SCROLL 3
The warmth inside the womb had grown restless, like the air itself carried a faint static. For days, it had been a cradle of muffled sounds and endless darkness, yet now the walls seemed alive with tiny vibrations. Ethan drifted in that tight space, half-floating, half-curled, his body still small but already wired with something sharp that wasn't supposed to belong to a child.
The boy didn't yet have the words for suspicion, but the feeling was there, creeping through him. Something outside wasn't right. The womb shifted around him, the blood-song beat of the mother's body thumping like an ancient drum, yet underneath it pulsed another rhythm — fainter, unnatural. Like the echo of chains rattling far away.
He clenched his little fists, eyes that hadn't even opened in the world twitching beneath their lids. His brain burned with thoughts that no unborn should carry. In the stillness, a crooked grin formed on his ghostlike mind.
"Bruh… even in the womb I can feel somebody tryna play me."
The thought wasn't a sentence, more like an instinct shaped into sarcasm. Already, Ethan's personality leaked into the empty dark, the same way oil stains spread in water.
And then came the first hit.
The womb shuddered. Pressure slammed down on him, like the ceiling of a house collapsing. The warmth that had been a steady bath squeezed him, bones bending against flesh not yet hardened. His little chest compressed, and for the first time since existing, he knew pain. Not the scratch or sting of the outside world, but the primal fear of being crushed.
The womb itself groaned. The blood-slick walls tightened, twisted, as if an invisible hand was trying to squash him like spoiled fruit.
He didn't scream — he couldn't — but his thoughts scattered wild.
"Hell no… ain't no way I'm gettin' smacked before I'm even born!"
Instinct kicked in. His body, fragile as it was, curled tighter, the muscles twitching. His feet pressed against one side of the womb, hands against the other. He pushed. He twisted. He resisted. The pressure relented slightly, like the womb itself was testing him, not yet serious.
Silence returned, broken only by the heartbeat around him. But Ethan wasn't fooled.
He narrowed his mind, if such a thing was possible. Suspicion bloomed.
Someone — or something — wanted him gone.
Days blurred in the dark. The attacks didn't stop. Sometimes the womb's liquid shifted too violently, nearly drowning him. Sometimes heat flared unnaturally, searing his skin until he clawed at the fluid to cool himself. Sometimes, the pressure returned, trying to collapse him into nothing.
Each time, Ethan fought back. Kicking, pushing, even biting at the liquid when it boiled too hot. He had no weapons, no skills, but stubbornness wrapped his tiny body like armor.
The womb wanted him weak. He refused.
And slowly, something strange began to happen.
Each attack hardened him. The more the womb twisted, the sharper his instincts grew. The more it tried to drown him, the longer he learned to hold himself still, conserving oxygen like some deep-sea creature. The more the pressure tried to crush his limbs, the stronger his tendons wound themselves, muscle fibers coiling like ropes.
Ethan didn't know it, but the very attempt to erase him was sharpening him into a blade.
And in the spaces between pain, he thought.
"Okay, so this womb tryna run me outta business. Cool. But if I'm the type to give up, I woulda stayed in the fried chicken joint. Nah. They gon' regret letting me survive this."
Sarcasm in the dark. A baby's revenge speech. Ridiculous, yet deadly sincere.
More time passed. He could feel himself growing. Tiny bones hardening, senses stretching. He began to pick up muffled voices beyond the womb. They were vague, like whispers underwater, but they carried tone: arguments, anger, fear. A woman's sob. A man's harsh command. More than once, the vibrations of the womb pulsed in sync with those sounds, as if someone outside was forcing the attacks.
They didn't want Ethan born. That much was clear.
One day, the womb's cruelty reached new heights.
The warmth turned freezing. Liquid around him chilled so violently his skin burned as if laced with frost. His heartbeat staggered. Muscles locked. It felt like death itself had slithered in.
Ethan's mind snapped alert.
"Oh nah, they really tryna ice me out. In the damn womb! Bro, that's mad."
He twisted, pulling his small frame into a ball, conserving warmth. He focused. His thoughts, messy as they were, tried to drag energy from anywhere. His will screamed into the void.
And something answered.
A faint spark flickered inside him. It wasn't fire, not exactly, but a warmth that belonged to him alone. It pulsed through his veins, faint but defiant. His body glowed — not enough for anyone outside to notice, but enough for him to survive the frost.
The womb quivered in response, almost… surprised.
Ethan grinned into the dark, even as his lips trembled.
"You feel that? Yeah. I ain't normal. Mess with me again, see what happens."
From then on, he was no longer just surviving. He was adapting.
The womb still attacked — heat, cold, crushing force, suffocating liquid — but each time, he answered with resistance. Kicks grew sharper. His grip on the womb's walls left dents. His willpower carved itself into a blade too stubborn to break.
And somewhere beyond, the whispers grew frantic. Whoever had wanted him gone now argued louder. The sobbing voice turned hoarse. The angry command turned desperate.
He didn't understand the words, but he understood the intent.
They feared him.
And that thought, even in the womb, made Ethan smirk.
"Yeah… keep it up. When I crawl out this place, y'all better run."
Days bled into weeks. His body was nearly ready, his soul sharper than steel forged in a street fight. The womb kept throwing tricks, but each attack only seasoned him. The little unborn had become a soldier before even tasting air.
But then, something changed.
The womb stilled. No pressure. No heat. No drowning waves. For the first time in months, silence stretched without interruption.
Too silent.
Ethan stiffened.
The womb wasn't giving up. It was waiting.
And in that silence, for the first time, he felt it: another presence, faint but suffocating. Like an eye pressed against the darkness, watching him. It wasn't the womb this time. It was something beyond.
The system.
[Detected anomaly. Subject: Ethan.]
The words weren't spoken, but they slammed into his skull like metal striking stone. A cold mechanical voice, foreign yet familiar, marking him like a tag.
[Survival parameters exceeded. Probability of early awakening: confirmed.]
A chill worse than the frost attacks slid into him. Not because of fear, but because deep inside, Ethan understood:
The womb had been training him.
But the real enemy had only just arrived.
And that realization sank into him like a hook.