Beneath the southern wing of the Stella Empire's military laboratories—known in official records as Section IX–Obsidian Cell—the silence was suffocating. Not from absence of sound, but from its weight.
Behind thick steel and reinforced glass, children lay in pods. Tubes connected to their skulls. Fluids of strange hues pulsed through their veins. Some slept. Others thrashed. Many simply stopped.
Every few hours, a soft alarm would beep, followed by a flatline. And then, another child would be gone.
No one paused. No one mourned. The janitors—some former criminals given conditional freedom—would sweep in, remove the corpses, clean the blood, and sterilize the chamber. Within the hour, a new subject would arrive. Often younger than the one before.
The Empire always had more.
After all, the Empire took more.
Doctor Tenji Vallin walked slowly across the corridor. His white coat swayed around his frail frame. His fingers trembled as he held the data pad, though not from age—Tenji had always shaken. People once whispered it was from regret, back when he worked on the Empire's failed terraforming programs. But now, no one whispered anything. They only obeyed.
He was thin, skeletal in build, with graying hair like ash and eyes devoid of emotion. His steps were deliberate, as if every movement needed calculation.
Beside him stood Doctor Scoff, taller, broader, and infamous.
Scoff's red and grey hair was slicked back with scented oils, his coat unbuttoned and stained with traces of chemicals and dried blood. Unlike Tenji, Scoff smiled often. It was never pleasant.
Behind them walked two junior researchers—Mira, a soft-voiced woman in her thirties with a passion for numbers, and Dran, a thick-shouldered ex-surgeon demoted after a failed procedure killed three nobles.
"Report," Tenji commanded.
Mira stepped forward. "In the last 48 hours, seventeen subjects have perished due to incompatibility. Four displayed resilience. One mutated. Chamber Eight experienced a containment breach—Subject Z-910 entered a hostile state, and three security staff were hospitalized."
Scoff raised an eyebrow. "Z-910? The half-blood?"
"Yes," Dran replied. "Half-mage lineage. His magical traits are unstable. We're considering sending him to the psychic resistance trials."
Tenji nodded faintly, barely reacting. "Unstable bloodlines produce unpredictable results. Useful, but only if controlled."
They passed Chamber One. Inside floated a pale-skinned boy with dark green eyes and a noble bearing—Subject O-243. He was the last known heir of the Orvann family, a noble house betrayed during Stella's conquest of the southern marshlands.
He'd been injected with a triple helix serum. The effects were promising—his muscle fibers regenerated faster than baseline, and his pain receptors were partially deactivated.
"He will survive," Tenji said with finality.
Further down, they paused at Chamber Seven—home to U-776 and U-777, two sisters no older than five. The younger one, 777, had shown extraordinary compatibility with the Empire's experimental organ-enhancement sequence. Her nervous system was adapting in real time.
Her sister, 776, was weaker. She barely clung to consciousness, but the researchers were curious to see whether the emotional bond would influence their mutations. It was a side experiment—unofficial, but intriguing.
Scoff lingered in front of their glass. "If she dies, will the other go mad or evolve?"
Mira hesitated. "We don't know."
"Then find out," he said, tapping the glass lightly.
They walked on, entering a different hallway.
This one was colder.
A faint humming sound came from the walls—magical sigils fused with energy circuitry. A blend of stolen Velestrian glyphs and Stella's own design.
Chamber Five. No label. No warmth. Inside, a tall figure sat hunched in shadow. Unnatural joints. Flickering veins of blue. The silhouette barely moved, but its eyes were open—burning orange like furnace coals.
"We don't even use a name," Tenji said. "Too dangerous."
"Just a test?" Mira asked, voice thin.
"Not a test," Tenji murmured. "A threshold."
Scoff laughed softly, enjoying every second of the discomfort around him.
And then, they reached the last door.
A humble chamber. No glowing runes. No alarms. A single chamber in the far corner of the hall.
Chamber Twelve.
Inside, the newborn lay silent.
White-haired. Fragile. Small. The pale light above him made his skin almost translucent.
Code: AB-774.
Tenji stared at him for a long moment. "He's still considered insignificant. No enhancements have been administered yet. The data is… inconsistent."
"Inconsistent?" Scoff turned, suddenly more interested.
"Yes. The markers indicate adaptability… but with no reaction. No spikes. No stress. No rejection. No enhancement either."
"Unmoving water," Dran muttered. "Still, but deep."
Scoff sneered. "Or empty."
Tenji didn't reply.
Instead, he turned to the datapad and tapped into the boy's vitals.
Heartbeat: Steady.
Breath: Shallow.
Brainwave activity: Dormant. But stable.
Scoff leaned in toward the glass. "So weak," he said. "But there's something beneath it. I feel it."
Tenji nodded once. "He may not be useful now. But over the next few years, the project will evolve. His true nature may only show when the body begins to grow."
"And if it doesn't?"
"Then he dies. Quietly. Like the others."
Scoff lingered a moment longer, then grinned.
"The Emperor will want updates."
As they turned to leave, AB-774's dark blue eyes opened slightly.
He made no sound. No movement.
But his gaze followed them.
Mira paused and looked back. "Sir… I've seen a lot of children scream, thrash, and cry. Even O-243 cries in his sleep. But that one—AB-774… he just watches."
Tenji's fingers twitched.
"Then record it," he said.
They left the hallway behind.
And the boy remained in his pod, small and quiet.
Not yet valued.
Not yet seen.
But in the silence of that chamber, a presence was forming. Not a soul, not quite.
Something else.
Something that had been waiting… long before he was born.