Liza was sitting on the metal bed in her room, her small legs dangling and her fingers intertwined. The barred window turned the dim twilight light into thin lines on the floor. The young nurse, Ms. Garrett, entered with a tray of medicine.
Liza lifted her head: "When is Martha coming back?"
The nurse hesitated. She placed the medicine on the table beside the bed. "Martha... isn't here anymore."
"I know. But when is she coming back? She promised to bring me a new storybook."
The nurse took a deep breath. She sat on the edge of the bed. "Sometimes... people leave forever. Like birds that fly to warmer places."
Liza looked at her hands. Her nails, which used to be painted pink, were now short and bitten. "So she lied? Her promise was a lie?"
The nurse gently placed a hand on Liza's shoulder. "No... sometimes people have to leave. Even if they don't want to."
Liza stared at the window. Outside, autumn leaves were falling from the trees. "So now I have no one."
The nurse tried to smile: "I'm here. And your brother..."
"Yan is leaving too!" Liza suddenly screamed, "Everyone leaves! Mom left, Martha left, and now Yan..."
Her tears rolled down her cheeks like shattered pearls. The nurse hugged her, but Liza pulled away.
"I promise Yan will come back," the nurse whispered.
Liza gave her a look, a look too old for an eight-year-old. "You're lying too. All of you lie."
The head nurse, Ms. Holt, approached the young nurse with a grim expression. "Was she asking again?"
Garrett nodded. "She misses Martha. Really... can't we tell her anything?"
Holt glanced around and then said quietly, "Protocol 42 means no mention of absences. If the kids find out what happens to their friends, all control is lost."
Garrett looked into Liza's room. Through the door, the sound of her quiet sobbing could be heard. "But this is inhuman. An eight-year-old child..."
"It's the job." Holt handed her a sheet. "Double her sedative tonight. She'll likely be transferred to the special unit tomorrow morning."
Garrett looked at the sheet. In bold letters, it read: Subject: Transfer of Patient 083 to Research Unit.
Her hands began to tremble. "But why? Is something wrong with her?"
Holt narrowed her eyes: "Don't ask too many questions, Garrett. Remember the contract you signed."
And then she disappeared into the silence of the long hallway, the sound of her shoes clicking like the ticking of an apocalyptic clock.
The room suddenly turned cold. Even before the door opened, Liza felt something had changed. The nurses stiffened, standing straight like soldiers at the arrival of a general. The door opened with a soft sound.
At first, she only saw his shadow, taller and thinner than any person she had ever seen. Then she saw the mask, reflecting the light in strange ways, one half smooth and angelic, the other half covered in lines like veins of an autumn leaf.
Nimbus stepped forward. His shoes made no sound on the floor. The nurses silently left the room. The door closed behind him.
Liza pressed herself against the bedframe. Her small hands clutched the sheets.
"Lizabeth Schultz." Nimbus' voice sounded like the whispers of hundreds of people rising from the depths of a deep well. "Do you know why you're here?"
Liza shook her head. Her throat had gone dry.
Nimbus stretched out his gloved hand and dragged his fingertips across the dusty bedside table, leaving trails behind.
"You are special. You have something inside you that others don't." He tilted his head. "Martha was like you. Now she is somewhere she can use that gift."
Liza dared to whisper: "Is... is she alive?"
The mask shifted slightly, perhaps a nod. "Life has many definitions. I offer you a better one."
His hand reached toward her. The leather glove smelled strange, like rain and something else... something like hot wires.
"Come with me. You can see Martha again. You can live where there is no pain, no hunger."
Liza looked at the door where the nurses had gone. She thought of her brother, of the promise he had made.
"Yan is coming back for me..."
Nimbus bent down until he was at her eye level. Behind the mask, his breathing sounded like wind through metal pipes.
"Yan is a hero. But heroes... always arrive too late."
His hand came closer. On the palm of the glove was a strange symbol, a spiral turning into a star.
"The choice is yours. You can stay here, waiting for something that will never come... or you can fly."
