The Girl They Buried Twice
“I wasn’t supposed to wake up, and I definitely wasn’t supposed to hear them say, ‘Did we bury the wrong one?’’
PART 1: The White Room- Vault 5
The light above me buzzed with a flickering pulse, cold and bright.
I lay still, heart hammering against my ribs, eyelids shut just enough to let in a sliver of the room’s brightness. The voices were close and sharp, whispering yet loud enough.
“She wasn’t supposed to wake up.”
A longer pause.
“Are you sure we buried the right one?”
My breath quivered. I forced myself still.
“Protocol said subject 5 was terminated. The body was tagged, transferred and sealed. This one shouldn’t be here.”
“Well, she is here and she’s conscious.”
“No one tells Dr. Saxena yet. If she remembers anything-”
The footsteps faded. I opened my eyes.
The room was all white, no windows and one door. A single camera lens blinking red in the corner. Monitors beeped beside me, and wires were taped to my skin. I wasn’t in a hospital. There were no flowers, no posters, no hand sanitizer or ceiling stains-just a bright, spotless box of metal and silence.
There was a tag on the table: V-5-ARIA.
V for Vault?
I yanked off the monitors. The pads left sticky patches on my skin. My head spun as I stood. Something cold tapped against the back of my neck, a metal chip, blinking blue. I touched it and winced. There was something implanted under my skin.
PART 2: The surveillance
The door was sealed. No handle or keypad, but the panel glowed faintly, waiting for something, perhaps an access badge. I scanned the walls. The camera stared back.
I turned away, tore the thin bed sheet into a loop to use it as a weapon. I let it drag on the floor.
Hiss. The door slid open. Heavy boots entered swiftly.
“Vitals are flatlining, what’s going on?”
I sprang up and looped the sheet around his neck. He tried to fight back, but I held tight until he dropped. I grabbed his badge. Security Unit 2 – R Sanjay and ran.
The hallway was dim,buzzing with an electrical hum. The walls were metallic, industrial. Signs with numbers and arrows blinked overhead. I passed a panel marked Subject Archive - Vault Wing 5. The badge worked.
Inside were file drawers and glass cases. I found mine quickly, V-5-ARIA. I pulled it open. Inside was a photo, a thin file and a metal box.The photo showed a girl, me,but smiling in a way I couldnt recognize. Her eyes looked too clear,her hair way too perfect and on the back of her neck was the same chip I’d just found on mine.
The file read:
SUBJECT 5 - ARIA
Cloned: June 14, 2096
Replication Lot: Group Delta
Primary: Alpha-ARIA deceased - classified failure
Secondary: Delta-5 designated for replacement assignment
Transfer to Surface: ABORTED
Below that,scribbled in red ink
Subject reanimated. Memory restoration: unstable. Terminate immediately.
My knees wobbled. Cloned? I flipped open the metal box. Inside was a syringe, a thin chip, and a folded note in handwriting that looked like mine.
If you’re reading this, it means they failed to erase you. Good. You have one chance. Get to Vault 0. That’s where she is. The original. Finish this before they finish you.
PART-3 The Other Girl
My stomach twisted. The original? I thought I was her.
Sirens began to echo through the corridor.My heart was pounding. I took the chip, shoved everything into a lab coat I grabbed from the wall, and bolted.
The signs on the walls changed: Vault 5B. Vault 4. Vault Wing 3.
Cameras buzzed above me. I kept my head low. One guard turned a corner and shouted. I ducked into a chamber. Cryotanks lined the walls,each filled with fluid and each containing a girl who looked like me.
Some were younger. Some had scars. One had burns down the left side of her face. One floated with eyes wide open, staring. They sent chills down my spine.
I ran faster.
Two security checkpoints blocked the way to Vault 0. I used Sanjay’s badge on one, the chip from the metal box on the second. Doors hissed open.
Vault 0 wasn’t cold like the others. It was warm and quiet. A sterile dome with yellow lighting. In the center, on a medical chair, sat a girl.
She looked up.
She had my face.
“You made it,” she said calmly, her eyes glinting with life.
My grip tightened around the guard’s weapon. “Are you the original?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m Aria Sharma. Born 2078. Real, messy, mortal me.”
I stared at her. Same eyes, same voice, but she radiated something else, weight, history, authenticity.
“They told me I was a backup,” I whispered. “For you.”
“You were,” she said gently. “I was injured. They put me in stasis. You were meant to take my place, but you became conscious. Started thinking. Feeling. Becoming more than code and tissue.”
I took a step closer.
“I don’t remember being made.”
“You weren’t supposed to. They erased your memories to make the transfer easier,but memory is stubborn.”
She stood, mirroring my posture.
“Now you’re awake and they’re scared,” she said. “Because they don’t know if you’re just code anymore. Or a person.”
Silence hung between us.
I didn’t lower the gun.
“You don’t want my life,” she said quietly. “You want yours.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what mine was.
“Help me,” she said. “Help all of us. There are more girls like you. Stuck. Sleeping. They never asked for this either.”
PART-4 Rebellion
She handed me a device. “We overload the central core. Every vault dies. No more experiments. No more control.”
“And then what?”
“Then we run.”
I looked into her eyes.
And I believed her.
We moved fast. Unlocked the cryotanks. Dozens of girls, me, but not,woke up coughing and shivering. Some cried. Others screamed. The system scrambled to lock down the facility,but we were faster.
In the chaos, Aria and I reached the main generator.
The gun shook in my hand. She looked at me one last time and nodded.
I fired. Flames erupted. The floor trembled. Sirens shrieked.
We ran through tunnels lit by flickering emergency lights. The door at the end led up a stairwell. Then another and another.
Finally, air. Cool, sharp, endless, yet sweet. I couldn’t quite put a ring on it but it felt perfect.
PART-5 The Surface
We burst into a forest just before dusk.Trees swayed. The sunset looked like a watercolour painting, covered in golden hues. Birds chirped overhead.
We stood in silence, covered in dust and blood and truth.
“I still don’t know who I am,” I whispered.
She turned to me. “You’re Aria.”
I looked at her, then at the sky.
And for the first time, I believed it.
Six months later
I live in a nameless town. I work at a diner. I rent a 1BHK apartment above a hardware store. I changed my name to Ria. No one asks questions.
The other Aria is gone. She left me a letter and disappeared.
I think she wanted me to have the life she never got to live.
Sometimes, I think I see other girls like me. On buses. At gas stations. On sidewalks. One time, I saw a girl with my exact face in a corner booth,eating waffles. I didn’t stop her. I didn’t stare. I let her pay, smile, and leave into the rain.
Because I know what it means to want a name.
A heartbeat.
A second chance.
And who am I to take that from anyone?
React
