Voss's voice was quieter now, almost a whisper. "Before the world broke them… before the Purge… there was a night when they were just children again. Human. Alive. Not weapons."
24's gaze shifted slightly, his gray eyes distant, seeing the past as vividly as the present.
⸻
The lab had been quiet for the first time in months. No alarms, no drills, no testing. The children had been allowed to sleep in the facility's barracks — a rare reprieve orchestrated by Voss.
Elias and Moth lay on the worn mats of the sleeping quarters, side by side. The tension of the day's exercises had left their muscles tight, their minds buzzing with adrenaline.
Moth reached for him, teasing lightly. "You look like you could use a smile, pretty boy."
Elias cracked the faintest grin. "I'm fine," he whispered, though his hand found hers instinctively.
They didn't speak much after that. Words were dangerous in the barracks — every sound could be overheard, every whisper a risk. So they talked through touch. Fingers intertwined, the warmth of her hand a reminder that they were alive.
Moth leaned against his shoulder, her voice soft. "Do you think… we'll ever see the sky again?"
Elias tightened his grip on her hand. "We'll see it together. One day."
She laughed softly, a breathless, fragile sound. "You always say that."
And then they kissed. Tentative at first, a careful testing of boundaries neither fully understood. But soon, it was desperate — two children clinging to what little comfort the world would allow them.
Moth pressed her forehead against his chest. "Promise me… promise me we won't forget this," she whispered.
"I won't," he murmured. "I'll remember. Always."
They stayed there until exhaustion claimed them, curled together on the mats, a fleeting sanctuary in the middle of a world designed to destroy them.
⸻
Voss's voice broke slightly. "It was the first time Elias let himself… want something. The first time Moth let herself believe she could love someone in a place that didn't allow it."
Kira's hand went to her mouth. "And… she didn't survive."
"No," Voss said. "The very next day, they would be tested. And the next… the mission. And the night after that… the Purge. That night… that memory… it was the last piece of their childhood."
24's hand flexed slightly. His knuckles turned white. The memory was painful but alive — Moth's laughter, the warmth of her hand, the feel of her cheek against his.
Voss continued, softer now: "And that night… that memory is why he still fights. Not just to survive. Not just to destroy the people who made him this. But because somewhere, in the void of what he became… Elias remembers Moth. And that memory… keeps him human."
⸻
The room was silent. Mara and Kira felt the weight of the moment. The Undercity hum seemed distant now, as if the past had taken the air with it.
24's gray eyes, though cold and hard, glimmered faintly. A memory of warmth, of love — brief, fragile, human.
And in that glimmer, both women realized: the boy who had become 24 was still a man who had loved, who had lost, and who would never forgive what the world had taken from him.