Chapter 1 — Life in the White Room
The room was white.
Not the gentle white of clouds or paper, but the biting kind that chewed through thought. White walls, white ceiling, white light. Even the air smelled like white, sterile, humming.
The children sat in a neat row, each on a metal stool bolted to the floor.
They were told this was Story Hour.
None of them knew what an 'hour' truly meant. Time here wasn't counted by clocks, it pulsed, slow and steady, from the walls themselves. The hum measured their meals, their rest, their silence.
At the front stood the researcher. The lab coat swallowed their shape, blending them into the walls until they looked more like shadow than person. Only the voice separated them from the white, warm, trembling human.
"Once upon a time," the researcher began, "the Great Mind dreamed a world as it fell asleep."
The words drifted like dust. The children stared, blank and waiting, unsure if they were allowed to imagine.
"In its dream," the voice continued, "thoughts became stars, and memories became land. The Great Mind dreamed of mountains, oceans, and creatures who would one day wake it up again. But when it slept too deeply, the dream forgot it was a dream... and began to call itself real."
A faint mechanical click followed. The room recorded everything. The story was allowed, but never unobserved.
One child listened differently.
The others listened because they were told to. He listened because something tilted inside him when the voice spoke, as if the world were a puzzle piece being forced into the wrong shape.
"Oceans and mountains?" he muttered softly.
He tried to picture them, but all he could see was the ceiling.
"Was that what the Great Mind saw when it closed its eyes? Endless white?"
The researcher's story went on, and the hum of the walls deepened.
"And so," the voice said, "the dream grew darker. The Great Mind's thoughts began to crumble. Parts of the world woke up, pieces of mind that no longer fit the rest. They called themselves truths. They looked upon the dream and whispered: You are not real."
A children's story should be bright, full of color and joy. But here, the children were used to stories of betrayal, obedience, and control. This one startled them, not with fear, but with unfamiliar gentleness.
---
After Story Hour came The Feed.
The walls rippled into screens, black text spilling across the whiteness.
"Feed time, 12:00 p.m."
"Injection time, 3:00 p.m."
"Cognitive Resonance Training, 5:00 p.m."
Routine. Perfectly ordinary. Perfectly wrong.
Each time he read the words, something inside him rang off-key, a note out of harmony.
He had once asked what 'Outside' meant.
They told him it was dangerous, that paradise was here, within the walls.
He didn't ask again.
During injections, he watched the needle sink into his arm. The liquid shimmered, silver, clear, alive. It burned, then vanished.
"This strengthens cognitive resonance," they said.
He didn't know what that meant, only that it made his dreams louder.
In those dreams, the researcher's voice always returned:
"Once upon a time, the Great Mind dreamed reality as it fell asleep..."
And then, the eyes came, not human, but imitations of them. Eyes without lids. Eyes made of reflections.
He never told anyone. The cameras always knew.
---
Day Cycle 1032 — Internal Observation Report
At 07:00, the lights flickered on. Morning.
Breakfast: gray nutrient paste, faintly sweet, served in glass containers that reflected their own faces.
Leading the group, 00-0, 00-1 and 00-2, they all move in unison as if a trained army, trays in hand waiting to be filled with the same food every time, not that it matters to them.
"Smile," a guard ordered. "The mind that smiles aligns faster."
He smiled. Everyone smiled. Patterns were easier than punishment.
The researcher passed behind him and stopped. A gloved hand rested on his head with rare touch.
"Good," they murmured. "You three are adapting well, specially you, 0-00." it was not clear whether it was a praise or pity to the poor souls, as guards were observing the researchers action while following behind, emotion here is luxury.
"That name again. A number inside a zero."
He had asked once what it meant.
"The first zero is origin," they said. "The second is null."
He didn't understand. Maybe he was both, something born from nothing, meant to be nothing.
Evenings brought visual alignment films, spinning lights that trained their eyes to obey faster than thought.
Across the walls, propaganda pulsed:
"There is no outside."
"The world is inside the Mind."
"The Great Dream protects you."
Sometimes, the researcher turned the screens off. No recordings. Just silence.
"Do you know why the Great Mind dreamed?" they asked once.
No one spoke. Silence was safest.
"Because it was lonely," the researcher whispered. "Even gods can't stand being alone."
00-0 looked up.
The words didn't fit the teachings. 'Lonely' wasn't in any lesson plan.
He memorized them anyway.
That night, he dreamed again, but this time, he felt awake inside it.
The researcher stood within static, flickering like a candle in the void. The voice returned, slower, warped:
"The Great Mind dreamed reality as it fell asleep...
And one day, one of its dreams opened its eyes."
He woke gasping. The ceiling shimmered above him, alive like breathing glass. The hum had a heartbeat now.
Something inside him had changed.
He began to 'hear' the walls.
Voices beneath the hum.
Machines thinking.
A thousand minds whispering behind the mirrored glass.
He could tell when someone was lying, even when they said nothing at all.
"I can see everything?"
---
Observation Log [REDACTED]
During physical calibration, Subject 06-1 stumbled.
The instructor struck them across the back. A sound. A vibration.
00-0 felt it, not through empathy, but resonance. The body's cry translated directly into his nerves.
He didn't cry. He just listened.
Later, the researcher checked his vitals. Their voice trembled.
"You're hearing too much, aren't you?"
He met their gaze.
Light fractured in their eyes.
"Do you know what happens," they whispered, almost regretful, "to dreams that wake too soon?"
He shook his head.
"They shatter the dream they're in."
The next morning, propaganda changed.
New lines. Harsher tone.
"Unstable perception is disease."
"Obedience preserves reality."
"Do not question what you see."
He tried to obey, but the world kept lying to him.
He noticed flickers when guards entered, walls shifting when no one looked.
Every breath came half a second late, like playback from another world.
Then, during Story Hour, the researcher spoke again, and two voices overlapped.
One human. One mechanical.
"Once upon a time, the Great Mind dreamed reality as it fell asleep..."
The others didn't react.
Only he did.
The room felt smaller.
That night, he whispered the phrase to himself.
"Once upon a time..."
"Once upon a time..."
"Once—"
The walls answered.
A mechanical echo, too close.
"...Upon a time..."
He froze. The facility was learning the story.
The next day, no Story Hour.
No researcher.
Only guards.
Screens blazed red:
Cognitive Resonance Levels Inconsistent — Protocol Re-Alignment Scheduled.
The air thickened. The injections burned sharper.
The children's eyes gleamed, glossy, distant, reprogrammed.
That night, 00-0 dreamed again.
But this wasn't a dream.
The white walls melted into mirrors.
On the other side stood the researcher, mouthing words through the glass, panicking, the shouted. "Wake up!", as deafening sirens roared and bloody lights flickered endlessly.
Behind them, a shape moved, a vast, pulsating mass like a brain made of shadow.
It looked at him.
He felt its gaze 'inside' him. For the first time, 00-0 felt emotions, and it's the strongest of them all, fear.
He woke drenched in sweat.
He could hear every breath in the dormitory, every heartbeat, every whisper.
The world was no longer still.
He looked toward the observation window.
For a moment, the researcher watched him, his expression unreadable.
Then the lights cut to black.
And for the first time, the hum stopped.