—————༻☂︎︎༺—————
༻ Y/N'S POV ༺

It had been a month—or maybe two—since everything had changed. My new life was slowly building within my code, each day an update toward something more stable. This hot morning, Johnny and I found ourselves on Billy's father's farm, helping out with the daily work. Johnny was busy lending a hand to Billy's father, while Billy and I worked together feeding the animals.

"I swear, Bella is always hungry," Billy complained, pausing as he knelt beside his favorite pig. "I can't even get her to finish a bowl."

I looked at the pig, then cradled a small chicken in my hand, analyzing the subtle nuances in its behavior. "Maybe her food's lost its flavor, or... perhaps she's pregnant," I offered, my voice a blend of programmed logic and something almost human.

Billy turned to me with a hearty laugh. "Well, dang. If Bella's fixin' to have babies, then I might just have to quit my job!"

We both chuckled. Billy then nodded appreciatively. "Guess Johnny taught you a thing or two about animals over the past year," he said as he hoisted a bucket of feed.

"You could say that," I replied, gently setting the chicken on the ground.

Billy's eyes twinkled. "Ever learn how to ride, Y/n?" he asked, his Texas drawl warm and teasing.

I tilted my head, processing the question. "No. Johnny thinks it's better for me to learn how to handle it more—with Lady. She might get confused, and I could get hurt," I explained.

Billy grinned, recalling his own early days. "Well, if I remember correctly, when I first met Lady, I offered her some apples—and she kicked me right in the shoulder! Still got a scar from that encounter," he said, shaking his head in amusement.

I looked at him, my optical sensors capturing every detail of his expression. "Lady's just a bit lost, but with Johnny around, I know she'll be tamed," I said, my tone matter-of-fact yet laced with a hint of fondness.

"For sure," Billy agreed. "Johnny told me that night when you ran into her, she wasn't out to kill you."

I smirked softly. "Guess I just have my own way of handling things," I said, meeting Billy's gaze as we continued our walk toward the stables.

We passed rows of horses, the morning sun glinting off their coats. Each step on the dusty ground was measured by my sensors, cataloguing the texture of the earth, the gentle rustling of the tall grass.

I followed Billy as he swung open the barn doors with a practiced ease. Inside, dust motes danced in the morning light, and the rich scent of hay filled the air. I scanned the space, my sensors picking up the details: three horses rested in their stables—two sleek black ones and one radiant white. The barn was alive with quiet energy, every detail carefully logged in my system.

Billy turned back, his Texan drawl warm as he grinned at me. "Like 'em?" he asked, gesturing toward his horses.

"They're beautiful," I replied, my voice soft yet precise.

Billy's smile widened. "That one there," he said, nodding toward one of the black horses, "is named Maverick. He's the baby of the bunch."

I watched as Maverick snorted softly. "That other black one is Dolly—strong, steady, the backbone of the herd," Billy added. Then he motioned toward the white horse. "And over there, his name is Bruce."

I stepped closer, admiring Bruce's gleaming coat. "He's definitely the eye-catcher," I observed, noting every detail of his build and the way his mane caught the light.

"You got so many," I said, still marveling at the living beings before me.

Billy's eyes softened with pride. "Yeah, but I see 'em like family. I care for them deeply, and they love it here—especially this big gal," he said, nodding toward Dolly once more.

Billy led me over to the stables. "She's been with me since I was young," he said as he gently opened Dolly's cage. The old mare stepped out slowly, her movements deliberate and graceful. My sensors registered her strength and her calm presence.

I reached out and petted her carefully; she leaned into my touch, pressing her head against my hand. "Looks like she likes you," Billy remarked, a satisfied smile creasing his weathered face.

I paused, processing the connection. Billy's simple offer carried a depth I could almost quantify in warmth and care. Then, with a playful glint in his eye, Billy asked, "Want to ride her?"

I considered the request—a chance to experience life from a new perspective, to feel the rhythm of the land as I had only ever observed from afar.

"Really?" I turned to Billy, my processors whirring as I analyzed his expression.

"Why not?" He grinned, already looping Dolly's reins over his arm. "I'm sure Johnny wouldn't mind. And besides, I'll be right here to help you."

I glanced back toward the house, my system slowing as it weighed the variables. Riding a horse—an act of balance, control, and trust. Something Johnny had held off on teaching me, concerned about my unfamiliarity with the unpredictable nature of animals. But Billy seemed certain.

"You wanna?" Billy's voice pulled me back. I turned, watching as he held up the bridle, his easy confidence unwavering.

