There were two missed calls and a couple of messages on Nina's phone when she woke up and decided to turn it on. She still felt sluggish, the coffee she was in the process of drinking just starting to kick in and it was too early to check all of the calls and messages from her friends that she had missed while the device was powered down. Nina didn't want to deal with the guilt that came from cutting herself off from them.

She felt grateful that they hadn't decided to show up on her doorstep yet, but she supposed it was still too soon to feel relieved about that. A small quirk of her lips was the only hint of Nina's amused fondness toward her friends. That very fondness was one of the reasons why she was so glad to have decided not to involve them in the mess she was currently caught in.

"Research is still being conducted at the South East Institute of Neurology. . ." said the woman on the television, dark eyes staring straight ahead as she sat behind a gleaming desk, most likely reading off of a teleprompter. Despite knowing the woman's gaze wasn't fixed on her, Nina still found her stare unsettling. At the mention of the same place where both her and Fearnley had been treated—the place where Alice had worked and died—Nina ignored that and instead stared at the screen.

"Testing is set to continue until early next year. A spokesperson for SEIN commented on the positive results they've seen so far and the likelihood that this new treatment will be available soon. The FDA has yet to comment on the possibility of this controversial form of therapy being approved."

The report ended, Nina only managing to catch the last of it, and the anchor moved onto a reminder that it was flu season with a cheery voice that didn't quite match what she was talking about. Nina stopped paying attention at that point, instead recalling a conversation she'd had not so long ago. She remembered the smell of coffee and the way Ben had looked so tired as he sat across from her in a cozy little shop. Nina remembered him mentioning implanted memories being used in therapy and the protests he'd had to help control.

At the time, she hadn't thought much about it, despite the things she was dealing with. Maybe there had been too much going on, or maybe she just didn't want to believe that something like that had been done to her. Now though, Nina couldn't afford to dismiss things so easily. Not when she had memories she knew weren't hers—memories of a woman long dead—and a man sitting in prison thinking of people who he'd never known.

Someone must have implanted memories in us, but when? Nina asked herself as she stared blankly at the television screen. The coffee in her hand slowly cooled. And why doesn't Fearnley have the same memories as me?

That was something she was sure he would have mentioned. Fearnley had spoken about memories coming back to him, and then having two sets of memories about the same event. Perhaps, Nina thought, implanting memories hadn't worked as well as Alice—or whoever it was that had put those memories in Fearnley's head—had thought. There were still things that slipped through. Memories that should have been erased and others that never should have been placed in Fearnley's head in the first place.

"We don't have a daughter," Fearnley's ex wife had said. Nina believed her, she was a woman who had no reason to lie. Nina also believed Fearnley and the genuine heartbreak that had been present in his voice when he'd asked Nina to pass on a message to the daughter he remembered so fondly—so vividly.

He mentioned headaches.

Nina thought about the last conversation she'd had with the man, where he'd told her of the headaches he'd get when he thought of that day. The day Alice had died. Still, headaches were a common side effect to the procedure both Nina and Fearnley had gone through. She'd been told as much by the doctors, still got them at times. She recalled telling Nat as much, and felt a twinge of pain in her head at that very moment.

Nina might have dismissed the fleeting ache at any other time, but with Fearnley still on her mind, she wondered if maybe the memories of Alice weren't all that had been placed in her head. For the first time since she'd found out about Fearnley's false memories, Nina wondered if maybe he wasn't the only one living a lie.

No, I would know, she told herself. Fearnley had memory lapses. I would know.

The thought did little to comfort her when she knew all too well how easy it could be to get lost in something as fragile as memories. Fearnley hadn't suspected a thing about the memories of his daughter, and it had taken him far too long to realize his recollections of the night of Alice's death were flawed. His memories had begun to crumble at some point, but Nina's own recollections still felt whole with the exceptions of the ones Alice had clearly implanted.

So when did it all go wrong for him? Nina wondered, standing and abandoning her lukewarm drink on the coffee table.

She went in search of the notebook where she'd made notes during her conversations with Fearnley. After searching for a minute, Nina found what she was looking for. She'd written down as much as she could from what Fearnley told her during their phone call. Nina's meticulous notes didn't let her down.

Memories wrong, headaches when recalled, new memories days ago. After imprisonment, alt memories surfaced. The last bit had been added later, something Nina often did to make her notes clearer. Even without the note, it was obvious just how the memories implanted in Fearnley's head had finally fallen away to reveal the truth while Fearnley was in prison.

Could something have triggered it? Nina wondered, attempting to find a plausible reason for Fearnley's memories changing. Or did the memories just degrade naturally?

If that were true, then there was the possibility that Nina's own implanted memories would begin to falter sometime soon. After all, it had been some time since Alice had placed her own memories into Nina. Nina just wished she could know more about what happened to Fearnely while he was in Alice's care. What had been done to him and when each procedure had been performed would help Nina figure out when Fearnley's false memories had been implanted.