Liza looked at the outstretched hand. She remembered Martha, the days they jumped on the bed pretending they could fly. Slowly, she raised her small hand... then took Nimbus' and went with him.
One Month Later, Yan stood once more before the heavy doors of New Eden. This time, the guards didn't even check his card. They just looked at him and opened the door.
"Liza?"
Her room was empty. The bed neatly made, the sheets clean, as if no one had ever been there. On the bedside table, only a cloth doll remained, the one Yan had bought her.
A new nurse, one he didn't recognize, said in a monotone voice: "Your sister was taken to a special camp. A program for gifted children. It'll probably take a few weeks."
Yan stared at the doll. One of its button eyes had fallen off. "A few weeks?"
The nurse shrugged. "Depends. But don't worry, they have the best facilities."
He asked no questions. Made no protest. Just picked up the doll and put it in his coat pocket. "Thanks," he said, turning toward the exit.
Hours later, Emilia placed a steaming cup of tea in front of Yan. This time, she didn't even ask what was wrong. His face said everything.
"They took her," Yan slumped onto the couch. "Wouldn't even say where. Like she never existed."
Emilia slammed her cup down. "So what are you gonna do?"
Yan unfolded the crumpled note Garrett had given him. On it was written: Sektor 9-B.
"I want to know what this 'Project Application' is. And I want Liza back."
Emilia looked out the window, into the darkness. "If you go, you might not come back."
"I know," Yan said. "But I don't have a choice anymore."
A vast space enclosed by towering concrete walls that seemed to stretch into the sky. The ground was paved with cracked gray stones, weeds sprouting through the fissures, as if even the earth wanted to escape.
From the metal mesh ceiling above, rusted chains dangled, remnants of lights that once illuminated this place, now swaying like skeletons of dead birds in the cold wind.
In one corner, corroded pipes bled rust-red streaks down the walls, like dried blood.
At the center of this suffocating space stood fifty people:
A newborn baby crying in its trembling mother's arms.
An old man hunched over a wooden walker, his knees too weak to hold him.
A young woman with patchy hair, her sunken eyes fixed on the ground.
And the rest, men and women, young and old, all in thin gray uniforms, numbered tags pinned to their chests.
Soldiers in black masks and rifles stood in a silent ring around them. Not moving. Not even breathing audibly.
Then, from the iron gate at the far end, four figures entered.
Nimbus led the way, his mask casting eerie shadows in the dying light. His gray suit hissed like snake scales with every step.
To his left walked the old man in the charcoal coat, his dead eyes scanning the crowd like livestock.
To his right, a tall man in a white lab coat, rubber gloves on, a tablet glowing with red and blue graphs in his hand.
And behind them, a figure in a metal helmet and mesh visor, clutching a black briefcase as if it held millions.
Silence. Even the newborn had stopped crying, as if instinct warned it to make no sound.
Nimbus stepped onto a small concrete platform in the center. As the last light hit his mask, for just a moment, something like a real face seemed to flicker beneath the gold.
Then he knelt, hands on his head, as if mad. And spoke:
"O mad ones, the gods will judge. God will judge. You will reach madness. God will judge. I will judge. I am God. I am your God. You are my servants. You are my dolls. I do not need you, but you need me. I will judge."
He stood, arms outstretched.
"This moment is significant. Soon, you will be saved. Death. Death will save us. You are redundant. You are waste. Errors in the equation of evolution. Your only value is in your pain, in screams no one will hear. Tonight, you become something greater than human,you become data. You become memory. Your suffering is not trash. Your suffering is fuel. For my soul. And I, I alone have the courage to turn your tears into blood. So weep. Scream. The more you struggle, the purer our results. And when it's over, not even God will know you were here. Speak of gods, for the mute live easier than the wise. And speak of devils, for gods love devils. Weep. Suffer. For gods delight in it. And if you seek God's comfort... die."
Nimbus snatched the newborn from its mother's arms. She resisted, but a soldier struck her face with the butt of his rifle.
"Shadows of fear and remorse will form, and freedom will become death. Today, you pay. Today is judgment day, and God will judge. And now, judgment comes for this creature. This thing. I am freed from this life. I am not kind. I am not your friend. Today, you are mine. My animals. My dolls. My whores. Judgment day begins now... for this creature."
