The boy woke to the sound of his own breathing.
It was too loud in the silence of his cell—a small, white-walled room with no windows, no clock, just the ever-present hum of the facility's ventilation system pushing stale, recycled air through the vents.
The bed beneath him was narrow and hard, the thin mattress doing little to soften the unyielding metal frame.
He'd learned to sleep on his back, arms at his sides, because if he turned too sharply in the night, his elbow would strike the wall, and the noise would echo.
They didn't like noise here.
The lights flicked on without warning, a harsh white glare that burned away the last remnants of sleep.
No gradual brightening, no dimmer switch—just on, like the flick of a switch in some unseen overseer's hand.
The boy squeezed his eyes shut for a half-second, waiting for the starbursts to fade, then sat up.
His jumpsuit—standard-issue gray, the fabric rough against his skin—lay folded at the foot of the bed.
He dressed quickly, fingers fumbling only slightly over the fastenings.
The first week, he'd been slow.
The first week, they'd made him stand in the corridor for an hour afterward, barefoot on the cold floor, while the others moved past him to breakfast.
He had learned.
The door unlocked with a soft click, the sound barely audible over the ever-present hum of the facility.
He stepped out into the hallway, joining the stream of other apprentices—boys and girls his age, all in identical gray, all with the same hollowed-out look in their eyes.
No one spoke.
Talking before the first meal was forbidden.
The mess hall was a large, sterile room with rows of long metal tables bolted to the floor.
The air smelled of antiseptic and the faint, underlying tang of something metallic—like old blood or rust.
The boy took his tray from the dispenser slot, his stomach tightening at the sight of the food: a square of nutrient paste, a cup of water, a single vitamin capsule.
It was always the same.
He'd stopped wondering what the paste was made of after the third day.
He sat where he always did, at the end of the third table, his back to the wall.
A moment later, the girl slid in across from him.
Her hair was longer now, the dark strands tangled from lack of care, but her eyes were as sharp as ever.
She didn't look at him—not directly.
That was another rule.
But her foot nudged his under the table, a silent good morning.
They ate in silence.
The paste was flavorless, the texture thick and gluey.
He swallowed it without chewing, washing it down with a sip of water.
The vitamin capsule came last, bitter on his tongue.
The girl's fingers twitched toward her sleeve, where she'd hidden a scrap of paper once.
He'd seen her do it before—slip something into her palm when the guards weren't looking.
But today, there was nothing.
Just the quick, nervous flex of her fingers before she stilled them again.
The alarm blared without warning.
A shrill, pulsing shriek that drilled into his skull, vibrating through his teeth.
The boy didn't flinch.
None of them did.
They'd learned that, too.
He stood, tray abandoned, and fell into line with the others.
The girl was beside him, her shoulder brushing his as they shuffled forward.
The technicians waited at the door, their white coats stark against the gray walls.
One of them—a man with thinning hair and a face like a clenched fist—scanned the line with cold, dispassionate eyes.
The boy kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, his hands loose at his sides.
He didn't look at the girl.
He didn't look at the technicians.
He didn't look at the dark stains on the floor near the disposal chute—the ones that never quite washed out, no matter how hard he scrubbed.
The man in the white coat pointed at him.
"You."
The boy stepped forward.
The girl's fingers brushed his wrist, so quick he might have imagined it.
Then he was moving, following the technician down the hall, toward the doors marked Restricted Access.
Behind him, the facility hummed on.
***
The girl pressed her back against the cold metal of the air duct, holding her breath as footsteps passed beneath her.
The technicians' voices drifted up through the grate, sharp and distorted.
"—subject is responding beyond projections—"
"—phase three will require full sedation—"
"—cradle must hold, or we lose them all—"
She exhaled slowly through her nose, counting the seconds until the voices faded.
Her fingers ached from gripping the Conduit, if you can even call it that, so tightly, its rough edges biting into her palm.
It was supposed to be a gift.
Back in the Junkyard, she'd promised him a working device, something better than the half-dead scraps they'd salvaged from the piles.
She'd spent nights hunched over stolen parts, her fingers raw from stripping wires, her eyes burning from squinting at circuitry in the dim glow of bioluminescent fungus.