The problem was, Nina would need his medical records for that. With her resources being so limited, there was only one way she could get them, and that meant heading into the one place she did not want to go back to at the time.

Nina looked down at her notes, thought about that particular conversation with Fearnley. About how each day Fearnley spent in prison wore on the man's mind—scratching at it's already paper thin walls—and about Alice's gaze watching her expectantly. The look had changed just the slightest bit each time Nina saw it, until she thought she could see a silent plea shining within that green gaze. Those were things that Nina knew she couldn't ignore, and so she knew she had to act.

- - - - - - - - -

The memories of the last time Nina had been in the research center seemed like they belonged to a whole other lifetime. At least, Nina wished they did.

As soon as she stepped inside the building, there was a sense of unease that washed over her. The bright lights bounced off the spotless white floors, highlighting just how clinical the whole place was—how cold. It was a detail Nina had pushed out of her mind since she'd last been there. Perhaps because she'd wanted to forget she'd ever even had any need to step into the place.

Now, with each of her steps emitting a sharp note that seemed too loud to her own ears, Nina tried not to think about the way being in that place made her feel. She tried not to think about how her hands were shaking almost imperceptibly while her heart beat wildly inside her chest, setting a quick pace that echoed in her ears. Every gaze that settled upon her, every hushed conversation she passed by, made her heightened sense of awareness drive the paranoia she'd struggled to shove to the back of her mind for the time being.

No one knows you, Nina told herself, fighting back the urge to straighten the nursing smock she was wearing, one that had been surprisingly easy to find. No one knows you don't belong here.

She gave a woman—older and looking concerned enough that Nina figured she must have been visiting someone undergoing treatment—a smile that felt stiff on her face. It was a brittle thing that was near to cracking and falling apart under the weight of all that Nina carried. The moment she was out of view, the expression collapsed back into the tentatively neutral look Nina was keeping on her face. All of her doubts and fears along with the rush of nerves she felt were carefully kept locked inside while her face remained impassive.

Nina was still convinced she could feel eyes watching her, following her every move. Her steps never faltered, her gaze remained fixed ahead while her mind struggled with keeping Alice's memories back as they threatened to emerge. The pristine white hall flashed to a not so brightly lit one with cream colored walls. Nina blinked and the image in her mind changed.

Still, she kept a steady pace up until she made it to a door with a familiar name still displayed on it in neat, black lettering.

"Alice Cassill," Nina read softly, her eyes staring at the door for a moment, not surprised at the flash of a pale face staring back through a mirror. The image—a recurring memory that Nina had seen more times than she could count—barely registered as she peered through the slim strip of glass on the door.

The office had been stripped bare, something Nina had expected. Disappointment still settled heavily in the pit of her stomach as she thought of what she could have learned from Alice's belongings. Nina let out a soft sigh of resignation as her gaze swept over the empty office.

It was a small room, white walls contrasting with the dark grey carpet that looked to be new. The thought of why the flooring had been replaced crossed Nina's mind, making her stomach turn.

She took a step back at that, thinking of the reports she'd read, of how Alice had been found laying on her office floor in a pool of blood. Nina thought of the vivid green eyes staring at her and of how they might have been glazed over, unseeing even as they stared out of pale face. A wave of nausea overtook her, one Nina just barely managed to push back.

Once she'd gotten a hold of herself—once she no longer felt like she was fighting a losing battle against her emotions—Nina took a quick look around her. The hall was still empty, an unnatural sort of silence hovering over the place. Knowing she wouldn't find anything else there, she pulled out her phone.

Well before she'd entered the building, Nina had planned as much as she could given the circumstances. She'd managed to get a rough map of the building, the rest of the details and locations—like Alice's office—she knew from frequenting the place not so long ago. There was just one place she needed to make sure she knew the location to.

The filing room.

It was a not so short journey, one that would feel about a hundred times longer thanks to the nerves running through Nina's body at the moment. The room was a couple of floors down, in an area most often frequented by those who were employed by the research institute. Nina tried not to go over all of the things that could go wrong in that situation. Of how she had already taken much too long inside the building.

She could feel the cameras watching her, like unblinking eyes stalking her through the halls. It made her skin prickle and her eyes flicker around the place. Nina wanted to leave, wanted to rush out of the building and never look back. Somehow, she managed to remain in place,calmly sliding her phone back inside her pocket and taking the first of many steps down the hall.

Her breathing remained steady, a conscious effort on her part. It helped her focus on something other than what would happen if she were caught or the images of a hall with cream colored walls nearly as spotless as the one she was walking down at that moment that flashed in her head. Vivid visions that almost seemed to blend with reality.