Nimbus carried the baby away as the mother screamed. The soldiers dragged her off.
Now, Nimbus and the three men were alone in a room.
First came the acid, a clear liquid sliding in a glass vial. Drip by drip onto the baby's left arm. At first, just wetness. Then the skin tingled. Then burned. The flesh changed color, pink to red, then pale yellow. Blisters formed, filled with yellow fluid. The baby opened its mouth but made no sound.
Next, the needles, long and thin, stainless steel. The first slid under the fingernail of its right index finger. Slowly, millimeter by millimeter. The nail lifted from the bed, dark blood oozing out. Ten needles for ten fingers. Each scream met with a soldier wiping the blood away to continue.
Its clothes were cut away with surgical scissors. The fabric fell to the bloody floor. Its small hands were strapped to a metal table with leather restraints. Its trembling legs were spread apart.
A man in rubber gloves smeared black oil over its genitals. When he raped the baby, something tore. Then they all took turns, especially Nimbus.
Fresh blood dripped to the floor, mixed with other things.
The eyes were scooped out with specialized spoons, first the right. The eyelids held open with clamps. The metal spoon slid beneath the eyeball, a quick twist, and pink tissue came free. The optic nerve snapped like a white umbilical cord. The left eye resisted, it took two tries to fully remove.
Its black hair was shaved from its scalp with clippers. Sometimes the blades nicked the skin, leaving red lines on the bare skull.
Then came the scalpels. Starting at the back of the neck, a clean incision along the spine. The skin peeled away like fruit. Yellow fat glistened underneath.
When it was done, what had once been a baby boy lay on the concrete floor, a mass of glistening muscle and exposed bone, breathing in short, rapid gasps. Blood pooled from dozens of wounds, but the heart still beat. The lungs still drew air.
They left, the last light of day shining on the heap of meat and blood.
The soldiers stood motionless. The prisoners remained silent. Only the sound of ragged breathing came from the ruined thing on the ground, until night fell, and everything was swallowed by darkness.
They were pulled from the crowd, a gaunt seventeen-year-old boy with hollow eyes and his mother, her hair wild, her gray uniform hanging off her shaking body.
The soldiers took them to the same room where the previous victim's blood hadn't yet dried.
The boy was forced to his knees. A gun pressed to his mother's temple.
"If you refuse, we'll take her eyes first... then her fingers, one by one..."
At first, the boy resisted. But when the knife touched his mother's throat, he wept and surrendered.
His mother sobbed her consent.
They laid her on her back, her trembling legs spread and tied to metal stakes. Her dry vagina was forced open.
The boy licked her until she was wet.
He was made to grope her sagging breasts, bite her dark nipples. When his half-hard cock entered her, she bled.
She didn't scream, just panted, like a rabbit with a broken leg.
They grabbed her hair and slammed her head against the floor. Her wrinkled ass trembled in the air.
The boy had to lick her armpits as he fucked her, her sweat and stench coating his tongue.
A man pressed a lit cigarette to her back to make him move faster.
Then the boy lay down, and his mother rode him. He entered her ass, still full of shit.
She was forced to open her mouth. He came on her face. When she spat, they poured diluted acid into her mouth. Her tongue and gums burned, turning white.
They made him rape her again, this time, she couldn't scream, only gurgle through her scorched throat.
After, they strapped her to the metal table. Poured acid on her spread thighs. Her burned vagina and asshole turned dark brown. The smell of cooked meat filled the air.
With a scalpel, they carved spirals into her stomach. The loose skin peeled easily.
When the boy begged, they pulled out her intestines and poured her dark shit into his mouth. Made him swallow.
They crushed his finger bones with a hammer. Each blow made his mother scream louder.
When he passed out, they revived him with an injection, so he'd remember everything.
They left them, the mother now a heap of burned flesh and blood, but still breathing. The boy knelt beside her, his eyes unseeing.
The soldiers laughed and prepared for the next victim.