Now it was just dead weight.
The facility had swallowed ninety-seven days of her life.
She'd counted each one by scratching marks into the underside of her bed with a bent screw.
Ninety-seven days of white walls that smelled of antiseptic and something underneath.
Ninety-seven days of meals that left her stomach hollow despite the calories they supposedly contained.
Ninety-seven days of watching apprentices disappear down the hall marked Restricted Access, their eyes empty long before they vanished.
She knew the routine by heart now.
Lights on at exactly 0600—or what passed for morning in this windowless hell.
Roll call in the corridor, standing at attention while technicians scanned them with devices that made her teeth hum.
Then assignments: scrubbing floors that never stayed clean, sterilizing equipment that reeked of chemicals strong enough to make her vision swim, hauling crates of supplies to labs where the doors sealed with a hiss before she could see inside.
The worst were the medical checks.
Twice a week, they lined up outside the examination room.
One by one, they'd enter to find Dr. Reyne waiting with her too-white smile and cold hands.
The woman would take blood samples without warning, the needle jabbing into the crook of their arms before they could flinch.
She'd measure their reflexes with a rubber hammer that left bruises, peer into their eyes with a light that burned, and ask questions in that soft, dangerous voice.
"Any headaches, dear?"
"Do the lights ever seem too bright?"
"Do you remember your dreams?"
The girl always lied.
She'd seen what happened to the ones who told the truth.
The boy in Bunk 14 had mentioned seeing colors that weren't there—they'd taken him that same night.
The girl with the scarred hands had confessed to hearing voices in the walls—she'd been gone by morning.
So the girl kept her mouth shut and her eyes open.
At night, when the lights dimmed to a dull glow and the others pretended to sleep, she'd slip into the ducts.
The metal was icy against her bare arms, the space so narrow she had to crawl flat on her stomach, her elbows scraping with every movement.
But it was the only place they couldn't watch.
The only place she could think.
That's how she'd first heard about Project Cradle.
Pressed against a vent above Lab 6, she'd listened to technicians argue about "Aether stabilization" and "neural bridging." She'd heard the screams from Area D, muffled by thick doors but unmistakable.
She'd seen the carts wheeled past her cleaning station, their contents hidden under sheets that sometimes twitched.
And she'd counted the days since they took him.
Thirty-eight.
Tonight would be thirty-nine.
She tightened her grip on the screwdriver hidden in her sleeve.
The tool was crude—just a piece of sharpened metal wrapped in cloth—but it would do.
She'd studied the guard rotations, noted the blind spots in the camera coverage, memorized the pattern of the security sweeps.
When the lights went out, she would move.
Not to escape.
To find him.
And if the facility tried to stop her?
Well.
She'd make them regret ever pulling two scrap rats from the Junkyard.
***
The girl dropped silently from the vent into the dimly lit corridor of Sub-Level 3, her bare feet making no sound against the cold metal floor.
The air here was different—thicker, heavier, laced with the sharp tang of old disinfectant and something else beneath it, something organic and stale.
Like the scent of a wound left to fester too long.
She knelt in the dust, the cold from the floor seeping through the thin fabric of her jumpsuit.
The air in the forgotten records room smelled of mildew and something sharper—like the tang of overworked machinery.
Flickering light from the dying ceiling panel cast jagged shadows across the stacks of files, making the handwritten labels seem to shift when she wasn't looking directly at them.
Her fingers left streaks in the dust as she pulled the files forward.
The folders were old, their edges softened by time, the cardstock covers warped from years spent in this damp underground tomb.
She could feel the weight of secrets in them—the kind of weight that pressed against your ribs and made it hard to breathe.
Why keep records on paper?
A rhetorical question because it doesn't matter.
The first file's metal clip was rusted shut.
She had to pry it open, the metal biting into her fingertips until beads of blood welled up.
She wiped them absently on her thigh as she scanned the brittle pages inside.
SUBJECT #4639-D
The photograph paper-clipped to the first page showed a boy with hollowed cheeks and dark circles under his eyes.
His hair was shorn close to the scalp, the way all the apprentices' were after processing.
