At first, the room hesitated. Silence pressed heavy, as if none of us knew how to answer.
Then, slowly, a rhythm began to rise; quiet murmurs, then whispers, then shy voices stumbling over names. It wasn't laughter exactly, but something close to it. These children were… smiling.
I had never seen them smile before, not once. Behind the glass walls, they had always looked drained, feral, or blank. But now their expressions had shifted. Fangs that had always jutted angrily from mouths retracted, teeth returning to human form.
Their pale, corpse-like skin flushed faintly with colour, as if blood had remembered how to flow again. Even those furious eyes, once wild and red-stained, softened under her gaze, their anger dimming with each word she spoke.
It was as though her voice itself carried a spell – calm, warm, and disarming. The air, usually so heavy and suffocating, seemed lighter for a brief, fragile moment.
I found myself staring, wondering if this was what normal children were supposed to look like.
But what confused me most was how they were smiling. Their lips moved so easily, curling upward as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
I wanted to do it too, desperately but my own lips felt heavy, as though weighed down by stone. No matter how hard I tried, they wouldn't bend. Or maybe… I simply didn't know how it's done. I couldn't remember ever doing it.
One by one, they introduced themselves. Their names carried softly through the air, their voices trembling at first but then steadying with courage.
Each child gave their age, and some even spoke of school where they had gone before, how far they had reached, the lessons they remembered.
While I, sat quietly, my eyes darting from face to face as I admired the ease with which they spoke, and the confidence in their tone. More than that, I envied how they remembered who they were, as though their pasts had not been stolen.
Every name sounded like a thread tying them back to something real. Something I no longer had.
When it was my turn, my face stayed blank. If you had asked me then, I couldn't have told you what 'introduce yourself' even meant. The words felt foreign, and hollow, like echoes of a language I had once known but had long since forgotten.
My name, if I had one, was gone, swallowed by the sterile walls of the White Unit. A year inside this place had stripped me bare, even of the simplest thing like the sound of my own identity.
The silence dragged on, and I could feel the weight of every gaze pressing into me, their eyes loud with impatience, screaming the words they didn't dare speak aloud – "Say your name already, and let us move on."
But nothing came to mind. My throat worked, but no words formed.
The young woman standing before us tilted her head slightly, her pink eyes softening. She didn't press, didn't scold, and didn't try to pry the answer from me either. To her, I must have looked like a child too shy to speak up, too timid to let my voice be heard.
She had no way of knowing that it wasn't shyness, it was emptiness. She couldn't have guessed then, that I had lost more than just my voice. That I had lost the very pieces of memory that told me who I was.
She brushed the moment aside with effortless grace, her smile never fading, her voice light, as though she had planned for such silences. "Okay then, how about I give you some presents? It's not much, but I think you'll love it. And along with them comes your first study equipment."
The tension in the room eased instantly. Heads tilted up. Even the most withdrawn among the children seemed to stir.
At the door, a man appeared, carrying a long cardboard box with careful arms. He set it down before Seraphyne, who bent and drew out its contents with almost ceremonial care.
She moved from desk to desk, her presence warm, the faint scent of her silk brushing past as she placed three items before each child: a sleek tablet with its slim pen, and a small gift box wrapped neatly, the faint rattle inside promising candy.
Murmurs rippled through the rows, a soft chorus of wonder. Some children traced trembling fingers over the smooth glass surface of the tablets as though afraid it might vanish. Others clutched the gift box tight against their chest, holding onto it like treasure.
"Think of these tablets as your books," she explained, her tone both gentle and teasing. "You won't need to slide your hands anymore, they came with their very own pens… haha."
Her laugh was light, and disarming, carrying a warmth that reached me in a way few sounds ever did. It slipped past the walls of my silence and settled somewhere deep in my chest, an unfamiliar comfort.
---
Beside us, Drewman stood just beyond the glass wall, hands rested firmly in his pockets. From the children's side, the panel revealed nothing, only a faint blur, but from where he stood, every detail of the classroom was visible.
His eyes lingered not on the group as a whole, but on one small figure: the boy who sat blank, lost in silence, unable even to recall his own name.
Beside him, a doctor shifted uneasily, his voice breaking the quiet.
"Director Drewman… do you believe this will work? It looks like it will take years. Seraphyne may be the perfect person for this role, yes, but…" The doctor hesitated, lowering his voice. "Fiel probably doesn't even remember his mother's name. I doubt he even remembers his own. Every day, it's as if another piece of him fades. How can he master anything in time?"
