Chapter 98: Preparation. Mira locked her bedroom door and pressed her back against it, listening to make sure neither Raquel nor Liam were coming after her. Outside, she could hear them talking in low, confused voices. Good. The more disoriented they were, the easier this would be. She walked to her bed and pulled the black box from under her mattress. The calabash sat inside, still half full of the violet potion. She’d calculated enough for three doses each, but now she was looking at compressing the timeline. Mira set the box on her desk and pulled out her grandmother’s journal. "Second dose must be administered minimum 48 hours after first dose. This allows the initial confusion to settle and prepares the mind for deeper restructuring. Accelerating timeline increases risk of adverse reactions." She kept reading. "WARNING: Accelerating dosage schedule may result in permanent brain damage. Subject may experience seizures, violent hallucinations or complete memory fragmentation. Only proceed if subject’s life depends on immediate completion." Mira’s hands trembled as she held the journal. Seizures. Hallucinations. Permanent damage. These were her friends she was thinking about dosing early. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This wasn’t about friendship anymore. This was about survival. If they stayed in Mumbai much longer, the people tracking them would strike. And if that happened, everything would fall apart anyway. At least this way, she could control the outcome. She needed to prepare the false memories carefully. They had to be detailed enough to feel real but simple enough not to contradict each other. She pulled out a notebook and began writing. She wrote out detailed scenes for them to "remember." Beach trips that never happened. School events they never attended. Conversations they never had. Each false memory was carefully constructed to support the others, creating a web of lies that would feel like truth. When she finished, Mira had filled twenty pages with fictional histories. She read through them twice, checking for contradictions, making sure every detail aligned. Then she turned her attention to Raquel’s journal. The small book sat on her desk like an accusation. Every page documented Raquel’s growing suspicions about Mira, her fears about what was happening, her desperate need to understand the truth. Mira opened it to a random page and read: "Mira is hiding something. I can feel it. Every time I ask questions, she deflects. Every time something strange happens, she has an explanation ready. It’s like she’s been planning this all along." Her throat tightened. Raquel had been right. She had been planning this. For months, actually. But now those words were evidence. Evidence that the real Raquel had seen through her lies. Evidence that would contradict everything the second dose was supposed to accomplish. Mira tore out the page and crumpled it. Then another. And another. She ripped out every entry that mentioned her suspicions, her fears, her desperate attempts to understand what was happening. When she’d removed all the incriminating pages, she was left with maybe a quarter of the original journal. Just innocent entries about daily life, nothing that would trigger the old memories. She carried the torn pages to the kitchen sink, checking first to make sure Raquel and Liam were in the living room. They were both lying on the couch, exhausted from the mental fog the first dose had created. Mira turned on the faucet slightly to cover the sound, then pulled out a lighter. She held the first page over the sink and set it on fire, watching Raquel’s handwriting curl and blacken. The paper turned to ash and she washed it down the drain. Page after page burned. Weeks of documented suspicions and fears reduced to nothing but smoke and ash. When the last page was gone, Mira rinsed the sink thoroughly, making sure no evidence remained. She kept the journal’s leather cover, planning to tell Raquel later that the journal had been "lost" during a moment of confusion. Back in her room, Mira pulled out the calabash and began preparing the second dose. She measured everything precisely, following her grandmother’s instructions exactly. The potion turned from violet to deep purple as she added each component, stirring clockwise three times after each addition. The final step required three drops of her own blood. So she pricked her finger with a sterilized needle and let the blood fall into the mixture. It hissed and sparked, the purple deepening to almost black before settling back to its previous color. She poured the completed potion into two small vials, exactly enough for one dose each. The liquid was thicker than the first dose had been, more viscous. It clung to the sides of the vials like oil. She held one vial up to the light streaming through her window. The purple liquid seemed to move on its own, swirling slowly inside the glass. "I’m sorry," she whispered to it, as if apologizing to the potion could somehow make up for what she was about to do. "But this is the only way to get her." Her phone buzzed. Everett. She answered. "What is it?" "Just checking in. Have you made a decision about the timeline?" "I will. Just have the extraction plan ready." "Mira." Everett’s voice was serious. "We don’t have time." Mira looked at the vials in her hand. Purple liquid that would rewrite two people’s entire identities. Transform them into different versions of themselves, versions that would serve her purposes. "I know." she said, though her voice shook slightly. "Alright. I’ll have everything ready. Be careful." After hanging up, Mira sat at her desk and stared at the vials. Tomorrow morning, she would mix these into Raquel and Liam’s breakfast. Within hours, they would forget who they really were. Within days, they would believe the false histories she’d created for them. They would become exactly what she needed them to be. She picked up the notebook where she’d written out the false memories and read through them one more time. Beach trips, school events, years of friendship that never happened. All of it would feel real to them. More real than their actual lives. A knock on her door made her jump. She quickly hid the vials in her desk drawer and shoved the notebook under her mattress. "Yes?" "It’s me," Liam’s voice came through the door. "Can we talk?" Mira opened the door to find him standing there, looking exhausted and confused. "What’s wrong?" "I just... I need to ask you something." He ran his hand through his hair. "Why are we really here? In Mumbai?" Mira’s heart raced but her face stayed calm. "We talked about this already, Liam." "I know. But I can’t remember anything. It’s like there’s this huge gap in my memory." "That’s the stress and exhaustion I told you about. Your brain is protecting itself by blocking out unnecessary details." "But it feels like more than that. Raquel feels it too. It’s like we’re forgetting who we are." Mira put her hand on his shoulder, making herself look concerned and caring. "Liam, you’re both going through something really difficult. The surveillance, the threats, being away from home. It’s normal to feel disconnected. But I promise, once we get through this, everything will make sense again." "Will it?" He looked at her with eyes that were too knowing, too aware. "Or are we losing ourselves?" "You’re not losing anything. You’re just tired. Go rest. Things will look better in the morning." He nodded slowly and walked back to the living room. Mira closed her door and leaned against it, her heart pounding. He was asking too many questions. She needed to move faster. She pulled the vials back out of her drawer and looked at them. Tomorrow morning couldn’t come soon enough. The rest of the evening, Mira stayed in her room, rehearsing the explanations she would give when Raquel and Liam started questioning their new memories. She wrote out potential questions they might ask and prepared answers for each one. Where did we go to school? Lincoln High in San Francisco. What was our favorite restaurant? That little Italian place on Market Street. Every answer had to sound natural, had to flow smoothly, had to feel like something they should obviously remember. By midnight, Mira had prepared for every scenario she could imagine. The vials sat on her desk, ready for morning. The false memories were written out and memorized. The journal evidence was destroyed. She was ready. Just before dawn, she finally fell asleep, the vials of purple potion sitting on her desk, waiting for morning. In the living room, Raquel lay awake on the couch, staring at the ceiling. She couldn’t remember why she’d come to Mumbai. She couldn’t remember what she’d been doing for the past few weeks. Her own journal had felt like reading a stranger’s diary. Something was very, very wrong. But every time she tried to focus on what was wrong, the thought slipped away like water through her fingers. Tomorrow, it would get so much worse. But neither Raquel nor Liam knew that yet. Only Mira knew what was coming. And she was ready.