Zero-One landed hard—knees hitting the cold obsidian floor of his deepest memory vault.Dust curled around his fingers as he gripped the ground like it might fall away again.
Lyra looked around, breath catching.They weren't in the future anymore.They were inside a rusted lab.
Fluorescent lights flickered.Metal beds lined the walls like empty coffins.And in the center—
A child.
Hunched. Shaking.
Wires dug into his spine.
Young Zero-One.
"No…" he whispered. "Not here. Not again."
VOID_HEART's voice coiled through the air like oil through water:
"Let's watch what broke you, shall we?"
Zero-One wanted to run.Not out of fear—
But shame.
This was the version of him that wanted to die,not because of pain—but because he didn't know what being alive meant.
The boy in the center didn't cry.
He didn't scream.
He just stared at the monitors, eyes blank, waiting for the next command.
Because he had been raised not as a person—
But as a protocol in flesh.
