*Chapter 3 – Ruby's Memory and the Shadows of Project Zero Sky
(Written by Rohit Malhotra)
Ruby locked her room door and shut the curtains tight. The afternoon sun still pierced through the fabric like needles, but she didn't care. Her heart was racing too fast. Her mind was spinning, memories flashing in pieces, like a broken reel of film someone had forcefully reloaded into her head.
The image on her phone haunted her — herself at twelve, standing in front of a strange facility with the sign: ZERO SKY RESEARCH DIVISION. She didn't remember being there. Not really. But now, faces, voices, and cold white corridors came rushing back in fragments.
A woman in a grey lab coat bending down and whispering in her ear.
"You're gifted, Ruby. You can hear them."
A metal room with no windows.
Endless sky diagrams on the wall.
And the feeling... that someone — or something — was always in the room with her, even when she was alone.
She rubbed her temples. "Why now?" she whispered.
Her phone buzzed again. A message from Ronin.
"I'm coming over."
She stared at the message. They hadn't spoken in months. Not since the argument. Not since she told him to forget the past. That it was over. That they were normal people now and needed to live normal lives.
Except nothing was normal anymore. Especially not with the crack in the sky returning. Especially not with the drawings she couldn't stop making. Especially not with Project Zero Sky being mentioned again — a project she had tried so hard to erase from her memory.
She walked to her dresser and pulled out a locked metal box from underneath the bottom drawer. It was old, rusty, and marked with faded scratches. She had found it in her attic when she was sixteen, but had never dared to open it — until now.
With trembling fingers, she turned the key. The box clicked open.
Inside, there were files. Real files. Government-grade documents, sealed in protective covers. All stamped with the same insignia — ZSRD.
She pulled the first folder out and opened it. The paper was yellowed with age, but the text was clear.
Subject ID: R-91
Name: Ruby S. Rana
Age at Entry: 6
Cognitive Category: Level Alpha
Abilities: Visual-Symbolic Perception, Pre-Sky Sensitivity
Status: Dormant, Monitored
She gasped.
Her hands moved quickly, opening folder after folder. Each one listed a child — codename, age, test results. Ronin's name was there too.
Subject ID: R-43
Name: Ronin K. Malik
Age at Entry: 7
Abilities: Frequency Response, Mirror Synchronization
Status: Transferred, Memory Sealed
Memory sealed. That explained everything. That explained why they had forgotten. Why they had nightmares they couldn't place. Why they always felt like something was missing.
They weren't normal. They had never been normal.
A knock at the door snapped her back to the present.
She opened it.
Ronin stood there, wearing a black hoodie and a look of silent panic. His eyes locked with hers for a second — and in that moment, the silence between them felt louder than any argument they'd ever had.
"You saw it too," she said.
He nodded slowly. "I think we always did."
She stepped aside. He walked in, looking around. The walls were covered in her drawings — some pinned up, some stuck with tape, others scattered on the floor. All of them had the same thing — the crack in the sky. And a figure. Watching.
Ronin picked one up.
"This was in my dream last night," he said, voice low. "Exactly this."
Ruby pointed to the metal box on the table. "Not a dream. We were part of something. Years ago. Project Zero Sky. I just found the files."
He stared at the box, then sat down heavily on the bed.
"I got a video," he said. "From an unknown device. It showed me at my window... from outside my building. Like someone was recording through the walls."
She frowned. "That shouldn't be possible."
"I know. That's not even the worst part." He looked at her. "There was a voice. It said... 'They've always been watching.'"
Ruby's face paled.
"They're waking us up," she said.
"Who?" he asked.
"I don't know," she whispered. "But this isn't just about seeing the crack. It's about remembering what they did to us. What they trained us for."
Ronin stood and walked toward her desk, where one drawing was slightly different. He picked it up.
"What's this one?" he asked.
It was a symbol — a perfect circle, split into six segments, each with an alien character inside. A line ran through the middle, dividing dark and light.
"I don't know," she said. "But I've been seeing it in my dreams. And in flashes... like it was carved into a wall. Maybe it's a key."
"A key to what?"
She turned to him, eyes full of fear. "To whatever is about to come through that crack."
Ronin went still.
They both knew what they had to do. The truth wasn't hiding anymore. It was clawing its way back into their lives. And whether they liked it or not, they were right in the center of it.
Just then, Ruby's laptop chimed.
A new file had been dropped into her system — again from an unknown source.
It opened on its own.
Text appeared on the screen.
> "They are coming. Your memory is not the only thing they unlocked."
The screen flickered and showed a single location.
Coordinates: 31.7767° N, 76.9845° E
Ronin read the numbers.
"That's... Himachal Pradesh," he said slowly. "The mountains."
Ruby looked at him, her voice almost a whisper.
"That's where it began."