Epigraph
"The flesh remembers what it was before we changed it. That is why it scream."
-Dr. Ilyen Morat, Chief of Ascendant Biogenesis.
Morning didn't come gently. It roared in.
A siren blared through the dormitory like an air raid. Steel shutters rattled. Lights flickered from red to white, bleaching out the shadows.
Aiden shot upright, chest heaving, the last echo of a dream fading - a white corridor, and that hum again. The Choir. Always there, just below the edge of hearing.
Kieran's voice cut through the noice "Is it too late to defect? I'll join the invaders if they let me sleep in."
A guard barked. "On your feet!"
The recruits scrambled. Boots slammed the floor. Aiden pulled on his fatigues, stiff and still damp from yesterday's sweat. His hands shook a little. He hated that.
"Let's go!"
The door hissed open. They were herded out like cattle, down corridors that smelled of oil and antiseptic. The walls were smooth metal, humming faintly as if the whole building breathed.
Kieran muttered, "Ever get the feeling that this place might have been a hospital? It sure does feel like on."
Aiden groaned. "Feels more like a grave."
That shut Kieran up for a bit.
The training hall was waiting vast, gray, windowless. Rows of metal racks lined the walls, holding weights, rifles, and stretchers.
At the center stood Instructor Kael.
She didn't need to shout to command attention. She just was authority shoulders squared, eyes like cold fire.
"Candidates," she said. "Until implantation, you are
unfit for combat. But you will learn to have discipline, you will learn from your pain, and you will move when you want to fail."
She gestured sharply. "Pick up the weights in front of you."
Metal clattered as soldiers rolled carts in. Each recruit got a sandbag. Some looked manageable; others looked like they could crush a spine.
Kieran eyed his and groaned. "This ones bigger than my hopes."
"Pick it up," Kael said without even looking at him.
Kieran picked it up. He nearly toppled over.
The first hour was walking. Endless circles. The sound of dozens of recruits panting, boots scraping concrete, and Kael's voice cutting through whenever someone slowed down.
Aiden's shoulders burned. His back screamed. His lungs were on fire.
One recruit a kid with a shaved head and a scar over his lip collapsed halfway through. Kael didn't even stop walking. She just pointed, and two guards dragged him away.
Nobody asked where they were taking him.
Aiden glanced sideways. Kieran was still moving, face red, teeth gritted. "Remind me," Kieran gasped, "why we volunteered to do this."
"We didn't." Aiden answered.
Kaufen blinked sweat out of his eyes. "Oh.. right."
Another recruit vomited mid step. Karl didn't even flinch.
When she finally said, "drop them." The sound of sandbags hitting the ground was almost musical. Recruits fell beside them, gasping.
Karl paced the line, arms crossed behind her back. "Pain teaches faster than comfort. Pain is the only honest teacher left in this shamble of a world."
She stopped in front of Aiden. Her eyes lingering.
"You held form," she said. "Barely, but you don't fight like someone who wants to live."
Aiden met her gaze. "I'm not here to fight for myself."
Her expression didn't change, but something flickered behind her eyes. "That might save, but it can also kill you."
Then she turned away.
The next exercise was worse. Crawling, sprinting, lifting. Over and over until the air stank of sweat and blood.
By the time Kael called an end, most recruits couldn't stand straight.
"Remember this pain," she said." Tomorrow it will feel like a memory compared to what comes next."
Kieran groaned. "Great pep talk."
After dismissal, they staggered back to the barracks.
Dinner was a nutrient block - gray, tasteless, dense. Some recruits were too tired to eat. Others just stared at the floor.
Aiden forced himself to chew. The texture was like chalk and sand.
Kieran poked at his with a fork. "Do you think this is meat? I can't quite tell even if it used to be alive."
"Eat," Aiden said.
Kieran took a bit, gagged, and said. "That's not an answer."
Despite himself, Aiden almost smiled.
Across the hall, someone was whispering a prayer the same zealot girl who had recited scripture during the flight. Her voice was steady but trembling.
"Bless the Ascendancy," she murmured. "Bless the fire that will remake us, may we be found worthy."
Kieran rolled his eyes. "She keeps saying that like it's comforting."
"Maybe it is," Aiden said quietly.
Kieran frowned. "You believe all this crap?"
Aiden didn't answer. He looked at his hands. They were raw, bruised and trembling.
"I believe," he said, "that the world ended. And someone decided to build a new one on top of the ruins of the old one."
"Yeah," Kieran muttered. "And we're the bricks."
The next morning came with the same siren, the same blinding lights. But the guards' faces were different. Harder.
"Candidates," one said. "Formation. You're to head to the Central Chamber."
Nobody asked why. They all knew.
The air felt heavier on the walk down. The corridors narrowed, leading deeper into the complex into the places where the lights buzzed and the air smelled of iron.
Kieran's voice was small now. "You think... they're really turning us into them? Like the ones from yesterday?"
Aiden didn't look at him. "That's what they said."
"They looked... wrong," Kieran whispered. "Like their bones don't fit right."
Aiden said nothing. He could still see them in his mind: the towering figures, the faint glow behind their eyes, the scars like circuitry crawling up their necks.
They had stood too straight. Moved too smoothly. They didn't look human anymore. They looked finished.
And now, he was being told he'd become one of them.
The Choir's hum started again faint, almost inaudible, like a heartbeat behind his thoughts.
For a moment, he could almost make out a word. Not a human one. Something that felt ancient, whispered through static.
Then it was gone.
They entered the central chamber.
Rows of pods lined the walls half mechanical, half biological, each big enough to hold a person. Tubes pulsed with pale fluid. The air was cold enough to sting the skin.
Aiden's stomach twisted.
Kael was there, waiting. So were the Ascendants the same ones from yesterday, motionless behind her like shadows carved from stone.
"Candidates," Kael said. "You've done well to reach this stage, many did not. The next phase will separate the living from the dead."
She gestured toward the pods. "You will undergo implantation. Your bodies will be reforged, your limits erased. The is process... imperfect. Most of you will not survive. That is the price of ascendance."
A murmur run through the recruits, fear, disbelief, quiet sobbing.
Kieran whispered. "This is insane. They can't just..."
"They can," Aiden said. His voice was flat. "They will."
Kael's gaze swept over the recruits. "You were chosen for this. The world is gone. The invaders took it. We are giving you the means of taking it back. If you show fear, remember that this is for the greater good of our dying race."
Silence.
She nodded to the guards. "Prep them."
The recruits were herded to separate lines. Medical staff in gray coats moved quickly, marking arms, scanning vitals.
Aiden stood still as a scanner hummed over his spine. The technician frowned.
"Strong neural resonance," he murmured. "Higher than baseline."
Kael's head turned to them sharply. "How high?"
"Unclear. Might be a sensitivity reaction from his body."
Her eyes narrowed. "Flag him for observation."
The technician marked something on his tablet. Aiden felt a chill crawl up his neck.
He looked across the room and saw Kieran struggling against a nurse who was trying to shave his hair. "Hey! Easy! I like my hair!"
"Regulations," the nurse said. "Hair traps containment."
Aiden caught sight of one of the pods opening. The inside was wet - slick with something translucent, pulsing faintly like muscle. Tubes snaked out from the walls, ending in sharp needles.
It didn't look like a machine. It looked alive.
The hum in Aiden's head grew louder. The Choir was no longer distant. It was here.
And somewhere inside it, he thought he heard breathing.
Kael's voice cut through the haze. "Ascendance begins at dawn."
The doors sealed behind them with a hiss.
Aiden stared at the pods.
He wasn't sure if he was more afraid of dying... or of surviving.