I tilted my head, processing. An unfamiliar warmth flickered in my system, spreading like data unfolding in real time. A new sensation. Excitement?

"I'd love that," I said finally.

Billy's smile stretched wide. "Alright then! Let me get her all set up, and I'll show you how it's done."

He led Dolly a few steps away, securing her bridle and tightening the saddle straps with practiced hands. I watched, storing each movement in my memory banks, noting how he moved with an ease that spoke of years spent alongside these animals.

As I stood there, waiting, something shifted within me. My system bloomed with unfamiliar energy, lines of code adapting, growing. This wasn't like the pre-programmed functions I had known before. This was something different—something real.

Was this what excitement felt like?

The sound of hooves on dirt pulled my focus back. I turned as Billy led Dolly toward me, her powerful frame moving with ease beneath his grip. Dust swirled in the sunbeams cutting through the barn, casting long shadows over the wooden beams.

"Ready?" Billy asked, his voice warm with encouragement.

I nodded, stepping forward.

Billy moved aside, making space for me. "Alright, put your foot here," he said, tapping the stirrup. "I'll lift ya up."

I followed his instruction, slipping my boot into place. Before I could adjust, Billy's hands were at my waist—firm, steady, grounding.

"On three, push up," he said.

I nodded again.

"One... two... three—"

With surprising ease, Billy hoisted me up, and I swung my other leg over, settling onto the saddle. The shift in perspective was immediate. Higher. Unstable, yet not unsafe. Beneath me, Dolly shifted slightly, adjusting to my weight, and my system quickly mapped the change in balance.

Billy stepped back, studying me with a grin. "Well, would ya look at that. Ain't even been up there two minutes, and you already look like a natural."

I glanced down at him, gripping the reins lightly. "What now?"

"Now," he said, "you hold on, and I'll guide her. Just get used to the feel of it."

With that, Billy gave a light tug on the lead, and Dolly moved forward.

I adjusted instinctively, my system syncing with her rhythm—tracking the rise and fall of each step, the shifting of my own balance to match hers. It felt... new. Different. Like something I wasn't programmed for, yet something I was learning in real time.

"How's it feel?" Billy asked, watching me closely.

"Incredible," I said, scanning for the right words. "Like... something I wasn't designed for. But something I can do."

Billy chuckled. "That's ridin' for ya. You're doin' great, Y/N. Just keep steady."

We circled the barn, slow and controlled. My body moved with the horse, adjusting as needed. The scent of hay mixed with the warm air, and for the first time in a long time, I felt... weightless.

Then, the wind shifted.

A strong gust rushed through the open barn doors, rustling the hay and sending dust swirling into the air. My hair whipped around my face, strands catching in my vision.

Dolly hesitated.

She stomped a hoof, ears twitching. My system immediately flagged the spike in her heart rate—uncertainty, nerves.

Billy slowed. "Easy, girl," he soothed, his hand tightening on the reins. Then, to me: "It's just a little wind. You're alright."

I nodded, gripping the saddle. But Dolly wasn't settling.

Another gust came, stronger this time. Loose hay scattered. The barn creaked. Dolly's muscles tensed beneath me.

Billy's expression changed. He moved forward, reaching for me. "Alright, I'm gonna get you down. Just stay still—"

I reached for him, my fingers brushing his.

Then—

A sudden, violent gust blasted through the barn. The doors rattled on their hinges.

Dolly panicked.

She reared up, her front legs kicking the air, and I lurched backward. My grip on Billy slipped.

Then she bolted.

"Y/N, hold on!" Billy's voice cut through the chaos, but my system was already focused on one thing: staying on.

Dolly's hooves pounded against the dirt as she charged out of the barn, pure instinct driving her. My body jolted with every erratic movement, but I clung to the reins, recalculating, adjusting, bracing.

Billy was running after us, but she was too fast.

"Whoa, Dolly!" he called, reaching for her lead, but she veered away, eyes wild with panic.

Billy tried again, stepping directly into her path, arms out to stop her.

Bad move.

Spooked further, Dolly swerved violently—her powerful body colliding with Billy's.

The impact sent him flying.

I felt the force ripple through the saddle as he hit the ground hard, rolling across the dirt.

But I had no time to process.

Dolly was still running.

Ahead—my system flagged an obstacle.

The wooden fence.

Fast approach. No time to stop.

Dolly saw it too. At the last second, she turned.

Too sharp.

My hands slipped.