He looked thin—thinner than she remembered from the Junkyard.
There were dark marks on his neck that might have been bruises or the beginnings of those twisting Aether veins she'd seen in the medical textbooks.
The attached notes were written in a cramped, clinical hand:
"Subject demonstrates unprecedented Aether compatibility. Minimal cellular degradation after prolonged exposure. Vital signs remain stable despite neural activity fluctuations. Recommend immediate transfer to Phase 3 trials in Sub-Level 7."
Beneath this, in fresher ink:
"Warning: Subject has begun exhibiting recall of pre-facility memories. This was not anticipated in the projection models. Sedation protocols may need adjustment."
The girl's throat tightened.
She traced the edge of the photograph with one finger, remembering how he'd looked that last morning—the way he'd tried to smile at her across the mess hall even though his hands were shaking so badly he could barely hold his spoon.
She set the file aside carefully, as if it might crumble to dust in her hands.
The next folder was thicker, bound with a heavy-duty clip that hadn't rusted at all.
The label sent a chill down her spine:
SUBJECT ZERO
CONTAINMENT PROTOCOLS - LEVEL 10 CLEARANCE REQUIRED
The first page was a security waiver, stamped with red ink that had faded to the color of old blood. The photograph beneath it made her stomach lurch.
A man—or what had once been a man—strapped to a reinforced examination table.
His skin was mottled gray and stretched too tight over protruding bones.
His ribcage had split open, the bones fused with glistening strands of Aether-charged metal that pulsed faintly in the fluorescent light.
Most horrifying were his eyes—milky white but aware, staring directly at the camera with an intelligence that made the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
The notes were frantic, the handwriting increasingly erratic:
"Subject retains [REDACTED] despite [REDACTED]. Remembers names, security protocols, even childhood memories. This was NOT predicted in the models. The Aether isn't just [REDACTED]—it's [REDACTED] HIM."
Further down the page:
"Day 47: Subject spoke today. Asked for water by name. Then recited the security codes for Area 4. We've had to move him again."
A final entry, in a different hand:
"Sedation no longer effective for more than 6 hours at a time. Recommend permanent relocation to Sub-Level 7 containment. Note: Do NOT terminate. His tissue samples are the only ones that don't degrade. Project Cradle depends on this."
The girl's hands were shaking now.
She could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. This wasn't just research.
They were using that thing—that aware, suffering creature—to make more of itself.
And they'd taken her friend to the same place.
The girl folded the photo and tucked it into her sleeve.
Then she took his file too.
The girl stood frozen in the hallway, the weight of the files' revelations still pressing against her ribs like a second heartbeat.
The elevator doors hung open before her, an invitation written in sterile light and silence.
The air inside was too still, too cold—carrying the faint metallic whisper of machinery and something else, something old and slow-breathing, like the facility itself had exhaled.
She should have run.
She should have clawed her way back into the vents, fled to the false safety of her assigned bunk, and pretended she'd never seen the faded ink labeling Subject Zero as the first monster they'd ever made.
But her friend…
Footsteps suddenly coming down the hall left no room for escape.
Not the wet, dragging gait of something Hollowed—no, these were crisp, measured.
The click of polished boots on metal.
Most likely Security.
She darted into the elevator just as the rhythm of steps rounded the corner.
The doors slid shut behind her with a whisper, sealing her inside before she could second-guess the decision.
The sudden silence was deafening.
No hum of machinery, no distant thrum of the facility's pulse—just the sound of her own breath, too loud in the confined space.
The control panel glowed softly.
Sub-Level 7's button was already illuminated, though she hadn't touched it.
Her fingers hovered over the other options—Sub-Levels 3, 4, 5—but the elevator didn't wait for her choice.
It moved.
A lurch, then the sinking pull of descent.
The lights flickered once as they passed Sub-Level 4, then again at Sub-Level 5, each pulse like the facility blinking awake around her.
The numbers on the panel ticked downward, but when they should have stopped at 6, the descent continued.
The air grew heavier, thicker, pressing against her skin like the weight of deep water.
And then—
A chime.
Soft.
Almost polite.
The elevator doors sealed shut behind her with a sound like a vault locking.
