The room pulsed like a living heart.
Blue light flickered from the screen in front of Harper, the words blinking steadily:
"Restore Project Echo?"
YES or NO
Her hand hovered above the keys, fingers trembling—not from fear, but from the weight of it. This wasn't just about her memories anymore. This was about everyone who had ever been erased. Forgotten. Rewritten.
The lights around her began to stutter again.
The system was fighting back.
"You're not supposed to be here," a voice snapped behind her.
Harper turned—
And there stood Jamie.
No program.no cracks.No nothing.just Real Jamie..
Alive, breathing, wild-eyed—but not the same boy from the hallway. He looked like he'd been through the same storm she had. His sweater was torn at the shoulder, his knuckles scraped, eyes sharp with adrenaline.
"Jamie," she breathed. "How—"
"I followed the signal. And you."
He stepped forward and looked at the terminal. The words on screen had changed.
PROJECT ECHO: A Full System Memory Restoration Protocol
Warning: This will destabilize active simulations. Proceed?
Jamie scanned the lines, lips pressed in a tight line.
"This will wake everyone, Harper," he said. "Every erased student. Every altered mind. Every suppressed version of this school."
Harper nodded slowly. "It's time."
Jamie didn't hesitate.
He reached beside her and pressed YES with her hand.
The lights burst into red.
The floor trembled.
A deafening siren blared from somewhere deep within the metal walls. The screens on the surrounding terminals went wild—flickering images, data scrolls, corrupted symbols screaming across the interface. Somewhere overhead, the ceiling cracked open, revealing a hidden chamber of wires and spinning black glass disks—like an artificial brain cracking under pressure.
"PROJECT ECHO ACTIVATED."
"All active suppressions lifting in 3… 2… 1…"
Harper clutched Jamie's hand as a wave of static swept through the room, knocking them both to their knees. Her head throbbed, her vision blurred—
And then it happened.
She saw Katherine—not in flashes, but fully. Laughing in the courtyard. Reading by lamplight. Writing letters she'd never send.
She saw Eli, Morgan, Sawyer—faces she'd thought she imagined—remembering her.
And then, in her mind, a voice. Not electronic. Not artificial.
Warm.
Katherine's voice.
"You found it. You found me."
Tears stung Harper's eyes.
She looked at Jamie.
He was staring at her like he saw everything now–everything they'd been through.
"I remember it all," he whispered. "Every version of you.Everything you hid . Everything you kept away I know each and every thing and the other versions like you "
But the system wasn't finished.
From the flickering ceiling vents came shadows–thin, gliding figures shaped like people but too tall, too fast. The Enforcers–projections of the system meant to contain "disruptions."
Jamie pulled Harper to her feet. "Run or fight?"
She smirked. "Both."
They darted through the corridors of the Core, dodging the collapsing beams and distorted PA announcements. Symbols on the walls began to glow–ones Harper had sketched from Katherine's diary and the ceiling of the room. They lit up in response to her presence.
The school was remembering too.
Lockers opened with a click. Doors that had been sealed for decades creaked slightly ajar.
One by one, students across Bellridge froze in mid-step, blinking–confused, frightened–and then gasped.
Memories returned like floods after a broken dam.
The intercom roared to life.
Not Harper's voice this time.
Not the system's.
A cold, gritting tone–Administrator-Prime.
"You were never meant to resist. This was our sanctuary. Our experiment. And you, Harper Quinn, are an error that must be corrected."
Harper grabbed the intercom speaker from the wall.
"No," she said. "I'm your glitch."
And with one final surge, she threw the notebook–Katherine's–into the central terminal.
The data sparked.
The system screamed.
The shadows collapsed into dust.
By the time Harper and Jamie emerged into the courtyard, the sky had turned gray-blue with the earliest light.
Bellridge Academy stood silent–but not dead.
For the first time, truly alive.
Students stepped out in groups, blinking, holding photographs, books, drawings–memories they had hidden in cracks and corners. Memories that had survived.
No one knew what would come next.
But for now, Harper had what she'd fought for.
A school that once forgotten her now remember her..And a boy who never stopped trying ..never forgot her.