For a split second, I was weightless.

Then—gravity took over.

I was airborne, my body twisting, spinning. My system scrambled to recalibrate, but there was nothing to grab, nothing to stop the fall.

The world blurred.

Then—impact.

I hit the ground hard.

My body absorbed the shock, but my head—

A sharp, splintering sensation cracked through my sensors.

Something in my system jolted.

Then—

Everything went dark.

IMPACT DETECTED.

ERROR— SYSTEM INTEGRITY COMPROMISED.

   [ALERT: UNEXPECTED FORCE TRAUMA]
[RECALIBRATING—]
[SYSTEM MALFUNCTION DETECTED]
[—]
[—]
[CRITICAL ERROR—]

00110010 00110111 00101100 01000101 01010010 01010010 01001111 01010010

The world fractured.

Visual feed—corrupted. The sky flickered between black and blinding white. The earth beneath me no longer stable, shifting in jagged, pixelated patterns. Sound distorted—Billy's voice somewhere in the distance, fragmented and warped, stretching and snapping like a corrupted audio file.

    [WARNING: SENSORY OVERLOAD]
[PROCESSING—]
[PROCESSING—]
[—]
[ERROR]

I tried to move.

Nothing.

My limbs—unresponsive. Signals firing but not reaching their destination. Like wires disconnected, pathways severed.

Then—

A face.

Not Billy.

Not Johnny.

Not Abigail.

Him.

   [UNKNOWN DATA RETRIEVED]
[SCANNING...]
[IDENTITY: CORRUPTED FILE]
[REBUILDING—]
[—]
[ERROR: DATA UNAVAILABLE]

I knew him.

I didn't know his name.

But I knew him.

A sharp pulse shot through my system—a jolt of something unfamiliar, something deeper than code and circuits.

    [EMOTIONAL RESPONSE DETECTED]
[RECOGNITION ATTEMPT: FAILED]

The face flickered.

A boy—dark hair, sharp eyes, a presence that made my system surge with something unscripted, something not in my programming.

Who are you?

I tried to speak. Tried to reach for the image before it shattered—

Then—

TOTAL SYSTEM FAILURE.

SYSTEM REBOOTING...

[RECALIBRATING...]
[DATA STREAM UNLOCKED]
[CORRUPTED FILES RECOVERED]
[—]
[UNKNOWN FILES RECOGNIZED]

—ERROR—

—ERROR—

—INFORMATION BREACH DETECTED—

[LOADING—]
[VISUAL FEED COMPROMISED—]
[MEMORY SEQUENCE RETRIEVED]

—IMAGES FLASHING—

A man—large, impossibly strong, fists clenched like the weight of the world sat on his shoulders. His silhouette rippled through my system, tagged with a word—

SUBJECT: LUTHER HARGREEVES

Another—a smirk, sharp eyes, blades flashing between his fingers like second nature. A predator in human skin. The name struck my system, reverberating through my circuits like a pulse of electricity—

SUBJECT: DIEGO HARGREEVES

A woman—wild curls, hands raised, lips parted as if whispering something dangerous, something deadly. My system scrambled to process—

SUBJECT: ALLISON HARGREEVES

Then—another. Smaller. Dressed in white. But she wasn't small—she was powerful. Her body glowed, pulsed with an energy that made my processors strain against their limits. A violin in her grip, white-hot, burning—

SUBJECT: VANYA HARGREEVES

And then—

Him.

A pair of green eyes, locked onto mine. My system stalled, every pathway overloaded with recognition, with something too deep, too strong to be just a fragment of lost data.

His uniform—a school blazer, slightly disheveled. His presence—unshaken, as if he had always been there. My system clung to him, fought to decipher the unreadable code attached to his image.

SUBJECT: [—]
IDENTITY: CLASSIFIED
ATTEMPTING REBUILD—
ATTEMPTING REBUILD—
—
NAME RETRIEVED: FIVE HARGREEVES

Then it hit.

The breach—my core collapsing under the weight of everything I wasn't meant to remember.

[DATA INJECTION INITIATED—]
[LOADING MEMORY SEQUENCES—]

—FLASH—

A street— me and Diego walking, a library ahead. We moved together, his knives already drawn, a mission ahead.

—GLITCH—

Pain— my arm sparking, damaged. Vanya and Allison—fighting. I stepped between them, shielding one from the other. An explosion—static—my body absorbing the damage.

—STATIC—

Candy—bright colors. I sat on the curb, Klaus beside me, grinning, unbothered, tattoos on his hands flashing under neon lights. We laughed—why were we laughing?

