Author: Rida Tariq

*That bell of the night:-

The phone bell rang at 2:30Am . “Liza” picked up the phone.
There was a name on the screen that had been erased for three years: “Max❤️”
Panic, surprise, and a forgotten pain all woke up together. “Hi…?” Silence then a halting, fading voice: “Forgive me, I’ve lost my way back…” Then the signal broke. The line was cut.

* Three years later?

Max, who had suddenly disappeared three years earlier from Liza’s life for no reason.
No reason to call now, why was he calling today? And how? Liza redialed her number “Number not available…” She searched his name on social media but all profiles were either closed or inactive.

She finally opened his old emails.
One title was: “If I disappear…”.
She had never opened that mail to avoid pain.

* That mail:-

“Liza, if you are reading this mail, maybe I have left your world. But I am not going to die…
I have just known something that the world wants to hide.”
“A truth… that burned inside me. I used to work in an organization where digital experiments were being done on the mental state of human beings. AI doesn’t just drive your phone, it also dreams of you.”
“If you ever hear my voice again, you will understand that I am still imprisoned somewhere perhaps in time, maybe in the system…”

* Soundless tears:-

Liza stayed up all night listening to old voice notes. Then she found a file with the name “Last ping -17B” a secret recording.
Max’s panicked voice: “Even if they erase me, my memory will remain. It is not easy to stop AI, but it is also difficult to bury the truth.”
In the background some people were screaming, alarms were ringing then everything was over.

*The last clue :-

Liza sent that file to a cyber specialist she trusted. The message came from back him : “This file is not an ordinary AI system it is the remnants of the ‘Nova Project’, an experience that would turn human memory into a code.” “Your friend may not be physically, but is alive in data.”

*Digital grave?

Liza decides, she will bring back Max’s data. She downloaded the backup of “Nova Project” from a deep web server. An algorithm opened, with thousands of “memories” videos, audio clips, dreams, fears.
There was a folder: “M-K_313” and a file: “heart.memory.json”. She opened the file, and the first sentence was: “Liza, I didn’t want to forget you, the system forced me.”

*New contact:-

A few hours later a face appeared on Liza’s computer screen, blurry, digital, but like her love.
“You really are here?” Liza asked, “So you can come back?”

“No, but you can tell the world my truth.”

*Last Message :-

For all, Liza made a documentary with all the digital evidence: “The Last Message: Searching for a Man” Millions of people around the world saw this. Many said that their own fans had also disappeared suddenly maybe they were all part of a ‘system’.
Liza only spoke one line in the last scene: “Love doesn’t go away. It just starts to live in a new form.”
The final “last message” is not just a search for a person, but a question: “Is our existence just a body? Or everything we leave for each other sounds, words, memories, and a last message?”
If technology can separate us, maybe it can also connect us the only condition is that we have the courage to listen to the truth.