One by one, the needles pierced my skin. A sharp sting, then another, and another – so constant I could no longer separate one pain from the next. My veins burned, my breath hitched, and with each injection was a vessel that carried my blood.
And all I could do was lie there, helpless, and endure it.
From my bed at the front of the room, I could see it all.
The network of tubes stretched outward like a grotesque spider's web, every line tethered to me before branching into the others. My veins had become their lifeline, my blood the current that fed them. The translucent pipes pulsed faintly, strings of red winding through them in steady streams. Threads of my very existence, stolen and divided, vanishing into bodies not my own.
The air was heavy with the sight of it. The sound of liquid faintly gurgling through the tubes filled the silence, each pulse a reminder that I was being drained. My breath caught in my throat, my chest rising and falling as though I had to fight to keep what little remained inside me.
Above my head, the bottles hung in a row. Six of them, if my counting was correct. They were not filled with blood to return what was lost, but with clear hospital water; colorless, tasteless, and merciless. Each drip forced into me replaced what was taken, the cold liquid crawling through my veins like ice, alien and wrong. I shivered, my small body trembling as the chill spread deeper, burrowing into my bones.
It was not healing. And there was no mercy either, it was erasure.
A slow dismantling of me, drop by drop, until nothing of myself would remain.
At that moment, one of the children broke the stillness.
The boy with the fangs, the one whose mouth always glistened with saliva suddenly began to thrash violently. His body snapped and jerked against the bed, limbs flailing so hard the metal frame screeched against the floor. It was as if acid, molten and merciless, was tearing through his veins.
His groans deepened into guttural cries, the sound clawing at the air until it filled the room. His eyes rolled back, the black of his irises vanishing, swallowed by pure, unbroken white. For a heartbeat, he looked less human and more like a hollow shell, possessed by something that should never have lived in him.
His chest heaved unnaturally, rising too far, and collapsing too fast, as though something inside him was clawing upward, desperate to escape.
His legs folded tight, curling toward his stomach, his whole body twisting in grotesque contortions with each spasm. The tubes tethered to him strained, trembling with the violent motions, as blood sloshed through them in uneven jolts.
And then, without warning, the fight left him.
His limbs sagged, his body collapsing back into the sheets with a hollow thud. His chest fell one final time, never to rise again.
The boy was gone.
The room did not grieve. The tubes continued to pulse, the bottles continued to drip, and the silence pressed heavier than before.
I lay there in silence, my body still against the bed. My face betrayed nothing. No tears, no flinch, no sound. To anyone watching, it must have seemed as though I were detached, untouched by what had just unfolded before me.
But inside, I felt the weight of it pressing like a stone against my chest. Perhaps it was easier to look unmoved than to show the terror crawling beneath my skin.
Drewman's voice snapped across the room like a whip. "What the heck is going on here? Wasn't he already adapting?"
The doctors stiffened. Their hands twitched at their sides, eyes wide above their masks. One of them began to stammer, his words tripping over each other in a rush of panic. "W–we checked his vitals, sir… everything indicated stability. We… we didn't expect—"
Another cut in, bowing his head low. "Apologies, Director. It isn't something we could have foreseen."
But their excuses sounded hollow even to themselves. They didn't understand it any better than he did. Their fear was written across every trembling gesture, every nervous glance toward the lifeless child on the bed.
The room reeked of failure and no one dared to claim otherwise.
One of the doctors stepped forward, his hands trembling as he clutched the clipboard to his chest. His voice cracked, but he tried desperately to steady it, forcing composure over panic.
"Sir… I think we should stop the transfer, at least for a moment." His eyes darted toward the fallen child, then quickly back to Drewman. "We need to calculate how much blood their bodies can take per second. It could be that the blood is too thick for them, and it may need dissolving with water, or perhaps the transfusion should be done both ways – blood and water together, not blood alone."
His words spilled quickly, almost pleading, as if by explaining fast enough he could shield himself from Drewman's wrath.
But before he could continue, Drewman's voice tore through the room like a whipcrack.
"Nothing is going to be stopped."
The words rang against the walls, sharp and merciless, silencing every breath. Even the faint beeping of a monitor seemed to cower into stillness.
Drewman's eyes narrowed, a hard glint of steel cutting through his cold gray gaze. His voice rose, not to reason, but to command, to crush. "These children are needed soon. I don't have time, and neither do you. So do your job. And do it well."
A heavy silence followed, suffocating, and absolute. The doctors bowed their heads, swallowing their fear. None dared to argue further. Their hands moved quickly, masks hiding their shame but not the sweat that beaded along their brows.