Sooner than Nina had expected, she was standing in front of the elevators. Gleaming silver doors held her reflection. Nina turned her gaze to the ground until the doors finally slip open. She glanced up, catching sight of a couple of nurses dressed in a similar fashion as her and felt a knot of tension forming once again inside of her.

As she had from the moment she stepped foot inside the building, Nina pulled on a smile she hoped seemed sincere enough. Thankfully, the nurses were occupied with their own conversation. They returned her smile and nodded as they walked out.

Nina stepped inside, the doors closed and at last she was able to release a relieved sigh. She leaned against the cool steel wall and looked up at the numbers slowly changing, the seconds she spent inside the elevator feeling like a reprieve. That moment was gone when the doors opened just a second later, a floor away from Nina's destination, and a man walked in.

There was a swell of nerves as soon as she realized that someone was walking in, something that increased when Nina realized that she knew the man on the other side of the doors.

He was a doctor there, a relatively young one that she had sometimes seen around, but hadn't interacted with. Still, the thought that she—with her flawed memory—could recognize him made her wonder if he would as well.

For a moment, his eyes narrowed just the slightest bit, his gaze swept over Nina's face. She could almost see the gears turning in his head, struggling to place her face amidst all his memories while she recalled all the times she'd walked past him after her surgery, her father at her side as she hobbled down the hall. Nina remembered the detached interest in his eyes as he glanced her way. The moment was gone soon enough. He nodded—unable to see the same scarred patient from back then in the woman standing in front of him—stepped inside and Nina released the breath she'd unconsciously been holding.

After what felt like an eternity, the elevator reached the floor Nina would be getting off on. It was a conscious struggle to keep her steps at a normal pace when what she most wanted was to run out of the elevator. The doors closed behind her and relief washed over her even as she refused to look back.

Like Nina had expected, there was an increase in activity in the floor where the filing room was. Nurses walked by her, eyes roaming over patients' notes, others chatting with each other. Nina worked up a smile, a small one that still served to make everyone think she was at ease—that she was supposed to be there.

The walk to the filing room was a blur, most of Nina's attention occupied by the placid look she had to maintain on her face and the images of the hall from Alice's memories flooding into her mind. When she came back to herself, Nina was standing in front of the double doors that made up the entrance to the filing room. She could hear people walking around nearby, some chatting quietly, but the loudest thing was the sound of her heart pounding in her ears at the thought that behind that door could be the answers she so desperately needed.

Nina stretched out her hand to open the door, scars hidden beneath the cardigan she wore yet still there—always would be. The image of a child's hand, small and pale, flashed in her mind. A sunlit hall and a gleaming doorknob. The giggling of a child. Nina disregarded it all as she pushed open the doors and walked in.

The room was spacious, yet crammed with shelves upon shelves of files in the form of movable record cabinets. It was something that made Nina reconsider her idea as the task of finding a single file amongst all of the ones in front of her seemed more daunting a task than she had previously thought. There was still her fear of getting caught—of running out of time while she searched through all the files—something she pushed away as she strolled in. A quiet rustling nearby told her there was someone else in the room.

Nina ignored that in favor of finding what she was there for and getting out of there as soon as possible. That task was made difficult when she realized that she had no idea on how the files were organized. Each manila folder was coded with colors, numbers and letters. There was little labeling visible on the surface, and none of what Nina could see was remotely helpful in finding Fearnley's records.

She pulled out her phone, looked at the time and knew she'd spent too much time in there already. Nina knew she needed to leave and soon. From nearby, she could still hear the sound of papers being shuffled. For a minute, Nina stood there, eyes roaming over the overwhelming amount of files in front of her while the sounds of someone else searching through files seemed to grow louder. The clock was ticking, Nina heard steps heading towards the door. As much as she didn't want to, she knew what she had to do.

"Excuse me," she called out, heart pounding in her chest as the young male nurse stopped and turned towards her, a couple of folders in his grasp. "I was wondering if you could help me. I'm new and I've been asked to find some files." Nina did her best to appear apologetic for interrupting the man, letting just a hint of the nerves she felt slip through.

"Let me guess, having trouble figuring out the system?" the man said with an amused smile.

"Yeah, I guess I'm just a bit overwhelmed. First day nerves," she let out a laugh that was a bit relieved at having convinced the nurse. At least for the time being.

"It can be tough to get the hang of it. Took me about a week when I first started." Nina nodded while he spoke, all the while thinking of the seconds ticking away. "So, what are you looking for?"

Nina felt her smile widen just the slightest bit and could almost feel the files already within her grasp.

- - - - - - - - - 

Hey everyone! So it's been a while since I updated, sorry about that. There was supposed to be a new chapter last week but, to be honest, I forgot, haha. Halloween was busy and then I had to help with our family altar for Day of the Dead, so yeah. So here's a new chapter that I hope you all enjoy. There should be a new one next Friday too! (Unless I forget again. :'D)

Have a great weekend!