise that now seemed impossibly fragile. I sucked in a sharp, ragged breath, blinking rapidly, but it didn’t stop the tears from welling up and spilling down my cheeks, hot trails against the cold reality of the steel floor. Aiden exhaled, a weak, rattling sound, and I hated how frail he sounded, how resigned. I hated that he believed he wouldn’t make it.

He wasn’t supposed to be dying. Not like this. Not now.

My hands trembled as I pressed the makeshift emergency wrap against Aiden’s wound, the thin fabric quickly soaking with blood, my pulse hammering a frantic rhythm against my skull. He wasn’t supposed to bleed like this, his life force draining away with every ragged breath.

But as I looked at him, at the reckless genius whose impossible inventions had become our only hope, at the boy who had defied reason time and time again with a stubborn grin, I felt a confusing tangle of emotions I couldn’t quite untangle. Was he my friend or my enemy, bound by a lie from the very beginning? Did it even matter anymore, with his life hanging precariously in the balance? Dad exhaled beside me, his weak hands surprisingly steady as they rested over mine, offering a silent, unexpected comfort as I fought, desperately, to stem the flow of blood.

“The sins of the father are not the sins of the child,” he murmured, his voice low and grave.

I blinked, my mind still reeling from the revelations, barely processing his cryptic words. “What?”

Dad’s voice was heavy – not just with the physical exhaustion of his ordeal, but with a profound, palpable regret. “I wish I could have been a better father to you and Lumina,” he said softly, his gaze distant, lost in the labyrinth of his past. “I wish I had been around more, that I had protected you better – that I had done anything to stop this before it began.”

A sudden, sharp pressure collapsed inside my chest, something tight and unbearable. The dam I had built around years of resentment, of unspoken accusations and unanswered questions, finally cracked.

I had spent months holding onto resentment toward him—for being absent, for being untouchable, for being more of an idea than a father. But I had never expected him to say this. Had never expected him to admit what I had never dared say aloud. My body shook as I let go of Aiden’s wrist, my knees giving out beneath me.

“I—” My voice cracked, the raw emotion catching in my throat. I swallowed hard, fighting against the tears that threatened to overwhelm me.

I loved Aiden.

And I didn’t know when I had started. Maybe it had happened in the first insane, unbelievable moment when he had explained his hamster energy system like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Maybe it had happened through every reckless joke, every ridiculous idea, every impossible invention. Maybe it had happened the second he promised my sister that he would make sure we saw the sun again.

But it had happened.

And he was dying. I reached for him again, my fingers gripping his bloodstained sleeve with desperate intensity, my voice pleading, breaking, unraveling with the raw agony of impending loss.

“Aiden, please,” I begged, my voice choked with tears. “You have to stop – you can’t push yourself anymore –”

But before I knew it, before the full weight of my grief could consume me, something shifted. The hamster onesies, the intricate network of technology woven between our very beings, the strange, almost symbiotic connection we had forged – it flared to life. A sudden, powerful pulse of energy surged through me, an unexpected jolt that made my vision swim.

Then—I saw it.

A fleeting image, sharp and vivid, burned behind my eyelids. A child, almost the same age as Lumina. He looked just like Aiden – but younger, smaller, brimming with an innocent, untainted energy. He was kneeling on a worn wooden floor, surrounded by scraps of metal and discarded wires, his tiny hands fumbling with the components of something he was determined to build. A rocket. His brow was furrowed in concentration, his wide eyes focused with a fierce, unwavering determination that mirrored the Aiden I knew.

A memory.

His memory. A glimpse into a past that had been deliberately hidden, a stolen moment from a life that was never truly his own.

—

The small kitchen glowed with warm, golden light. Steam curled from the sink as a woman—his mother—scrubbed at a pan, humming softly under her breath.

At the worn wooden table, a young Aiden – no, not Aiden. Jaden. The child, no older than seven, was a picture of intense concentration, his small body hunched over his makeshift workstation. His tongue poked out from the corner of his mouth as his tiny fingers meticulously assembled his masterpiece – a toy rocket, a testament to his boundless imagination, patched together with sticky glue, stray wires scavenged from discarded electronics, and sheer, unwavering determination. A triumphant grin suddenly spread across his face, his bright, intelligent eyes sparkling with excitement before he scrambled up from his chair, his creation held aloft.