And I lay there, veins still feeding the lifelines around me, my small body trembling beneath the sheets.
*Do I remember anything?*
The question lingered in my mind, circling like a restless shadow. What was I supposed to remember? A face? A place? A life before this? The thought gnawed at me, sharp but shapeless, as though the memory existed just out of reach, hidden behind glass I could not break.
Hours later, the endless cycle of needles and commands ended. The doctors filed out, their masks concealing tired faces, their voices trailing into silence. Drewman's steps were the last to fade, firm and measured, carrying the weight of authority even in absence.
The room lay still.
Every child around me had fallen into unconsciousness. Some rested in twisted poses, their expressions eerily calm, as if sleep had taken them gently.
Others had simply collapsed into stillness, their limp bodies looking more like discarded husks than resting children. The machines hummed faintly, the tubes still pulsing with their unnatural exchange of blood and water.
I, too, surrendered. My eyelids drooped, too heavy to fight. My breath slowed, though unease coiled in my chest. I drifted into slumber, one never peaceful, but the kind of sleep that carried weight, shadows, and whispers that did not belong to dreams.
---
"Hand over the boy," a man barked at the woman clutching me. "With us, he'll be safe and so will our people. Keeping him here will only bring ruin."
"No!" she cried, her arms tightening around me as if her grip alone could keep me in her world. Tears streamed down her face as she pleaded. "Please, leave my son with me! I promise he's not a threat!"
I reached for her desperately, screaming through sobs. "Mama!" as my tiny fingers clawed the air, but one of the men yanked me away. Their faces were a blur but I still remember their words.
"Making chaos won't help," said another man with striking white-bluish hair, his voice cold but steady. He held her back as she thrashed against him, begging in sobs. "Calm down. We need to be patient if we ever want to see him again."
"Please!" she choked out, her voice cracking under the weight of despair. But her cries went unanswered. The men turned their backs and walked away, dragging me with them into a dark car that stood across the road.
---
My eyes snapped awake, breath catching in my throat. The dream still clung to me, but it was a memory, not a dream at all. A year earlier, when I was torn from my parents' arms, and dragged into this place of white walls and silent cruelty.
I tried to move, but my body refused me. My wrists and ankles were bound tight, straps biting into my skin. The veins along my arms were tangled with pipes, my flesh pierced by a forest of needles. Every limb ached, every attempt at resistance met with the weight of restraints that mocked me.
And then came the pressure; sharp, and humiliating. A relentless build deep in my body.
I clenched every muscle, fighting it, desperate to hold myself together. The shame burned hotter than the needles, and hotter than the restraints. I begged silently for my body not to betray me. But it did.
At last, the strength left me, and I released it. Warmth spread beneath me, soaking into the sheets. My chest tightened with humiliation, the heat of shame searing far deeper than the act itself.
I turned my face away, eyes closing against the white lights above, wishing I could disappear into the shadows anywhere but here.
It had been one year since I was brought into the White Unit facility. A year since the world I knew was stripped away and replaced with this cage of light. But what was I thinking in that moment? I can't quite remember. My memories come in fragments, jagged and incomplete.
What I do know is that the figure from the hallway never left me. It lingered in my mind like a shadow burned into my vision, the kind you see even when you close your eyes.
Everything in the White Unit facility was drowned in whiteness. The clothes draped over our frail bodies, bleached and shapeless. The bed sheets tucked beneath us, crisp and pale. The sterile walls that boxed us in, smooth and unbroken. Even the doctors' coats, the needles gleaming silver under the harsh lights, the unblinking bulbs overhead that never dimmed – all of it was white, endless and suffocating.
But that figure was different. It was the one stain that refused to be washed out. Darkness given shape, as though carved from the void itself. Not a shadow born of light, but an absence that swallowed light whole. An existence that stood in defiance of the facility's blinding sterility.
I couldn't stop wondering what it was. The memory of that figure clung to me like a second skin. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it again; the blur of darkness, the hood, the swirling aura that seemed to breathe even as it dissolved. Curiosity pulled at me, sharp and relentless, stronger even than the needles in my veins or the throbbing pain gnawing at my skull.
What was it?
Why was it here?
And why did it look at me like that?
My curiosity grew stronger and stronger, but before the questions could unravel further, a voice stirred in my mind, the same voice from earlier, warm and sweet, carrying the weight of comfort I no longer trusted.
"Fiel, honey… Do you remember anything?"
The words rang soft, but they cut through me, echoing in the hollow space where memory should have lived.