Darkness Light. Oblivion. Life. Cells spin like Universes explode like suns. Chaos becomes order. Formlessness..Becomes form. The urge to know rises from silence becomes a shout of being that echoes into cosciousness. There are no words, there is no language; but if this evolving creature could speak, it would ask one simple question.
"Who am I?"
Its answer lies in Dreams. Dreams of a life still unfolded and yet...Paradoxically...a life already lived. Faces, places, Emotions. Events. A collage of sounds and images, drifting everywhere. If it could only reach out that tiny hand, it could hold them, absorb them, understand them. But each time the wave of understanding recedes into darkness. Each time...She is alone agone. She? Yes. A sense of femaleness, of sexual identity, forms.... and with it a surge of power that elates her. How fast she grows....weaving the string of self! There is no time in this dark world she inhabits, yet she seems somehow to be moving forward with unbelievable speed. As if rushing headlong, toward an extraordinary destiny. Toward an answer to the first question. The only question.
"Who am I?"
The light, however dim, pain in her eyes, the air, however welcome, burns her lungs. She stands on unsteady legs, tries to focus unsteady thoughts and find herself nearly toppling back into the chemical tank. And now… Now the world opens its jaws and swallows her.
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A young woman stands trembling before a shattered stasis pod. Glass shards glitter like stars around her. Her skin steams. Her violet eyes are wide, alien and newborn. Behind her, darkness, steel, and observation lights like gods watching through false suns.
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Her body is new. But her strength is ancient.
Engineered, extracted, accelerated.
She is not supposed to be asking questions.
She is supposed to be the answer.
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Her eyes squinting in pain. Lights flood her vision. The sound of klaxons echoes distantly.
She gasps. Air stings her lungs. Muscles twitch with unfamiliar fire. She clutches her ribs, confused by the sensation of pain. She falls to her knees, fingers splayed on the cold metal floor. A symbol is scorched into the floor near her a stylized "I", inverted.
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They called her a failsafe. A contingency. A weapon with Mark Grayson's strength and none of his doubts. But they did not plan for the spark of sentience.
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A glass observation window above. Behind it: Donald Ferguson, expressionless, and Cecil Stedman, arms folded. Cold. Calculating.
Donald:" Vitals holding. Neural imprint stabilizing."
Cecil:" She's ready."
She looks up toward the glass. Their eyes meet. Cecil sees something in her… something he didn't order into existence.
Her voice emerges. Not fully steady. Raw. Human.
"Where… am I?"
Medical drones extend toward her with syringes and scanners. She backs away instinctively, her bare feet slipping on the floor.
Out of reflex and violence, she lashes out. A sonic BOOM shatters the lab wall. One drone explodes. Another is sent hurtling.
She stares at her own hands, trembling, not from weakness, but from power she doesn't yet understand.
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She was born five minutes ago.
And already... she has killed.
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Cecil turns away from the monitor. His face hardens.
Cecil:" Accelerate her orientation. She needs a mission."
Donald:" Sir, she's not stable-"
Cecil:" Neither was Mark."
She is sedated, reluctantly, by gas vents in the floor. She collapses, staring up at the ceiling. Her eyes flutter.
Darkness again. But this time, within it, faces. Echoes.
Mark. Nolan. Debbie. Eve. Conquest. Omni-Man's blood on the moon. Earth burning. A boy's scream. A woman's tears. Images not hers… but in her.
A final whisper escapes her lips before unconsciousness takes her:
"...Mark...?"
Cecil was watching. Calculating.
He thinks she belongs to him. But identity cannot be programmed. Purpose cannot be contained. She was made to replace Invincible. But she was never meant to become... something more.
"Who am I?"
The question will echo through blood, through stars, through war and the answer will not come easy.
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The face belongs to Mark Grayson…
But the mind behind it is not his.
Not entirely.
