The memory wasn't a dream. It came uninvited—quiet and sharp as broken glass. Lasi wasn't fully conscious, just floating beneath thought when it slipped in:
There were things Lasi remembered that no child should remember.
A pale room. Walls that shimmered like breath held in crystal. Voices circling her, gentle and measured.
Lasi wasn't even fully conscious—just drifting somewhere beneath thought—when she remembered being a newborn. Not just small, but aware. Of hands. Of light. Of voices far too calm.
"She's a perfect match."
"No rejection this time. We found the right genetic window."
"The family's compliant. Monitored. Emotionally stable."
"Then all they have to do is raise her. Until the passage ritual."
"No mistakes. If this breaks containment—"
"They know the consequences. No contact. No deviations. Just follow the plan."
The air smelled like bleach and plastic. Someone hummed a lullaby, artificial and hollow. It made her skin itch, even in the memory. Then all they have to do is raise her. Until the Walk.
She had been a newborn. It should have been impossible to remember. But the words had stayed with her, too clear to be dreams, too precise to be imagined. They were part of her now—like something whispered into her bones.
And yet… her parents loved her. Truly loved her.
Her mother always made sure her bed was warm before the cold seasons came. Her father traced the shapes of constellations on the ceiling when the power flickered and the lights went strange. They never raised their voices. Never failed to show up. Even when the rules tightened. Even when the fear grew quiet and sharp between them.
They loved her not because they had to. But because they did.
One evening, she lay on the rug near the hearth, listening to the wind press against the windows. Her mother leaned over her and adjusted the charm at her collarbone, fingers slow and practiced.
"Forty-five seasons," she murmured, the firelight catching in her eyes. "Then the Bright of Light Passage."
Her father stood nearby, still as stone. "We stay close. Always."
"Even in sleep," her mother added. "Especially then."
And Lasi, who never called them anything but Mama and Baba, simply nodded—because she knew. She had always known. Whatever was coming, they were afraid of it. But they would never stop loving her through it.
The projector flashed once—too bright.
Then she was awake from her daydream. And annoyed.
Lasi blinked. The past vanished. She sat upright in her chair in History of Culture and Continuity, trying not to scream.
The professor—a brittle man with too-white teeth and the personality of a vending machine—was mid-rant, pointer in hand, gesturing dramatically to a floating diagram. Lasi rolled her eyes, slouching in her seat.
She raised a hand without waiting to be called. "Why?"
The professor paused. "Why, what?"
Lasi folded her arms. "Why is it an honor? Why is it a responsibility? All I ever hear is tradition this, legacy that—but never why."
A few students snickered.
The professor's smile soured.
"Miss Mackerel, perhaps you'd prefer to explain what you would rather do, instead of honoring the rite that's given structure to civilization itself?"
She didn't flinch.
"I want to be freedom. I want to be free to choose what the damn hell I want. Or not. To not be bound to some mythical cult story masquerading as social duty. To not be told I owe my existence to a ritual that sounds like it came out of a rewritten history book. One without the mind control, but all the control anyway."
She didn't flinch. The room froze.
The professor's eyes narrowed. "You ungrateful little—You're a disappointment. A waste of potential. A chaotic, aimless brat raised by parents who clearly had no idea how to discipline you. If you weren't so busy rebelling, you might actually contribute something instead of spitting on the very culture that shelters you!"
Lasi stood slowly. Her voice dropped.
"You want to talk about bad parenting?"
"Excuse me?"
"You're a limp, useless man who only knows how to take his failures out on his wife and daughter. I saw the reports, Professor Ralin. You should be careful not to kill them next time. Blood leaves a smell—it lingers. Especially around cowards."
Gasps broke across the room. The silence that followed felt electric. The professor's face drained. He opened his mouth—then closed it. Trembling with rage.
"Out. Out, now! Go straight to the Dean's office!" the man jumped with anger like a bull seeing red.
She didn't argue. She just walked.
Her parents were already there when she arrived. Her mother wouldn't meet her eyes. Her father stared like he didn't know what he was looking at.
The Dean's voice droned in the background:
"Lasi, you're the highest-performing student we've had in five cycles. If you applied yourself properly—if you channeled this fire into something productive—you could lead Den. Instead, you sabotage yourself."
Her mother finally spoke. "Why do you always make things so hard?"
Lasi didn't answer.
Because she already knew. She wasn't like them. Never had been. Never would be. She saw it in her reflection sometimes. In the things she remembered that no one else could.
She was a shadow cast by something not yet arrived.
Lasi didn't respond. Because it wasn't her path. It never was. She had always known. Even as a child, something in her was different. Heavier. Wired wrong—or maybe wired right for something else entirely.
She wasn't born into this world. She was placed here. Why? That she is unsure about herself but everything always feels planned or purposeful. No fake. She hated it all. So exhausting.
The dorm door slid open.
Lasi walked in, kicked off her shoes in front of the bathroom door like ticking time bombs, and faceplanted onto the couch with a groan—a sigh that was way too casual for someone who'd just verbally body-slammed a professor.
Scarlet, nested in her blanket burrito with a half-eaten snack tube, didn't look up.
"So… kicked out again?"
"Mild academic disagreement," Lasi muttered, already pulling a pillow over her face.
"You called the Passage Ritual a cult with good branding."
"And?"
Scarlet arched a brow. "Just saying—maybe don't scream your existential crisis during a graded lecture?"
Lasi groaned into the pillow. "It wasn't a crisis. It was commentary."
She kept her voice light, easy, like she didn't care—but her jaw was tight. Underneath the jokes, the heat sat low in her ribs. Not rage exactly—just a sharp, constant ache. That quiet frustration of speaking a language no one else seemed willing to hear.
Everyone treated her like a problem to be managed, a spark that needed snuffing. But no one asked why she burned.
Scarlet tossed a chip in her mouth. "Professor Ralin said you were a disappointment again?"
"He implied it," Lasi said, sitting up. "Like I'm defective because I don't want to worship a mystery I didn't ask to inherit."
Scarlet blinked. "You are kind of defective."
Lasi gave her a sideways look.
"In a charming, high-functioning way," Scarlet added with a grin.
Lasi exhaled through her nose, the hint of a smile tugging at her lips. But inside, her thoughts churned. You can change the body. But not the soul.
That had always lived at the root of her defiance.
She didn't choose to see the world this way—fractured, layered, full of hidden seams—but she couldn't stop. Curiosity ran through her like blood. Confinement—ritual, expectation, tradition—felt like poison.
She didn't want a pre-written destiny. She wanted options. Air. Freedom.