Page 136 of Fractured Devotion
C0-ZERO.
Me.
Even before I play it, I know what it will show.
And I know I’m not prepared.
But I press play anyway.
The video is grainy, like it was filmed on a forgotten security feed, too old to process with clarity. The resolution doesn’t hide the truth, though. It just makes it worse. A child sits on a low cot in a white room. There are no toys and no color. Just walls and a mirror.
I recognize her posture.
Straight spine, clenched fists, controlled breathing. She’s trying to pretend the camera isn’t there.
I used to think I learned that in med school interviews.
But I didn’t.
The date stamp reads like a death sentence: 04.07.08. I would’ve been…
Nine.
A voice comes from the speaker embedded somewhere offscreen. It’s male. Neutral. He’s reading phrases like he’s testing pronunciation, except the phrases don’t belong in any childhood lexicon.
“The corridor is on fire. What do you feel?” the male voice asks.
“The woman is crying. What do you feel?” the voice asks again.
“Your name is not your own. Say it,” the voice instructs.
My voice—hers—cracks somewhere around the third answer. “I… I don’t know.”
And I feel it like a needle behind my eye. The slip, the gap, the moment when your self-definition fragments.
Alec stands beside me, his arms crossed but jaw tight. He doesn’t speak.
The file skips and glitches.
Then, it returns to an even colder frame.
She’s strapped now, though not violently. She’s strapped in the way you’d anchor a subject under an MRI.
The voice continues, “What do you see in the mirror?”
“Me.”
“Who is she?” the voice asks.
“I don’t know.”
I turn the tablet off.
Alec exhales like he’s been holding his breath the entire time.
“She’s not a subject,” I whisper.
“No.”