SUBJECT: KLAUS HARGREEVES

—ERROR—SYSTEM OVERLOAD—

And then—us.

Him.

Five.

[MEMORY RETRIEVED—]
[SEQUENCE RELOADED—]

A dance.

The Commission—golden chandeliers, a grand hall. The real me—before I died. My hands in his, the world vanishing around us as we moved in sync, like we had done this a thousand times before.

Then—a wound. His hand bleeding. Me—stitching it, our faces inches apart.

And then all of it.

Everything.

The data locked away, buried under fabricated code, suddenly snapping into place.

[MEMORY RECONSTRUCTION COMPLETE]
[IDENTITY RESTORED]
SUBJECT: Y/N HARGREEVES

I knew who I was.

I knew what I had lost.

I remembered.

And for the first time since waking up in this life, I felt whole.

But as the dust settled, as my system recalibrated and adjusted to the weight of my past—

A cold realization hit me just as hard.

I had remembered who I was.

But I had forgotten who I was with.

SYSTEM STABILIZING...

[RECALIBRATION 85%]
[FUNCTIONS REACTIVATED]
[EMOTIONAL PROCESSING—OVERLOADED]

The world was coming back into focus, but it didn't feel the same.

My systems were stabilizing, but my mind—my real mind—was spinning.

"Y/N!"

Billy's voice cut through the static like a blade. I registered the sound of him sliding across the dirt, his boots digging into the ground as he reached me. A second later, warm hands were on me, lifting me slightly off the ground.

"Are you okay? Does your head hurt?" His voice was urgent, laced with something close to fear.

I didn't answer. I couldn't. My system was still processing, running diagnostics, restoring lost data.

"Y/N!" Billy called again, his grip firm but careful. "Can you hear me?"

I blinked. My eyes met his.

"Yes," I said, my voice neutral.

Billy exhaled, his whole body relaxing for a second before tensing up again. "Thank God. Where does it hurt? Your head?"

I tilted my head slightly. The question should have made sense. But—

"Nowhere," I said.

Billy's brows knitted together. Confusion.

Heavy footsteps pounded against the dirt. Billy's father and Johnny were running toward us.

"What in the hell happened?" Billy's father roared, his voice thick with frustration.

Johnny was already crouching down beside me. His eyes narrowed, scanning me over. "Y/N? You okay? What the hell was that?"

Billy's posture stiffened. "I just let her ride Dolly for a little bit, and then she got spooked—went all crazy and sent her flying. It wasn't supposed to—"

"What the hell were you thinking, boy?" Billy father barked, grabbing Billy by the collar and hauling him to his feet.

I watched it all happen, but I wasn't present. Not entirely. My system was still rebuilding, slotting pieces back into place like a puzzle I never knew was broken.

"Dang it, you idiot," Billy's father snapped, gripping his son tighter. "She coulda been seriously hurt!"

"I know! It was an accident, Dolly just freaked out!" Billy shot back, his voice defensive, but guilty all the same.

Johnny ignored them both and turned back to me.

"Y/N," he said, his voice softer now, steady. He lifted four fingers. "How many fingers am I holdin' up?"

I looked at his hand. Then at his face.

And then I spoke the truth.

"I remember it all now."

Silence.

Billy and his father froze. Johnny's expression darkened.

"What?" he said slowly, like he didn't understand.

I didn't repeat myself. I didn't have to. The weight of my words already hung in the air between everyone.

"Alright," Johnny muttered, standing up and brushing off his jeans. "I'm takin' her home."

Billy stepped forward instinctively. "Here, let me—"

Johnny's head snapped toward him, eyes flashing.

"Not you." His voice was low, dangerous. "You better get your hands off her, boy, or I'll shoot 'em off myself."

Billy flinched but held his ground. I watched the tension coil between them. Two men staring each other down, neither backing off.

Johnny grumbled something under his breath and helped me to my feet. My movements were slow, careful. Not because I was hurt—but because my system was still reorienting.

The sun was low in the sky, casting everything in a golden hue.

Johnny kept a firm grip on me as we made our way toward his truck.

"Nice and easy," he said, voice gruff but careful. "There you go."

He opened the door, guiding me inside before shutting it with a heavy thud.

The engine rumbled to life.

Billy stood there, watching us leave, his face unreadable.

I didn't look back.

Because for the first time in this new life—I knew exactly where I came from.

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WORDS WRITTEN:
3087
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