Lena didn't sleep. She couldn't.
Her mind was a storm of half-formed thoughts and half-forgotten memories. She paced the small lab, her hands shaking, as the reality of what was happening sank in. Whoever had hired her, whoever had sent her down this path, had been playing a dangerous game.
And she had been their pawn.
But something was wrong. The hacking wasn't just happening in the digital space. It was happening to her. They were altering her mind. Someone was inside her head, manipulating her memories, erasing the lines between reality and fiction.
But why?
Lena didn't sleep. She couldn't. Every time she closed her eyes, the feeling of something missing overwhelmed her. A piece of her life was gone, erased from her own mind, and she didn't know if it could ever be recovered.
She sat in front of the terminal, refusing to let the overwhelming fear paralyze her. She needed answers. And she would find them, no matter how deep she had to dig.
Fingers trembling, she accessed the deeper layers of her own encrypted files. She had seen these codes before - hidden beneath the surface, where the system's most sensitive data lay. She needed to search beyond the surface. She had to know what was being hidden from her.
As her eyes scanned the code, she found something. A set of hidden files that were not meant to be uncovered. Their names sent a chill down her spine. One of the files was marked with her father's name. Her breath caught in her throat. What was this? She clicked on it, her fingers hesitating, but she couldn't turn back now.
The file opened, and Lena's heart stopped. It wasn't a political deal, like she had expected. It wasn't some government document. The file contained detailed data on her - her past, her personal memories. It was as if someone had been monitoring her entire life.
But the most shocking thing of all was the realization that her father had known. He had known about these files, and he had known about the people who were behind them.
"Lena, you've always been a target."
Her father's words echoed in her mind as she read on. The truth was more horrifying than she had imagined. She wasn't just a hacker. She was part of a much bigger game, one she had never even realized she was playing.
The Memory Rebels were not the only players. There were others. Others who had been watching her all along.