The doctor leaned subtly forward, trying to read Drewman's face. But the director gave him nothing. His profile was carved in stone, expression locked, lips pressed into a thin line, eyes unreadable.
The silence stretched too long, pressing heavy in the corridor. Finally, the doctor swallowed and whispered again, almost pleading:
"Director Drewman… I am afraid he may never master them in time."
"Lynk…" Drewman finally spoke, his voice slow and deliberate, breaking the silence like a blade sliding from its sheath. "Do not worry yourself too much. To see his parents, Fiel will do anything. All you need to ensure is that he never forgets them, he never stops yearning to see them again."
The doctor blinked at the certainty in Drewman's tone, though unease still clouded his eyes.
Drewman turned, his shoes clicking against the polished floor as he walked down the corridor, the blurred glass casting pale reflections over his shoulders. His laughter, low and humorless, trailed behind him.
"Besides, as he is right now, that man won't have the slightest interest in him. As a vessel, Fiel is still far too weak. That man might even fall sick just by looking at him. So, you see… we still have time before he decides to come for our heads. Haha…"
The laugh echoed off the sterile walls, empty and cold. Lynk remained frozen, his heart thudding as though the corridor had grown colder with every word.
Drewman let out another short laugh, the sound clipped and humorless, as if he were amusing only himself. "Right now, he's useless to that man, so he won't need him. Let's take it a step at a time. Besides…" His eyes lingered once more on the blur of the classroom beyond the glass, "he will need this education in the future. It was that man's request that we teach him everything. I wonder what he'll demand next."
The words fell heavy between them, but what lingered longer was the name left unspoken. That man. Neither Drewman nor the doctor dared utter it aloud. The very thought of him carried weight sharp enough to slice through their composure.
For a moment, Drewman's amusement faltered. His features tightened, jaw set, a shadow twitching over his expression. Just speaking of the man twisted his face into something colder, and more brittle, as though recalling the memory of a power too immense to challenge.
Lynk swallowed hard, his lips parting as if to speak, but no sound came. Even he understood: some names were too dangerous to give voice to.
Once Drewman turned to leave, he paused for a moment, his gaze drifting back to the glass before him. His eyes locked on me as I squinted at the gift box in my hands, as though it was some puzzle I couldn't quite solve.
He lingered, watching in silence, then finally turned away, his footsteps fading down the corridor.
---
At the very bottom of the box, hidden beneath the last of the tablets and gift boxes, a folded sheet of paper remained. Seraphyne plucked it up, unfolding it with casual ease until her eyes skimmed the first lines.
Her heart skipped. The words weren't addressed to the children, but to her.
Curriculum: Within two months, ensure full literacy – reading, writing, comprehension of core knowledge about the outside world. Within four months, mastery of essence channeling and basic combat. Within six months, initiation into pacts, creation of domains, acquisition of techniques.
Her jaw went slack. The page trembled in her hand.
"Whaaat…?!" The word slipped out before she caught herself. She pressed her lips shut, glancing quickly at the children, thankful their eyes were too busy marveling at the gifts to notice her near-outburst.
Her thoughts reeled. This is insane. Six months? Even the brightest prodigies at the academies spend years building such foundations. Literacy alone requires patience, nurture, and time. And essence channeling? Combat mastery? Pacts and domains? This isn't schooling, this is an accelerated weaponization of children.
She almost crumpled the paper in her fist, but forced her hand to still. A bitter thought rose in her chest.
I know I signed the contract… Yes.
Yes she had, she had agreed without hesitation, swept up by the promises of knowledge, by the honor of the post, by the intrigue of these hidden children. The contract had been clear: do anything required of their education, and never question their nature.
And yet, how could she not question now?
Her pink eyes flicked up, sweeping across the classroom. The children didn't look like the faces she remembered from the world outside. Pale skin, jagged fangs, strange horns, eyes marked by red or shadow. They looked… altered. Stripped of normal childhood, reshaped into something she wasn't sure she could name.
I hate to admit that they all looked scary at first.
Her gaze halted, locking onto one boy 'me' in particular. He sat with the gift box clutched between small hands, his blue-tinged eyes distant, and detached, as though even joy was something foreign to him.
The only one who looks close to normal… is him. But even he feels weird. His too quiet, and too detached, and too still, like everything is new to him. I wonder if he even talks or if he's mute.
Her throat tightened, a chill sweeping through her chest, and for the first time since stepping into the White Unit Facility, she felt the weight of her choice pressing down on her.
Oh, gods. What have I signed myself into?