Ezra sat still on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor.
The air was heavy. Her chest was tight. Her head was buzzing.
Flashes came and went like broken film.
Some of her and Noah laughing in the studio.
Others — like static — showed hospital lights. Crying. Her own voice screaming.
And then… nothing.
Joshua entered the room quietly, holding a manila file with no label.
> “I found something.”
Ezra didn’t look up.
He placed it gently on the table beside her.
> “There was no surrogacy.”
“What?”
> “Not officially. Not in any secure medical or military channel. The records I remember... they don’t exist. They were put in through a dummy access point. My own memory was filled with something that never happened.”
Ezra slowly raised her eyes to him.
He continued.
> “They told me I had twin sons through surrogacy. That I chose to be a single father. That I had no interest in marriage or bonding. And I believed it.”
His voice broke slightly.
> “But that’s not what really happened.”
---
[Memory Fragment – Joshua]
He’s standing in a hospital.
Someone is handing him a newborn wrapped in blue.
Another in white.
Ezra is lying on the bed, pale, weak — reaching for them.
But the next second—
The scene vanishes.
He’s holding nothing.
No doctors. No Ezra. Just a paper that reads "Procedure Complete. Case Closed."
---
Ezra grabbed the edge of the table.
> “So… what I remember with Noah—”
> “Isn’t real either.”
---
[Memory Fragment – Ezra]
Noah is smiling at her in the studio.
But his eyes… are blank.
In the background: machines beep. Her arms strapped to a chair. A voice plays in a loop:
> “Noah Jeon loves you. He rescued you. He stayed when no one else did.
You’re safe with Noah. You built a studio. You are free.”
---
Ezra gasped and covered her mouth.
Her stomach turned.
> “None of it was mine. Not the life I thought I lived. Not the love I thought I felt.”
Joshua sat beside her, eyes locked on hers.
> “And I believed the twins came from a file… when they came from us.”
> “They erased us,” Ezra whispered. “They took our lives and gave us false ones.”
---
The file on the table had more.
A procedure date: 3 years ago
A name: Dr. Han Seung-mi
Facility: K-Line Trauma Unit, closed by the military
Subject 1: Ezra J. — “memory cleanse, emotional suppression, identity reframe”
Subject 2: Joshua V. Kwon — “paternal overwrite, mission-first reprogramming”
Ezra ran her fingers over the paper, her nails digging into the edge.
> “They used us like test subjects.”
> “They didn’t just want to hide our relationship,” Joshua said coldly.
“They wanted to erase it completely.”
---
Ezra couldn’t hold the tears anymore.
Everything she thought she loved, lost, feared…
Everything she thought she remembered — was a script.
She thought Noah was her first kiss.
He wasn’t.
She thought he built the studio with her.
He didn’t.
She thought she chose him.
She didn’t.
> “The only real thing… was the twins,” she whispered.
Joshua nodded once, jaw clenched.
> “And they tried to take even that.”
---
> “Why us?” she asked.
Joshua stared at her.
> “Because something about what we had… scared them.”
Ezra’s hands shook, but her voice didn’t.
> “Then we find out everything. Who erased us. Why. And who helped cover it up.”
Joshua met her eyes.
> “We do it together.”
For the first time, they weren’t just two strangers connected by a paper marriage and a pair of children.
They were a broken family being forced to rebuild…
from the truth up.
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