“Mom! Look!”

His mother laughed, a warm, melodic sound, barely turning from her dishes, but her smile, when it reached her eyes, was pure and radiant, brimming with a quiet, unwavering pride. “Almost done with your spaceship, sweetheart?”

Jaden nodded furiously, holding the rocket up with both hands. Then—the door clicked open. A tall man walked inside, his sharp suit slightly loosened from a long day. A younger Volkov. Jaden’s eyes widened in delight.

“Dad!” He bolted toward him, holding up the rocket as high as his small arms would allow. “Look what I made!”

Volkov smiled warmly—a genuine smile, not the cold, detached one. He lifted Jaden up, settling him against his hip with effortless ease.

“Jaden, you built this…all by yourself?” he asked, his voice filled with a warmth that was both surprising and unsettling as he carefully inspected the crudely assembled toy ship.

Jaden nodded enthusiastically, his small chest puffing out with pride. “Uh-huh! It needs fuel though. Maybe real fire!”

Volkov laughed, eyes crinkling in amusement.

“Real fire, hmm?” He tapped a finger gently against Jaden’s forehead, the gesture affectionate, proud. “Well, maybe we’ll stick to pretend fire for now, little astronaut. But I can’t wait to see you do that for real one day.”

Jaden beamed, practically vibrating with excitement. Then—the memory shattered. Fire. The kitchen exploded into chaos. Smoke flooded the room, blackening the walls, curling against the ceilings. His mother screamed—but her voice cut off suddenly. The flames crashed down as Jaden reached out—And then—

Nothing.

Darkness.

A sudden, suffocating silence.

Then—A sharp, clinical white glow. Cold metal. Glass. A test tube. Aiden opened his eyes—but the world wasn’t the same. It wasn’t his home. It was a lab. Outside, Volkov and Noah stood over his newborn form, their voices eerily calm.

“He won’t remember,” Noah murmured, his arms folded across his chest, his expression grim. “We’re playing God, Elias. And we will pay for it.”

Volkov’s expression was unreadable.

“There is no God.”

Silence stretched between them, thick and heavy with the weight of a decision made, a line crossed, something fundamental and irreversible now set in motion. Noah’s gaze darkened, a flicker of something akin to despair crossing his features.

“Then I guess there’s no chance of heaven either.”

Volkov sighed, a soft, weary sound that spoke of a profound cynicism. “There never was.”

—

The memory vanished, leaving me gasping, my entire body shaking from the force of it.

The psychic link faded, leaving behind a strange emptiness—like waking from a dream so vivid I wasn’t sure where reality began. My breath hitched. My chest burned. And my cheeks—wet. I was crying as Dad noticed instantly.

“Delia?” His voice was hoarse, confused, barely stronger than a whisper. “What’s wrong?”

I couldn’t answer.

Not with words.

Not with everything I had just seen—Aiden’s past, his stolen future, the fire, the loss, the sterile rebirth, the voices that had decided his existence before he even had the chance to live. Instead—I reached for the tools.

Aiden blinked at me, his breathing still ragged, but his fingers moved instinctively, gripping the materials I handed him. No hesitation. No words. We just worked.

Dad stared, bewildered, watching as our motions synced perfectly, as if we were connected by something deeper than just necessity.

“What are you two doing?” Dad asked, his voice edged with confusion and exhaustion.

Aiden’s lips curled in a weak smirk. “We’re deciding.”

Dad frowned. “Deciding what?”

I exhaled sharply, my fingers tightening around the circuitry. “That we aren’t going to cry anymore.”

The words felt final, like an unspoken contract between me and Aiden, between our burning grief and the mission ahead. No more regrets. No more hesitation. We were going to save Lumina. We were going to bring back the sun. Aiden nodded, his energy flickering—but still there.

And then—Dad changed as if something shifted in him. His exhaustion—his hopelessness—faded just a little. Because he saw it. The spark. The same spark that had once driven him to create something powerful enough to save humanity.

The same spark that had lived in Aiden’s hands when he built his rocket as a child. The same spark I refused to let die. Dad grabbed his own tools, breath shaky but determined.

“Then let’s get to work.”

And together, for the first time—not as a father and daughter bound by loss, but as three minds united by purpose—we built for the final battle.