He waited two more days.
Two days of stale food, cold glares, and tighter nausea coils that clamped around his stomach like a vise. Seo-Yun could feel it now—not just the nausea or fatigue, but the pull. That low, magnetic sensation deep in his core, like something alive was slowly shaping him from the inside out.
He moved carefully, hiding the growing bloat beneath loose fabric and hunched posture. He walked slower, feigned pain from old lashings, and tried to keep the guards from noticing that he avoided the mess of food more than usual.
Lior noticed, of course. But said nothing.
Instead, they helped.
A scrap of fabric tied to a nail—left in the hallway where the outer wall thinned.
A chunk of soap to mark safe doors without scent.
A whisper: "Day seven. The one you spoke of. It's tomorrow."
Seo-Yun said nothing in response. Just pressed his hand briefly to Lior's shoulder.
It was time.
He didn't sleep that night.
He lay curled in the corner of the holding ward, eyes half-lidded, listening to the shift of the guards' boots just outside the door. He counted seconds between footfalls. Measured when they paused. One would walk past every 120 heartbeats. Another would double back. Then nothing.
It was in the nothing that he would run.
The child returned before dawn.
No guards saw her—she moved like shadow, slipping between torches and blind corners. She crouched beside Seo-Yun's blanket, slipping something under it.
A thin dagger. Rusted. Sharp enough.
Her eyes locked with his.
"You don't have time for mercy," she whispered.
Seo-Yun nodded.
"Do you know where to go?"
"Yes."
"Then run. And don't stop for screams. They use screams to trap the weak."
Her voice was calm. Like she had said this before. To others who didn't make it.
Seo-Yun's throat burned. "What's your name?"
She hesitated.
Then whispered, "Leya."
Then she was gone.
The ward was quiet when the chance came.
One of the younger guards—tired, inattentive—turned his back for too long during the shift handover.
Seo-Yun moved like instinct.
He slid from his cot, crept toward the door as Lior faked a coughing fit to distract the others, and slipped the pin from his tunic seam. It had taken him a week to sharpen it into something worthy of lock-picking.
It clicked. The door creaked open.
No alarm.
Seo-Yun slipped into the hallway like breath.
He ran.
Every turn he took had already been mapped.
Every stairwell, every wall seam, every timing memorized down to the second.
His heart pounded, and not from panic—but from a brutal, terrible hope. This was real. He was moving. He was getting out.
But the corridors didn't end.
The maze twisted.
He turned a final corner—and slammed into a wall of flesh and fur.
A Beta guard. Twice his size. Too fast.
The dagger came up, instinct again.
Steel met skin.
The guard screamed—but Seo-Yun didn't stop to check. He ran.
Blood followed.
So did alarms.
He reached the outer gates—enormous, black, and flanked by mechanical hounds waiting silently in sleep mode.
He pressed the panel Leya described.
It flickered.
For one second, it worked.
The gates hissed.
Then everything turned red.
Screaming metal. Sirens.
A voice overhead: "Subject 6-9-B. Apprehend immediately. Do not damage. Pregnant."
Seo-Yun froze.
The guards knew.
Varian knew.
Kaelith would know.
He was still staring at the light when the collar lit up.
A pulse of electricity slammed him to the ground, spine seizing, limbs jerking. His cheek hit stone. He tasted ash. He couldn't breathe.
Then everything went black.
When he woke, he was chained.
Kaelith was standing over him.
And he was smiling.