Before the world knelt, he begged someone to stop it.
---
4:00 A.M.
Belarus — Ruins of St. Orel's Orphanage
Naomi's boots crunch over shattered glass.
Fog clings to the ground.
Crows perch on the decaying gate.
Her team fans out, silent.
> "This is where it started," she says.
> "You sure?" Taye asks, scanning the hall.
Naomi nods.
> "Silas Creed. Age six.
First confirmed kill.
A priest with his throat torn open."
She enters the east wing.
The records are gone.
The walls stained.
But something else lingers:
Presence.
---
4:11 A.M.
Room Nine
Door rusted shut. Naomi kicks it in.
Inside:
One cot.
One broken mirror.
One wall, etched with thousands of tally marks.
And one phrase carved in blood above the bed:
> "I asked them to stop. They didn't."
Taye whispers:
> "This wasn't his beginning.
This was his training."
They find a small, rotted journal under the bed.
Written in a child's scrawl:
> "If I hurt them first, they can't make me cry."
"If I make them scream, I can feel something."
"God doesn't come here. So I will become something worse."
---
4:33 A.M.
Simultaneous Events Across the Globe
As Naomi uncovers his origin—
The Choir moves.
Coordinated attacks in:
Mumbai: Subway nerve gas attack. 432 dead.
Cairo: Hospital bombing. 179 dead.
New York: Mass hacking of emergency systems. Fires across 14 districts.
Buenos Aires: Suicide bomber in school. 61 dead.
Berlin: Drone swarm ambush on a peace rally. 92 dead.
Each attack ends the same:
> "For Hollow. For Judgment. Six days left."
---
4:45 A.M.
Naomi Plays an Audio Tape Hidden in Room Nine
It crackles. Damaged. But audible.
A boy's voice.
Silas. Age six.
He whispers:
> "They locked me in for crying.
So I stopped crying."
> "They made me kneel.
So I learned how to make them kneel."
A long silence.
Then, faint sobbing.
> "I'm sorry.
I don't want to be this."
Then the audio cuts.
Naomi's hand trembles as she removes the tape.
> "He wasn't born a monster.
They built him into one."
---
5:00 A.M.
Back at Geneva — Naomi's Speech
She steps to the broadcast podium. The world watches.
> "Six days until Judgment Day.
But Judgment isn't about gods."
> "It's about choices.
And we now choose to stop a legacy of silence."
> "This man was born in a cage.
But he turned his pain into a prison for the world."
> "We will break it.
Not just by killing him — but by exposing every hand that made him."
---
Final Scene
Silas watches her speech.
In a dark cathedral in Prague, surrounded by chanting Choir members.
He's quiet. Still.
Then—he laughs.
> "She finally gets it."
> "But now it's too late."
He picks up a knife and carves into his own arm:
"FIVE."
The blood drips.
The Choir chants louder.
---
Final Line:
> "I cried in Room Nine," Silas whispers,
"now the world will scream in one."
---