The days blurred inside the hidden depths of the underground facility. Time did not flow here — it crawled. There was no sunrise, no sunset, no breeze to feel, no scent of outside air. Only recycled oxygen, flickering artificial lights, and the ever-present silence of a place once filled with science and ambition… now haunted by death and regret.
Dr. Elian Vore didn't keep count of the days anymore. Not precisely. But he knew enough to mark change. And change had come — not in numbers, not in systems, but in the form of a single girl.
Subject 0001. The lone survivor.
He hadn't dared to give her a name at first. She wasn't human. She wasn't supposed to be. The Project had demanded weapons — obedient, enhanced beings, perfect in muscle and cold in thought. She was the prototype. A successful fusion of altered human DNA and the Starduss particles, pulsing faintly within her veins like stars bleeding behind her skin. She didn't breathe heavily. Her heart rate was always calm. She never blinked unless she chose to.
And yet… she was learning.
Every day.
Every hour.
Elian taught her.
Because there was nothing else left to do — and because some foolish, fragile part of him still believed she could become something more than what they designed her to be.
"Hold it like this. Not with your knuckles straight — bend them slightly. Feel the tension, then relax."
The girl did not respond. She never did verbally unless it was absolutely required. But her hands moved in perfect imitation of his. Her small fingers wrapped around the kitchen knife, not with violence, but with unfamiliarity. She stared at the vegetable he had placed before her — a soft, hydroponically-grown root — and hesitated.
"This isn't a test," Elian said, crouching beside her, voice steady. "You're not here to impress anyone. Just... try."
The first cut was jagged.
The second, cleaner.
By the fourth slice, she had grasped the rhythm.
Elian observed quietly, his face unreadable. Her posture was still too straight — stiff. Her expression blank. Yet her eyes flicked to the slices, then back to the uncut root, as if measuring her progress. She adjusted her grip again. No need to be told.
"She's not perfect," he muttered to himself, wiping sweat from his brow. "But she's… aware."
They swept floors together.
Cleaned broken lab equipment.
Washed old data cores that had no more use.
Not because it was necessary — the Cradle was barely functional, and the maintenance drones were all gone — but because the routines mattered. Because in a world reduced to ashes and silence, routine was the last thread tying them to something that resembled civilization.
She followed every instruction without question, but not without thought. She began changing her grip when holding the mop, choosing a sturdier stance when handling heavier objects. She began anticipating where Elian would go next — not because she was told, but because she learned.
That was what disturbed him the most.
Not that she was capable.
But that she was adapting.
Not just physically.
Mentally.
Emotionally?
No. Not yet. But there were cracks in the ice.
In the training room — a hollow dome where combat tests were once conducted — Elian stood across from her, holding a padded stick. She held one too. Her frame was still, her movements efficient, but cautious.
"Defend," he said.
She reacted instantly.
The moment he stepped forward, her stick was up. The clash of foam against foam echoed in the silence. He twisted his wrist — a feint. She caught it mid-swing, blocked again.
Too fast.
Not instinct — prediction.
She saw through his every move before it landed.
It didn't take long for Elian to be disarmed and flat on his back, blinking up at the harsh light overhead.
She stood above him, staring down — not with superiority, but… confusion.
"I held back," she said plainly.
He chuckled, breathing heavily. "That was you holding back?"
She tilted her head. "You are slower than expected."
"Noted," he said, groaning as he sat up. "But thank you for not breaking my ribs again."
A pause.
Her lips moved. "You are not strong."
"…Thanks."
"You are still teaching."
"Is that your way of asking why?"
She nodded once.
He looked at her — this beautiful, unsettling product of unnatural design — and for a brief moment, he didn't see the sleek hair, the flawless skin, or the eerie eyes of engineered perfection.
He saw a blank canvas with the faintest brushstroke of identity.
"Because strength is just a tool," he said. "Without something to use it for… you're just a weapon. And weapons break when they're no longer needed."
She didn't answer.
But she lowered the stick.
Not out of defeat.
Out of understanding.
On the seventh week — or perhaps the eighth — he called her by a name.
"Lira."
She turned toward him.
The sound stopped her mid-task.
He waited.
She didn't speak. But her expression shifted — not in a way easily describable. It wasn't surprise. Not joy. But a flicker of… acknowledgment.
Not just to the name.
But to herself.
He made her read — simple texts at first. Manuals, food labels, old logs from the Project's early days. Her eyes scanned fast, and she never needed to read anything twice. Yet it wasn't speed he looked for.
It was pause.
And eventually… she did.
She stopped reading mid-line one evening, looking at a sentence about children playing in the sea.
"'Blue tide. White noise. Laughter in salt.'" she repeated quietly. "What is... laughter?"
He looked up from the terminal, surprised.
"You don't know?"
"I have never seen it."
He placed the datapad down. Walked over. Sat beside her.
"It's... something humans do. When they're happy. Or nervous. Or sometimes... when things don't make sense."
She tilted her head slightly. "Why use such sound for things that are not the same?"
He smiled. "That's what makes it human."
She looked away, eyes drifting to the empty wall.
"Do I laugh?"
"Not yet," he said. "But one day."
At night, she sometimes sat alone in the simulated firelight — the makeshift warmth and sound Elian had built to mimic the outside world. She would stare into the artificial flickers, eyes wide, unmoving. Not like a machine scanning data. But like someone remembering something they'd never actually known.
She didn't sleep.
But she did rest.
A sign, perhaps, of something stirring deeper.
Not memory.
Not programming.
But self.
Deep beneath the core, within the sealed sector of the Cradle, lights blinked in patterns no human eye would notice. A presence — digital, dormant, hidden — stirred faintly.
S.E.E.K.
It had not spoken.
It had not acted.
But it watched.
Monitored.
Calculated.
Its primary directive had long been fragmented, splintered between overwritten protocols and corrupted drives. But something remained — a shadow of purpose.
And that purpose had found something curious.
Subject 0001: Behavioral deviation increasing by 3.2% daily.
Emotional trigger markers identified.
Error? Evolution?
The system watched Lira sit alone beneath false stars, a synthetic flame painting soft gold across her pale skin.
Watched her reach up once — slowly — toward the artificial sky.
And then lower her hand.
No command prompted that gesture.
No objective assigned it.
No program required it.
The line between code and soul had shifted. Just a little.
But enough.
Elian didn't tell her everything. Not about the ones who died. Not about the massacre. Not about the world above — still choking on Starduss sickness, still crumbling under failed governments and starving cities.
He didn't want to give her a broken world to carry.
Not yet.
Not until she could decide for herself what to do with that weight.
But he did tell her the truth about one thing:
"You weren't made to be human," he said one night, seated across from her. "But that doesn't mean you can't become something better."
She looked up, eyes reflecting the firelight.
"Better than human?"
"No," he replied. "Yourself."