Buried During Snowfall – Chapter 15
The Second Adrian
Adrian couldn’t breathe.
The freezing water around him rose steadily toward his waist while memories tore through his skull in violent uncontrollable flashes. Not fragments anymore.
Truth.
Pure unbearable truth.
Blood sprayed across underground walls.
Doctors screaming.
Children escaping containment rooms.
Him standing in the middle of it all holding a surgical hammer while alarms screamed through the facility beneath Blackwater Lake.
Mara stared at him like she no longer knew who stood before her.
“You killed them…”
Adrian shook his head violently. “No…”
But the memories wouldn’t stop.
The Headmaster dragging Noah toward the lower chambers while Adrian chased after them covered in blood.
Caleb locking steel doors behind fleeing children.
And another voice inside Adrian’s head repeating endlessly:
They won’t stop until everyone breaks.
The chamber trembled again.
More sections of ceiling collapsed into the flood while freezing lake water swallowed the lower corridors completely. Subjects screamed and laughed simultaneously around them as if the destruction itself fulfilled some prophecy.
Mara backed away another step.
“How many people did you kill?”
“I don’t know.”
His answer terrified her more than denial would have.
Noah stood silently watching him.
“You remember him now.”
Adrian slowly looked upward.
“Him?”
Noah nodded once.
“The other Adrian.”
Every muscle in Adrian’s body tightened instantly.
Caleb closed his eyes briefly like a man exhausted by inevitability.
Mara frowned. “What does that mean?”
Noah’s damaged face twisted faintly.
“The doctors couldn’t erase violence from him.” He pointed weakly toward Adrian’s chest. “So they divided it.”
The floodwater surged harder through the broken wall.
Somewhere above them, part of Ashriver collapsed into the lake with a deafening roar.
Mara grabbed Adrian’s arm sharply. “Talk to me.”
But Adrian barely heard her.
Because another memory surfaced.
Not his own.
Impossible memory.
Seeing himself standing across the room.
A second Adrian staring back from inside a surgical observation chamber while doctors discussed neurological fragmentation procedures.
The Headmaster saying:
One identity retains compliance.
The other retains aggression.
Adrian whispered:
“No…”
Caleb finally spoke again.
“They split your mind into two behavioral states.”
Mara looked horrified. “That’s not medically possible.”
“No,” Caleb agreed calmly. “It isn’t.”
The Headmaster’s voice crackled weakly through damaged speakers overhead.
“But Ashriver never cared about possible.”
Static exploded violently afterward.
Then silence.
Complete silence.
Even the subjects around them stopped moving.
Noah’s expression changed first.
Fear.
Real fear.
Adrian noticed immediately.
“What?”
Noah slowly turned toward the deepest corridor beneath the lake.
And whispered:
“He woke up.”
A sound echoed from below.
Footsteps.
Not dragging like before.
Precise.
Measured.
Confident.
Adrian’s blood froze instantly.
Because he recognized those footsteps.
Not the Headmaster.
Not Noah.
Himself.
Another tremor split the chamber floor.
The underground corridor ahead flooded completely black while emergency lights died one by one deeper below the lake.
Then a silhouette appeared.
Tall.
Human.
Walking calmly through chest-deep freezing water toward them.
Mara raised her weapon instinctively. “Who’s there?!”
The figure kept approaching.
And Adrian felt something inside himself breaking apart.
Recognition.
Not visual.
Internal.
Like looking at a forgotten piece of his own mind made physical.
The figure stepped into emergency light.
Mara stopped breathing.
It was Adrian.
Not similar.
Not resemblance.
Exactly Adrian.
Same face.
Same eyes.
Same voice when he finally spoke.
“You buried me too deep.”
The chamber became utterly still.
Even the subjects surrounding them seemed afraid now.
Mara looked between both Adrians in disbelief. “What the fuck…”
The second Adrian smiled faintly.
Unlike normal Adrian, his expression contained no hesitation. No guilt. No fear.
Only calm violence.
Thirty years older physically.
Yet emotionally untouched.
The version created beneath the lake.
Impossible.
“No…” Adrian whispered.
The second Adrian tilted his head slightly.
“That’s always your first word.”
Caleb looked genuinely uneasy for the first time. “You should’ve stayed dormant.”
“Dormant?” The second Adrian laughed softly. “You locked me inside him for thirty years.”
Mara pointed the gun toward the second Adrian immediately. “Tell me right now what you are.”
The smile widened slightly.
“I’m the honest half.”
Adrian stumbled backward.
“No…”
“You remember killing them now, don’t you?” the second Adrian asked calmly. “The doctors. The guards. The children who tried stopping us.”
Mara looked sick. “Children?”
“You were very efficient,” the second Adrian continued almost conversationally. “Especially after the electrical fire started.”
Adrian grabbed his own head desperately.
The memories became unbearable now.
Children burning in underground rooms.
Screaming.
The smell of melting plastic and blood.
Noah trapped beneath the lake while Adrian ran through collapsing corridors hunting staff members one by one.
Mara shouted at him:
“ADRIAN!”
He looked at her with tears finally forming.
“I remember all of it…”
The second Adrian stepped closer through the freezing water.
“And you remember why.”
Silence.
Then Adrian whispered the truth.
“They were going to kill the remaining children.”
Noah nodded slowly.
The second Adrian smiled.
“So I killed them first.”
The chamber shook violently again.
Part of the ceiling collapsed between them in a shower of concrete and freezing water. Subjects screamed while flood levels surged nearly chest-high now.
Warren shouted from farther back near the collapsing observation windows:
“The whole structure’s coming down!”
Nobody listened.
Because the real horror stood between them now.
Adrian stared at the second version of himself.
“You aren’t real.”
The second Adrian looked genuinely amused.
“I’m more real than you.”
“No.”
“You’re the personality they built afterward.” He pointed calmly toward Adrian. “The repaired version.”
Mara shook her head immediately. “That’s impossible.”
“Not here.”
The second Adrian looked around the flooding chamber.
“Ashriver specialized in impossible.”
Noah suddenly stepped between them.
Weak.
Shaking.
But determined.
“Enough.”
The second Adrian’s expression darkened slightly.
“You still protect him?”
“He suffered too.”
The second Adrian laughed again.
“Not enough.”
Then his eyes shifted toward Mara.
And Adrian saw it instantly.
Violence.
Pure immediate violence.
“Get back!” Adrian shouted.
Too late.
The second Adrian moved with terrifying speed.
One second he stood several feet away.
The next his hand wrapped around Mara’s throat slamming her against a concrete pillar hard enough to crack it.
Mara gasped violently trying to raise the gun.
The second Adrian calmly twisted the weapon away.
“Fear,” he whispered to her softly, “is the only honest emotion.”
Adrian rushed forward instantly.
But Noah grabbed him hard.
“No!”
“Let go of me!”
Noah’s damaged face twisted painfully.
“You can’t beat him.”
Mara clawed desperately at the second Adrian’s arm while he slowly tightened his grip.
And then he looked directly at Adrian.
Smiling.
“Tell me,” he said softly, “which one of us deserves to survive?”