Designated Emotional Anchor - 995 Words

The truth behind his disappearance is more chilling than any conspiracy theory.

Designated Emotional Anchor

          At the end of the week, he disappeared.

          Burke didn't just vanish--he evaporated. No note, no last text. One moment, he was in our paint-streaked apartment, arguing passionately about how Goodwill had a secret basement beneath every store, and the next... nothing. I checked out his favorite coffee shop and the art gallery that had finally agreed to display. Nothing.

          The police said he was an adult, free to go. But Burke wasn't the type to disappear. He was loud. Passionate. Obsessed with conspiracy theories, but always with evidence, real or imagined. His latest fixation? Goodwill.

          "It's not charity," he'd told me two nights before he vanished, eyes wide with fury. "It's recruitment. They're taking people, the ones who linger too long in the parking lot, the ones who sleep behind the bins, and disappearing them. The clothes? Just a front. The money? Funneled into labs. Human enhancement programs. They're building perfect people, Paige. And they're using the homeless to do it."

          I laughed. "You've been watching too many sci-fi documentaries."

          But he wasn't laughing. "They've already taken three people from this neighborhood. No records. No bodies. Poof." He snapped his fingers.

          I didn't believe him.

          Then he was gone.

          So, I decided.

          I stuffed my hair under a frayed beanie, smeared dirt across my cheeks, and wrapped myself in layers of secondhand clothes. My boots were scuffed, my voice roughened by nerves and practice. I carried a torn backpack filled with nothing but a knife and a voice recorder.

          I became invisible.

          The Goodwill on 7th Street stood like any other, bright yellow sign, cheerful red bell--but the moment I stepped onto the cracked pavement of the parking lot, something felt... watchful. Cameras mounted high on the corners rotated slowly, scanning.

          I waited. Hid in the shadows behind a dented sedan. Watched.

          An hour later, a man came into view, thin, hollow-eyed, wearing a winter coat in July. He lingered near the side door, hands in pockets. A Goodwill employee emerged--smiling, clipboard in hand. They spoke briefly. Then, the man followed him inside.

          Not through the front entrance.

          Through a loading dock door marked Employees Only.

          I waited another twenty minutes. Then, as if guided by instinct, I walked to that same side door, heart hammering. I tugged it. Locked.

          But beside it, there was a dumpster. I climbed, reached the roof of the waste bin, and hoisted myself onto a narrow ledge beneath an open ventilation window. Frigid air rushed over my face as I pulled myself inside.

          I dropped into darkness.

          I moved forward, silent on the concrete floor.

          Then I heard voices.

          Peering around a corner, I saw a glass-walled room. Inside, the man from outside sat on a metal chair, slumped. A technician in a white coat adjusted a headset on his head. Screens flickered with brainwave readings. Another man--older, in a crisp suit--watched from the opposite side of the glass.

          "This one's baseline resilience is higher than average," the technician said. "Subject 12 showed marked improvement after Phase One."

          The suited man nodded. "Good. Proceed to imprinting."

          My breath caught. Imprinting?

          Burke was right. They are experimenting.

          But why?

          I pulled out the voice recorder and pressed record, my hand shaking.

          Then I saw it.

          On the wall behind them, photos. Rows of them. Smiling faces. Familiar faces.

          My stomach dropped.

          Because there, third from the left--Burke.

          But not the Burke I knew.

          This one--younger, sharper. No paint stains on his collar. No wild curls. His smile was perfect, controlled. Beneath it, a name tag.

          Project Archetype: Subject 37.

          "No," I whispered.

          It couldn't be.

          But then the door behind me creaked open.
          I ducked into a supply closet just as footsteps echoed past. My pulse roared in my ears. Subject 37? Was Burke a subject?

          I replayed every argument, every rant. The way he knew too much about Goodwill's delivery schedules. The way he'd always circled back to the idea of "perfection." Had he been feeding me lies? Or had he believed them?

          And if he was part of this... why did he disappear?

          Unless he was the experiment.

          I waited until the building fell silent. Then I crept back to the glass room. It was empty now. The screens were off. But on the desk, a file sat open.

          Project Phoenix: Cognitive Reprogramming Through Sensory Redirection.

          I flipped through.

          Photos of people retrained. Rewired. Told new histories. Programmed with false memories of art school, of relationships, of outrage against the very system that created them. They were fed conspiracy theories as part of the process--to make them feel like rebels. To make them believe they were uncovering the truth when they were just playing roles.

          And then I saw it.

          My photo.

          Paige Alden. Designated Emotional Anchor, Subject 37.

          "No," I breathed.

          The door slammed behind me.

          He stood there--Burke. Or someone who looked exactly like him. Same eyes. Same jaw. But his posture was straight, his gaze calculating.

          "They told me you might come," he said. His voice was calm. Controlled.

          "What's going on?" I asked, backing away. "Burke... please..."

          "You don't understand," he said. "This isn't about control. It's about evolution. We're building better humans who think they're free. Those who feel rebellion but serve a higher purpose. You were part of the plan, Paige. You made me believe I was real."

          "I love you." I shouted.

          He smiled--sad, almost. "Do you? Or were you programmed to?"

          He stepped forward. "They said if you came, I could choose. To let you go... or bring you in."

          My hand closed around the knife.

          But I didn't move.

          Because the truth was worse than any conspiracy.

          Burke wasn't taken.

          He was created.

          And I? I didn't fall in love with an artist.

          I fell in love with a prototype.

          And as he reached for me, I realized the most terrifying truth of all:

          Maybe I was, too.

Word Total: 995
Prompt: Use the following as the first sentence: At the end of the week, he disappeared.