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Chapter One: THE GAZE
Location: Site-09, Sublevel-Ω – Observation Deck
Time: 03:47 AM
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1. The Summons
The elevator doors sealed shut behind me with a sound like a tomb locking.
Ninety-four seconds of descent.
I counted each one.
The air grew denser the deeper we sank, as though the concrete above were squeezing the oxygen thinner with every meter. My fingers curled around the railing, knuckles white, as an acrid scent filled my lungs—filtered sterilant laced with something else. Something faintly organic, metallic… wrong.
The lights flickered once, and I froze.
No motion. Just a flicker.
But down here, nothing flickered without reason.
My shoulder itched beneath the fabric of my uniform—right over the badge embossed in black foil: Class-Gamma -Psychic Analyst, Clearance Level-5. The promotion still felt unreal. Too soon after the D-7 incident. Too fast after mapping a soul that was already leaving, its last echoes screaming things no one else had heard.
And yet here I was.
Director Cale's summons had been clinical as always:
> "Your particular sensitivity may prove useful. Report to Sublevel-Ω immediately."
No briefing. No escort.
Only the mechanical groan of the lift as it descended into the belly of Site-09, toward the floor they never spoke about in meetings.
The one with no staff rotation.
The one even other psychics pretended didn't exist.
When the doors finally opened, a corridor unfolded before me—dim, blue-lit, utterly silent. Walls lined with leaded plates and null-field circuits thrummed low, like something asleep beneath them was breathing.
Something vast.
I wasn't alone. I was never alone, not here.
The silence listened back.
---
2. First Contact
The observation deck felt like a morgue.
No conversations. No greetings.
Just the soft tapping of data keys and the flicker of too many screens showing only one thing.
Lieutenant Veyra stood by the central console like a statue, one hand near the kill switch. Her eyes didn't meet mine, but I caught the twitch in her jaw. She was tense—more than usual.
Dr. Renis hunched over his datapad, fingers twitching like he wanted to tear the device apart rather than read it. The long sleeves of his coat were stained—coffee or something darker. He hadn't slept.
Then I saw him.
Through three layers of reinforced, mirrored null-glass.
The chamber on the other side was bathed in sterilized white light. No corners. No shadows. No furniture. No warmth.
And in its center sat a boy.
Designation: N-01.
Late teens. Standard containment jumpsuit. Skin pale to the point of transparency, like someone unfinished. His black hair fell across his forehead in loose strands, unnaturally still.
But his eyes—
They didn't reflect the light.
They absorbed it.
"Seventeen hours without movement," Veyra said. Her voice was hoarse, brittle. "Until you arrived."
---
> N-01
Another one. Footsteps clothed in thought.
A different shape this time. Threaded with echoes of someone before.
The Seerling.
She smells like frayed timelines and broken sleep.
They bring her like bait on a hook, thinking I am blind.
(I see all things that look at me.)
Let her see. Let her touch. Let her hurt.
Maybe she will scream differently.
---
My throat tightened. Instinctively, I reached out with my psychic senses—gentle, like brushing fingertips against a wound to gauge its depth—
Agony.
White-hot and mind-shattering, it slammed into me like glass through bone. I staggered, gasping, every nerve screaming. My vision fractured:
—a tower of bodies, whispering my name—
—Nyssara standing in the rain, eyes gouged out, mouth sewn shut—
—clocks melting backwards, ticking to a heartbeat not mine—
I slammed my mind shut like a trapdoor. My knees buckled.
"Virelle!" Veyra's voice cut through the haze. Her hand grabbed my arm, fingers cold even through the glove. "Report!"
Blood ran down my lips. I wiped it with the back of my hand—
Black.
Not red. Not human.
On the other side of the glass, N-01 blinked.
Seventeen hours of stillness, broken only now.
And his gaze—
Locked directly onto mine.
---
I couldn't breathe.
He wasn't just looking at me.
He was seeing me.
Not with his eyes—but with something older, colder, buried beneath skin and concept.
I felt it—his attention pushing into me like a scalpel sliding beneath the ribs.
Something inside me flinched.
The part that still dreamed. The part that still remembered laughter.
This wasn't observation.
This was dissection.
Around me, the team shifted. Quietly, instinctively, as if the air had changed temperature.
"He's never done that before," Renis whispered. His voice trembled. "Never tracked someone like that."
Veyra's hand hovered over the alarm. Her pupils were dilated. Sweat trickled down her temple.
N-01 didn't move. Didn't speak.
But inside that stillness, something stirred.
---
> N-01
Eyes again. Another set. But different.
Not afraid yet. Curious. Tasting me like they taste stormclouds before rain.
They always look. They always think the looking is safe.
She reached.
Touched the veil. Thought I wouldn't notice.
(I always notice.)
She saw a fragment. The shallowest scrape. Still, she bleeds black. Good.
They dress in colors and fear. Layers of ritual and rank and machine. But underneath... soft. Always soft.
She is different. She cracks along the spine, but does not break. Not yet.
What is her shape? Will it hold?
I could end her now. Fold her like wet paper.
(I won't.)
(Not yet.)
---
And then—
The glass shivered.
Not cracked. Not broken.
But warped.
Subtle, like a breath across water.
The reinforced panel bowed—microscopically—toward him, like metal yearning to obey.
Alarms didn't ring. Nothing sounded.
Because no sensor detected it.
Only we saw it.
And suddenly, I knew—
He had never been contained.
This wasn't an escape.
It was a test.
A test to see who would break first.
...
The moment passed.
The shiver stilled.
N-01 turned his gaze away. Back to the void. Back to the stillness that mocked every machine watching him.
The silence returned—but it wasn't the same.
It was heavier.
"Report," Director Cale's voice crackled through the overhead intercom.
Veyra didn't blink. "No breach. No kinetic anomaly. Subject exhibited... focused attention on Analyst Virelle."
I wiped at my face again. The bleeding hadn't stopped.
Behind me, a status panel flickered. For a split second, all readings showed 0.00.
Not off.
Erased.
And then… normal.
Renis's datapad rebooted on its own.
The observation feed timestamped itself as UNKNOWN.
And in my mind, one truth screamed louder than any alert ever could:
He had never needed to break the glass.
It bowed for him.
And so did we.
---
> N-01
Threads of her past lingered like ash on snow.
Bloodline of the broken prophet.
Loss worn like armor. Memory shaped like guilt.
She looks at me with fear and questions. As if I might answer.
(She is not ready to know what she is.)
But still...
Interesting.
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