Chapter 1: The Girl with No Past

  Auren first saw her beneath the rain-slick neon of Sector 7.

  She stood motionless in the alleyway, barefoot, soaked to the bone, staring at a flickering screen embedded in the wall. The screen showed a commercial for synthetic memories—happiness in a vial, love on demand. She didn’t blink.

  Most would’ve walked past her. Just another stray. Another discard of the system.

  But Auren stopped.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Something about the way she looked at that screen—not confused, not scared. Just… *hollow.*

  > “You lost?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He scanned her. No ID chip. No registered name. Not even a neural signature. That was impossible.

  A ghost.

  > “What’s your name?” he asked.

  She finally turned. Eyes pale violet, like fractured glass.

  > “I… don’t know.”

  ---

  He brought her back to his safehouse. Maybe out of guilt. Maybe curiosity.

  She didn’t speak for hours. Just sat on the edge of the bed, staring at her hands.

  Auren watched from his workstation, pretending not to care.

  He had a job to finish—client wanted access to a locked memory vault. Standard stuff.

  But his eyes kept drifting back to her.

  She had scars. Faint lines along her temples, like surgical marks. And something else. A flicker of static when he scanned her again.

  Encrypted.

  Someone had *buried* her past.

  > “You’re not just anyone,” he murmured.

  And somehow, he knew—her story was going to change everything.