Her face, twisted in confusion, sweat beading on her brow. Her violet eyes glow faintly, fractured reflections of her DNA donor. Around her, harsh GDA lighting, Donald Ferguson's voice rising in tension, armed medical drones converging. Sparks fly from a crushed tablet under Ava's foot. Her bare hand is wrapped tightly around Donald's wrist, the metal beneath his skin visibly warping.
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The face belongs to Mark Grayson...
But the consciousness... the soul...
Is a storm.
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Donald winces in pain, trying not to shout.
Donald:" Ava… release. You're not in danger. Just… breathe."
She tilts her head, trembling. Her grip loosens. She blinks, not in recognition, but in shock. Her gaze shifts to her own hands.
Her fingers twitch. The trembling stops. She sees her hands almost like they belong to someone else.
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They are her hands.
They can heal. They can protect.
They can destroy.
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Suddenly, her knees buckle. She stumbles backward into the wall, as if the weight of reality finally crashes over her.
Her mind reels. Visual fragments. Blurred. Rapid-fire.
Debbie Grayson crying, Mark screaming in space, Nolan flying away from Earth, Eve's hand reaching toward a dying Mark, A drop of blood floating between stars
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Memories not lived.
Words not spoken.
A life she knows but never touched.
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Ava clutches her head. Her voice cracks:
Ava:" Why… why does it hurt?"
Donald approaches slowly, his crushed wrist behind his back.
Donald:" It's okay. That's... part of it. Your brain is integrating."
Ava recoils from his words, not because she's afraid of Donald, but because none of this makes sense, and yet… it does.
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She knew the sounds he utters should make sense.
But they don't.
They confuse her.
As does this buzzing... this storm under her skin.
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Suddenly she screams, not in pain, but in pure overload. A shockwave emits from her body, hurling Donald against a steel wall.
GDA lights flicker. Red emergency lighting kicks in.
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And the darkness… heaves up.
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Ava collapses, again. But this time, not unconscious. She lies in fetal position on the floor, breathing hard, curling inward.
She reaches for oblivion. And finds comfort there.
In cosmic dreamlike void. Ava was floating, surrounded by fragments, like glass shards, each holding a different memory... Mark holding Eve, Nolan hovering over a burning city, Debbie's silhouette.
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Blow after blow rains down.
Not on her body… but on her soul.
And the "why" eludes her.
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Her form cocoons in the darkness. Swirling shadows wrap her like gauze. Her expression softens. She sees faces, not with fear, but longing.
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She sees their faces.
Strange. Familiar.
And somehow... beautiful.
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A glowing, flickering image of Mark, looking directly at her. He does not speak. He only smiles sadly, and then fades.
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Time has no meaning here.
Only hunger.
For connection. For weight. For truth.
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Back to reality. Ava sits cross-legged in a GDA containment room, isolated, monitored by four layers of security. The light is dull. The room is stark.
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She couldn't say how long she had been here.
Hours? Days?
A lifetime born in fragments.
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She runs her hand along the metal wall, pausing when her fingertips find a thin crack — evidence of her own outburst.
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She yearns to understand.
Not just her power.
But her purpose.
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The fire inside flickers but doesn't die. The first question burns like a star.
" Who am I?"
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Outside the containment chamber, Cecil watches from a control room with Donald beside him, wrist bandaged.
Donald:" She nearly broke me in half. But... I don't think she wanted to."
Cecil:" She's processing faster than expected. Maybe too fast."
On a screen behind them, Ava's vitals. All over the place. Neural patterns spiking erratically. But there's a clear increasing pattern of cognitive self-awareness.
Donald hesitates, then asks.
Donald:" You're not thinking of field deployment already… are you?"
Cecil stares at Ava through the monitor. His expression unreadable.
Cecil:" She was made to survive the war Mark might not. We don't have the luxury of waiting for her to find herself."
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Inside the chamber, Ava closes her eyes. One word escapes her lips.
Ava:" ...Mark."
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A whisper across galaxies of DNA and destiny.
A name not hers.
And yet… part of her.
The beginning... of everything.
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TO BE CONTINUED...