Lena blinked, staring at the empty screen in front of her. She could barely remember how she got here, or even when the last time was that she had slept. The memory of the senator's altered past still felt too fresh, but something was wrong with her mind, too.
She reached for the emergency log, trying to force the commands into the terminal, but it wouldn't respond. Instead, her fingers hovered over the keys, trembling. The memories were slipping through her mind like sand through her fingers. Small fragments that had once made up her life - her childhood, her first job, even the name of her childhood pet - were fading. And the harder she tried to hold on to them, the faster they vanished.
There was a dull ringing in her ears, and for a brief moment, Lena wondered if she was dreaming. But this felt real. Too real. She opened the main system menu, trying to recall her last save point, her last actions, but nothing seemed familiar. The memories were gone, replaced by something else. The senator's memories were still present in the system, but now they were mingling with hers, becoming twisted and indistinct.
The screen blinked again, but this time, a message appeared. Lena's heart skipped a beat as the words formed on the screen.
"You shouldn't have done that, Lena. We know what you found."
Her hands froze on the keyboard. Her mind raced as she processed the implications of the message. Who was "we"? What had she found? What had she done?
Before she could even begin to think through the mystery, a new notification popped up on the screen. A simple line of text.
"We are the Memory Rebels. And you're in deeper than you think."
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Memory Rebels? What kind of group was this? She didn't know anyone by that name, and as far as she knew, there was no such thing as a group that meddled with minds in this way. It was supposed to be illegal. Yet, somehow, she had stumbled into something much bigger than she had anticipated.
Lena clenched her jaw. She couldn't afford to let her fear control her. She needed answers. Fast.