Timestamp: January 27th, 20XX — 1:52 A.M.
Location: Sub-Basement Alpha, Hollow Room — South Dakota Sector
Status: First Contact Established — Candidate 0 Awakened
⸻
"You're late."
Two words.
His voice wasn't weak, but raw — like the air itself was unfamiliar to his lungs.
It hadn't been used in years, maybe more.
Derik didn't blink.
Didn't flinch.
He stared at the pale, sun-starved figure before him — the same bone structure, the same storm buried beneath the skin — and realized:
He wasn't looking at a victim.
He was looking at what he could've become, if someone hadn't opened the cage.
⸻
Ash stayed in the doorway, eyes wide, hand near the weapon at his belt, unsure if this was a rescue… or an awakening of something worse.
Derik spoke softly.
"Do you know who I am?"
The boy — Zero — tilted his head. The sound of bone creaking echoed through the room. He crawled closer along the padded floor, barefoot, knees cracked open from years of movement without standing fully.
He placed his palm against the glass.
"Same face.
But you smell different.
You smell like fire."
Derik looked at the palm. Thin, strong, calloused — no softness left.
"They said you failed," Derik whispered.
"But you lived. Which means you endured something they didn't plan for."
Zero's eyes twitched — recognition flickering. He murmured:
"They gave me noise once.
Then they took it away.
I bit the one who brought the music.
She didn't come back."
Derik frowned.
That meant there had been handlers. Briefly. Which also meant:
Someone remembered Zero.
Someone chose to lock him away again.
And they were still alive.
⸻
The Door Opens
Derik activated the manual override, slowly unlocking the magnetic seal.
Ash raised his weapon.
"Are you sure, Derik?"
"He hasn't moved to attack."
"Neither do wolves when they're studying you."
The last bolt gave a metallic click.
Zero didn't move.
Derik opened the door.
And for the first time in over a decade, Zero stepped into the world beyond the cage.
He stood unsteady. His knees buckled, legs trembling — but he didn't fall. His muscles held. Eyes darted around, sensitive to even the faint red light above.
Derik offered him a thick blanket. Zero didn't take it.
He looked at Derik's hands.
"You kill too."
"Yes," Derik replied.
"Good. Then we understand."
⸻
The Room of Records
Behind the Hollow Room, down a side corridor no one else had touched in years, they found an access point. A reinforced archive door.
Derik broke it open with a manual code — something he'd reverse-engineered from the handler's access tag in VEX-7.
Inside: video logs, research files, bloodwork, failed trial documents.
One log caught Derik's eye. Timestamped 10 years ago, shortly after Zero's final containment.
It played grainy video. A scientist, face masked. Speaking softly:
"Subject [0] is nonverbal. Aggressive under stimulation. No psychological shaping has succeeded.
Termination was denied due to anomalous resistance levels.
His genome is too valuable.
He'll be sealed and preserved until we can reverse-engineer the failure."
Pause.
"Note: Behavior has started to mimic pre-language bonding.
Last 48 hours, Subject 0 scratches the same shape into the wall over and over.
A triangle. Inverted. Bleeding from his fingertips.
Recommending psychiatric observation."
⸻
Derik turned the feed off.
Zero had wandered to the far wall. He crouched and began scratching something faintly into the rusted steel with his fingernail.
Ash leaned close.
"Is that a triangle?"
"Yes," Derik said.
Then looked at Zero.
Their eyes locked again.
"Why that shape?"
Zero answered without pause.
"Because in the dark, everything points down."
⸻
Final Reveal — Closing Frame
As they exited the Hollow Room, Zero stopped in the corridor and said something unexpected:
"There's another one. Not like me.
He talks too much.
He knew I was here.
He comes sometimes and watches through the vent."
Derik's eyes sharpened.
"What did he look like?"
Zero touched his own cheek, then said:
"Like a lie that learned to walk."
End of Chapter Twelve