The room fell into a silence so deep you could almost hear a clock ticking somewhere.
Specter stepped forward.
"You used to be one of them. We were, too. And now we need you."
"Help us. Tell us the old secrets you tried to hide."
The air grew heavier.
The woman beside Aurel studied them one by one, her eyes finally stopping at Noir. Those clear blue eyes lit up, as if catching something hidden under the surface.
"This girl…" she whispered.
Noir didn't flinch.
"My eyes. Both of them. You probably know exactly how they were made."
Aurel froze.
The woman only nodded, slow and quiet, confirming what Noir said. Then her gaze shifted to Kaelith. Her face changed—sank, almost—something wary flickering in her blue eyes.
"That little girl…" she murmured, then looked at the other three.
"You children should be careful. Things… aren't always what they look like."
The room went tight like a pulled string.
Kaelith paled, her hands squeezing her clothes. Orion placed a hand on her shoulder, forcing a soft grin to lighten the mood, but Noir stood still—her thoughts echoing that warning like a cold alarm she'd tried to ignore.
If even a stranger felt it… it wasn't just her.
When the tension settled, Aurel sank back into his old wooden chair. He removed his thick glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose, eyes drifting far away.
"I thought I could run from it all… pretend the crimes I helped build never happened. But seeing you again… all of it came back."
Specter sat opposite him, arms crossed, voice low.
"You know they won't stop. They get worse every day. You can't stay silent forever."
Aurel shook his head.
"I'm old. I don't have much left. Helping you… it's like setting fire to my own roof."
"Fire?"
Noir's voice cut in—flat, cold, slightly trembling from something deeper.
"After everything you people did to thousands of us. And now you're scared?"
"Then fine. Pay it back with your life this time."
Aurel lowered his head.
Kaelith tried to speak, but the woman's blue eyes stopped her short.
The woman—Aurel's wife—finally spoke. Her voice was calm, almost echoing.
"You can't run forever. These kids already walked into a path they can't return from. If you turn away, you leave them to be swallowed whole."
"And don't forget," she added with a faint smile.
"I'm something you created too…"
Aurel's face stiffened.
She turned to Noir's group and said gently.
"Just call me Ari."
Ari's gaze met Noir's—soft, aching, yet heavy.
"You… you're almost the same as the day I saw you back then. Those eyes… I know them better than anyone. But what you're searching for will be far beyond what you think you know."
Noir lowered her eyes. Something churned inside her chest.
Aurel finally sighed, placing a hand on the dusty stack of papers.
"…Alright. I'll help. But this is basically stepping right into death's door. The deeper you dig, the worse it gets."
Everyone felt it—the way the house seemed to shift, making room for the darkness of his words. Their hands clenched without thinking, each gaze burning with the same fierce hunger for freedom.
⸻
That night, after the others fell asleep, Noir remained awake in the dim room. Soft footsteps outside made her lift her head.
Ari stood there, gesturing quietly for her to follow.
They stopped outside under the old porch. The night wind carried the smell of aging wood. Ari crossed her arms.
"I know what you're wondering. Why I have the same eye as your right one."
Noir didn't answer, only nodded.
"I was a product too… but my body rejected almost everything. Only this eye stayed. That's why I survived—though I was never… normal again."
"The doctor loved me enough to flee with me, far away, and treat me like a human being. The day he escaped that place… he cried more than I ever saw."
She touched her eye gently, the blue glinting faintly.
"But you, Noir… you're different. You're the perfect one. The one no one could ever match. Your existence scares them just as much as they desire it. And now that you're outside their control… there's only one thing left for them to do."
Noir narrowed her eyes, voice low and cold.
"I never asked for any of this. They made me this way."
Ari let out a bitter, soft laugh.
"None of us chose. But unlike me… you're whole. That's why you're the greatest threat."
Silence fell, only insects cracking the night, the moon shining. Noir clenched her fist—then stopped.
Her eye caught something.
Tiny. Hidden. Almost invisible.
A faint blinking signal in the dark.
Noir froze. Stared at it without moving.
It had been placed there before she even stepped into this house.
Ari… didn't seem to know.
When the woman turned to go back inside, Noir's left eye flickered red from old instinct. She pulled out a small knife, tilted her wrist, and struck clean.
A soft snap.
Crack…
A fingernail-sized device fell, crackling with little sparks.
Noir crushed it under her feet.
She crouched down.
A micro signal transmitter. The kind only the organization owned.
So they'd been watching.
Long before she arrived.
"Smart…" she whispered.
"But from where…?"
Darkness covered the mountains, but she felt it—
that pressure.
Like a predator watching from somewhere just out of sight.
Not Kaelith.
Not Specter.
Not Orion.
Not even Ari's piercing blue eyes.
Something else.
Something patient.
Noir let out a cold, thin smile, her red eye dimming.
/So… they never stopped watching me at all./
She turned back into the house, hiding everything.
The hunt had never ended.
Not for a second.