Chapter Text
I wanted them back. The memories. The pieces of me, taken and crammed into some corner of my mind I couldn't reach.
The fade was gradual. I didn't know anything was wrong until I couldn't recall what I wanted to in detail. My father's face was warped beyond recognition. I couldn't remember how to use a scalpel. I couldn't hear the screams of the Mountain Men.
I couldn't remember what it was like to feel guilty.
That was when I knew something was very, very wrong.
"What did you do?" I asked ALIE. We were in the med bay, waiting on my mom. I wanted to ask her about the chip. What she had discovered. But I needed to speak to ALIE first, who stood stoically before me, dressed from neck to knee in the color of blood. "Why . . . why can't I remember anything?"
"Humans do not seek relief in pain," ALIE replied robotically, hands clasped in front of her. "It is my job to extract everything that triggers it, including any relevant material."
I stared at her, a pit of horror forming deep inside me. My memories. My life. I could forget who I was, but that didn't change what I'd done. It didn't take this world by the seams and unravel my choices like spools of thread. Others still remembered. Especially the dead.
"Give them back," I said, voice breathy like her words had torn the air from my lungs. I heard my desperation. Heard it and felt it running through every inch of me. "I want them back."
ALIE blinked and tilted her head just slightly, barely enough to disturb her perfect auburn hair. She scrutinized me and a small line appeared between her brows, too human for my comfort. "Why? You have suffered a great deal, Clarke. It is my understanding that pain is human's greatest fear, second only to death. Why would you want to reclaim it?"
I couldn't think. I saw a woman but there was nothing there. Nothing living. Nothing real. Nothing human. She was a program, offering an out that had been too good to be true. And I'd fallen for it.
"Because I'm not . . . me," I said. "I don't deserve this. I've killed people. I owe it to remember them."
ALIE's gaze never left mine. "Your logic is flawed."
I walked over to her, wishing she was tangible so I'd have a target. I looked her in those too-mortal brown eyes. "This is what's flawed. Everything you are. You're wrong. You're a liar and a thief with ulterior motives and I'm telling you right now to give me back my memories!"
Just then, the door to the med bay swung open and in came my mom. But I didn't look at her. The only one I could see was ALIE.
Her expression didn't change, as if it were something carved from stone. She sighed again. Automatic. "Fine, but don't say I did not warn you."
And it hit. With the force of a tidal wave. Like a blindfold being pulled off, and I could suddenly see. The weight pressed against my temples, drowning me in terrible images. Of blood and gore and death. I thought I heard my mom calling for me, but it was muted by the hundreds of screams shredding my ears.
There were too many memories. Too many images to see them clearly. They blurred together until they became one huge mural of red and black. Shadows and ruin. Fire and ash.
"How does it feel, Clarke?" ALIE asked me, standing beside me on a cot. How'd I get on a cot?
"This was the pain you wanted," she continued. Her crimson dress amidst the terror made her look like something ethereal. "How does it feel?"
Like death, I wanted to say. Who I was, those pieces, they felt like death.
I clenched my jaw so hard I felt something crack.
"I can take it away," ALIE said, looking at me expectantly. Like she knew I would. Like this was a test she knew I'd fail. "All you have to do is say yes."
I grit my teeth. My nails bit into my palm. I could feel something wet sliding between my fingers.
"Just say yes, Clarke."
"No," I choked, the word strangled. Barely a breath.
The tidal wave grew, and the faces of children flashed before my eyes. More screams.
"Say yes, Clarke."
"No."
"Clarke-"
I felt something prick my neck and a sweet darkness swept over me. Those images dissipated into nothing. I nearly sighed in relief when the world went from red to a beautiful black.
********
I had the vague impression of being carried. Poorly, like the person was struggling to bear my weight. Wind nipped at my arms. Sounds faded in and out. The rustling of branches. The crush of dirt and dead leaves.
Blackness tumbled in again.
"Clarke?" I heard someone say, what felt like mere moments later. Instinctively, I retracted into myself, reminded of ALIE. Reminded of all that blood and horror. I wanted back into the dark.
"Tell me what happened," the voice barked, much too hard for ALIE. Much too low to be a woman. An image of a man with curly, black hair flashed through my mind. Bellamy.
"ALIE," said someone else, voice hoarse and full of contempt. I almost didn't recognize it as Jasper. He used to be bursting with life. Now, just the sound of him was off. As wrong as a program stealing memories.
"The chip I was telling you about. It messes with your head; makes you see her," he explained. "Clarke was screaming in the med bay and Abby knocked her out. I tried to get to the others but . . ."
"But what?" I felt Bellamy's presence, standing somewhere close by.
Jasper swallowed. "But Jaha had already chipped everyone."
"That better be followed by you telling me how we can get it out of her."
"Yeah, Raven was-"Just then the world seemed to drop as Jasper staggered.
"Here, give her to me," Bellamy said, and I felt my weight transferred from weak arms to a pair of infinitely stronger ones. I could hear his heartbeat, pounding like a drum at my ear. "Now what about Raven? Where is she?"
A pause.
"I couldn't get her out," Jasper said, tone dropping a few degrees. "Jaha was watching her like a hawk but I remember her saying something about the wristbands."
"Our wristbands?"
"Yeah."
"We'll ask Sinclair," Bellamy started walking.
"Say yes, Clarke."
The change in voice was enough to pull me from the shallow waters I'd been lingering under and my eyes flew open. I was greeted by trees, painted black with evening. Bellamy's face appeared above me, tense and anxious, but behind him...
"I just need your agreement, Clarke," said ALIE, the fabric of her dress appearing black in the shadows. "And I will make it stop."
I hesitated, just enough to draw up my courage. Then I gave a small, almost imperceptible, shake of my head.
The images slammed into me once more.
Harder, heavier, clearer than before. More blood. More death. I saw eighteen graves, the dirt newly disturbed. I watched a girl pitch herself over a cliff and disappear, as swift as a candle flame being blown out.
"Stop!" I screamed, grabbing my head as if I could tear out the images. Bellamy almost dropped me and his look of anxiety gave way to what could only be fear.
"What's happening to her? Clarke?"
"It's ALIE," Jasper said, and I watched him through one eye as a world burned through the other. He pulled something small from his pocket. A syringe.
"These people cannot help you, Clarke," ALIE chimed, standing at my head now, brown eyes boring into my head. No one else noticed. Bellamy was too busy pulling back my hair as Jasper fumbled with the syringe.
"Only I can take it all away," she said.
I was so tempted. Every part of me was trying in vain to claw away from the images. That horrible, relentless pain. But I owed this to my ghosts. I owed it to remember them.
I raised my chin in one small act of defiance. "No."
ALIE nodded. "Have it your way then."
Another wave surged, but before it could crash over me, that same tingling sensation kissed my neck. "We're gonna help you, Clarke," Bellamy's words floated down to me through the fresh wave of darkness. "We'll fix this."
He lied almost as well as ALIE.