The girl spun, her palms slamming against cold metal, fingers scrambling for any seam, any button, any way back.
Nothing.
Just smooth, unyielding steel that swallowed her pounding without echo.
The air changed the moment the doors closed.
It was colder here, thick with the scent of old electricity and something else—something organic gone wrong.
The walls pulsed with veins of blue light, Aether circuits embedded in the metal like glowing scars.
They throbbed in uneven rhythms, casting shadows that moved just out of sync with her breathing.
Her bare feet left faint damp prints on the metal floor as she stepped forward.
The corridor narrowed, the ceiling pressing lower until she had to hunch slightly, her shoulders brushing against walls that hummed with dormant power.
Somewhere in the distance, water dripped in a slow, irregular pattern, each drop hitting metal with a sound like a dying heartbeat.
Then the corridor opened up more space.
The hallway opened into a cavernous chamber so vast the edges disappeared into darkness.
The ceiling vaulted upward into shadows that swallowed the weak blue light from the walls.
Before her stood a door unlike any she'd seen in the facility—massive, riveted steel reinforced with crossbeams, its surface pockmarked with dents and long, scratches that gleamed faintly in the low light.
Above it, a cracked display panel flickered erratically, the red numbers barely legible through layers of grime:
4639-D
The girl's mouth went dry.
Her fingers twitched toward the pocket where she kept her makeshift weapon, the sharpened piece of metal suddenly feeling laughably small.
The door began to open before she could take another step.
A hiss of compressed air, then the groan of machinery long unused.
The massive slab of metal shuddered inward, inch by inch, revealing slivers of blinding white light that cut through the chamber's gloom.
A wave of sterile, chilled air rushed out, carrying with it the sharp tang of antiseptic and something underneath—something coppery and stale.
It stopped halfway, leaving just enough space for her to pass.
Beyond lay a vast, circular chamber, its walls lined with dead monitors and gutted control panels.
Wires spilled from open conduits like black veins.
At the very center, illuminated by harsh overhead lights, stood two cylindrical pods of thick, fogged glass, their bases wreathed in coils of tubing and cables that snaked across the floor.
The girl didn't move.
The pods were opaque with condensation, their interiors just shadows within shadows.
But she could feel it - the weight of being watched.
Something in that room was awake.
And it had been waiting for her.
The girl's bare feet left faint prints on the cold floor as she stepped forward, the sterile air biting at her skin.
The massive door loomed behind her, half-open like a mouth frozen mid-sentence.
Every instinct screamed to turn back, but the elevator was gone, the hallway swallowed by shadows.
There was only forward.
The glass pods dominated the center of the chamber, their surfaces slick with condensation.
The greenish light from the second pod pulsed weakly, casting long, wavering shadows across the rust-stained floor.
The hum of machinery was different here—not the steady rhythm of the upper levels, but something erratic, labored, like a dying animal's breath.
She reached the first pod.
SUBJECT ZERO
The label at its base was scratched and faded, the letters nearly worn away by time.
The glass was thick, clouded with years of frost and grime, but through the haze, she could make out the shape inside—
A man.
Or what had been one.
His body was suspended in viscous fluid, his skin stretched too tight over protruding bones.
Aether veins branched across his flesh like cracks in porcelain, glowing faintly beneath the surface.
His face was slack, mouth slightly open, but his eyes—
His eyes were moving.
Tracking her.
The girl stumbled back, her breath coming in sharp gasps.
The pod's surface fogged where her fingers had brushed it, then cleared as something inside shifted.
A hand.
Pressing against the glass from within.
She whirled toward the second pod, desperate to look anywhere else.
SUBJECT 4639-D
This label was newer, the letters crisp and bright.
The glass here was clearer, the fluid inside a pale blue instead of murky green.
And floating within—
A boy.
Her breath caught.
He looked no older than she was, his dark hair drifting like seaweed in the artificial current.
No Aether veins.
No visible scars.
His face was peaceful, almost smiling, as if lost in some pleasant dream.
Then his eyes opened.
Clear.
Human.
Recognizing.
His lips moved, forming a single word against the glass:
"Run."