The next morning, Lena and Jay sat side by side at her kitchen table. The photo still lay between them.
Jay traced the edge with his thumb. "This isn't a warning," he said quietly. "It's a message. They're watching again."
Lena's eyes didn't move from the image. "Then we make them regret it."
She had spent too long grieving, running, doubting. But now, Jay was beside her. The real Jay. That was enough to face whatever came next.
They returned to the storage unit Jay had once used before the accident before the experiment, before the vanishing.
"There's something I didn't tell you," Jay said as they unlocked the heavy metal door. "When I first woke up, they kept me in a facility underground. I memorized every detail I could. I think I found where they monitored everything."
Inside the unit, he pulled open a crate and removed a dusty map of the old biotech facility on Harbor Ridge.
"This place was supposed to be shut down," he continued. "But I saw lights… people… files."
"Do you think they're still there?"
He nodded grimly. "If they took that photo of us, they never really stopped."
That night, Lena and Jay parked a mile from Harbor Ridge and hiked the rest through thick brush.
The place looked abandoned from a distance cracked windows, rusted fences, vines creeping up the side. But as they got closer, Lena saw movement behind one of the broken glass panels.
Jay led her to a hidden entrance at the side, pried open a loose panel, and they slid inside.
The air was thick with chemicals and dust. Every step echoed.
Jay found the elevator shaft.
"It used to run," he said. "We go down two levels. That's where they kept the core data."
They climbed down the emergency ladder, the shaft smelling of mold and burnt metal.
When they reached the second level, Lena froze.
A hallway lined with red lights blinked slowly. Doors thick, metal, windowless lined each wall.
Jay whispered, "This is it."
They passed a glass observation room. Inside, computers still flickered. Lena stepped in, hands shaking, and found something that made her stop cold.
A wall of photos.
Hundreds.
Each one was Lena.
In different clothes. Different days. Some from years ago.
Someone had been watching her… before Jay disappeared.
And in the center
A recent one.
Lena asleep in her bed. Taken last week.
She felt the panic rise.
Jay's hand closed around hers. "We have to get out."
But the door slammed shut.
A robotic voice echoed through the speaker.
"Welcome back, Subject J-17. You were never meant to return."
Lena screamed, pounding the door.
Jay grabbed a chair and smashed the window. Glass shattered.
They leapt through.
Alarms blared.
From the far hallway, footsteps echoed boots.
They ran.
Down the corridor. Around corners. Through the emergency exit.
They didn't stop until they reached the woods again, lungs burning.
Only then did Lena speak. "They've been following me… all this time?"
Jay nodded. "They never stopped watching. Even when I was gone."
Back home, Lena stood before her bathroom mirror, wiping her face. Her hands still trembled.
She opened the cabinet for aspirin.
And froze.
Inside the cabinet, taped to the back of the mirror
Another photo.
Of her.
Taken in that very moment.