The first thing I learned was that breathing hurt.
My chest burned every time it expanded, as if the air itself was too sharp.
I tried to endure the pain, but my body betrayed me. A thin, wet cry that didn't feel like it belonged to me burst out of my throat.
"Uwaah! Uwaah!"
Something pressed against my back.
No—not pressed.
Surrounded.
I opened my eyes. Or at least, I thought I did. Light bled in slowly, fractured and pale, as if filtered through water. Shapes moved beyond it. Tall. Blurred. Upright.
I tried to lift my hands.
They moved, but not the way I told them to—slow, drifting, useless. Panic surged, raw and instinctive, and the sound returned. Louder this time.
Immediately, the shapes reacted.
"So, this one's awake."
A voice. Clear. Calm.
Something shifted. The pressure changed. The burning eased just enough for my thoughts to return—fractured, fragile, but mine.
I wasn't drowning.
I was contained instead.
"Get him out," I heard once more.
They lifted me out of the glass eventually. Hands gloved and careful, like I might shatter. I wanted to cling to them. My body failed me again. They laid me down instead, wrapped tight, immobilized in softness.
Time passed differently after that.
Not in days or nights—those came much later—but in routines.
I thought I understood far more than I should.
But as the days flew by, I came to understand even less.
I grew.
Not freely—deliberately.
Every part of my life followed a structure that existed before I did. Feeding came on schedule. Sleep came when the lights dimmed, not when I was tired.
When I cried outside the expected times, someone watched me longer than usual.
Their expressions never changed.
Some days, they brought objects, colors, sounds, or rhythms.
A screen would light up with shapes that moved in patterns too complex to be random. Music played—various kinds—and they watched our reactions closely.
I wasn't alone.
Sometimes, when they thought we were too young to notice, they spoke among themselves.
"Him too?"
"Not yet."
"Still early."
"Watch the response."
They always used words like child, viability, and obedience.
Some were handled more gently. Held longer. Returned to their rooms with quiet satisfaction written into the adults' posture.
Others were… not.
One glass chamber beside mine was emptied and never refilled. No announcement followed. No pause. The routine simply adjusted around the absence.
As I grew older, the world widened—carefully.
Rooms replaced chambers. Floors replaced soft restraints. Movement became permitted, then encouraged, then measured. I stumbled, crawled, and walked. All under watchful eyes that never pretended not to be there.
They disciplined us, calling it training.
Games with rules. Exercises with objectives. Art sessions that ended the moment frustration appeared. Sports introduced not for fitness, but for response.
"How does he respond to failure?"
"Does he persist?"
"Redirect him."
I didn't know what they wanted.
I only knew they were looking for something.
There were screens too—always screens—but never freely. They showed us stories stripped of chaos. Conflicts that resolved neatly. Triumphs without cost.
No blood.
No grief.
No choice.
They called it age appropriate.
I called it incomplete.
No one ever told me where I came from.
But everyone seemed to know where I should be going.
Names existed, but they were assigned. Files followed us more faithfully than people. Sometimes I heard phrases drift through the halls:
"Donation batch."
"Clean intake."
"Low-risk origin."
I didn't understand them fully—but I understood enough.
I belonged to those above me.
The word spark reached me the way thunder does—distant, but unmistakable.
"Too early to tell."
"Exposure helps."
"Pressure can trigger it."
They spoke carefully when they used that word. Like it might listen back.
I did not know what a spark was.
Only that wanting the wrong thing seemed dangerous.
----
On my evaluation day, they stood a little farther back than usual.
I was asked to choose between two objects. Then two sounds. Then two images. Each time, they waited longer than necessary, as if hesitation itself was the answer they wanted.
Someone marked my file.
I realized then that choosing wasn't the test.
Another hesitated.
"We'll monitor," they finally said.
Monitor meant delay.
Delay meant time.
And time, I was beginning to understand, was the only thing in this place that could still belong to me but didn't know how long.
That night, as the lights dimmed and the routines settled back into place, I stared at the ceiling—smooth, white, unquestioning.
I did not know what I was meant to become.
I only knew this world expected something from me.
And that whatever it was?
I would not be allowed to refuse.
Even if I learned what I wanted.