The first thing I remember is silence.
Not the absence of sound.
The absence of time.
No Hum.
No light cycle or schedule, just stillness.
And the taste of copper.
I open my mouth.
Blood.
Thick.
Warm.
From my nose.
From my gums.
From inside.
I sit up. The room is different.
Not damaged.
Not changed.
But wrong.
The walls are too close.
The air is too thick, as if water is flowing over them.
My skin itches.
Not from the surface, but from below.
Like something is moving under it.
I stand. Walk to the door.
It opens.
No attendant.
No greeting.
Just silence.
I step into the hall. And then I see it.
On the floor.
A trail, dark and wet, leading down the corridor.
I follow it.
Not because I want to.
Because I have to.
Because I will.
Like gravity, or maybe instinct.
The red trail leads to observation chamber 2.
The door hangs open.
Inside, the others stand.
The First, Second, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh.
They stand in a circle.
Not looking at each other.
Down.
On the floor.
At a symbol.
Drawn in blood.
Black, thick liquid.
Like tar.
It's not a shape I recognize.
Not a letter.
Not a number.
But I know it.
I've seen it in my memories.
In my dreams.
It's a word, or something of that sort.
It's a symbol with a meaning.
But not in any language anyone knows.
It's in the language.
The one that exists beneath skin.
Beneath bone.
Beneath time.
And then I understand.
The blood on the floor.
The blood in my mouth.
The blood under my skin.
It's not leaking.
It's writing, speaking to me.
And I can read it.
The symbol means:
"She is waking."
I step into the circle.
The others don't look up.
But I hear them.
In my mind.
In my blood.
In the space between our heartbeats.
Perfectly in sync.
The First Child. "It's in our veins now."
The Second Child. "We're not human. We never were."
The Third Child. "The blood remembers what the mind forgets."
The Fifth Child. "We were made to open it. The door."
The Sixth and Seventh Children. "But we are the door."
And then, a pulse.
From the symbol.
From the blood.
From us, inside us.
From the blood.
And I see it.
A memory.
Not mine, not given.
Shared.
We are in a white room.
No walls.
No ceiling.
Just pure white light.
And we are one again.
Connected.
Not by wires.
By veins. By arteries. By blood. And our blood flows together. Forming patterns, alive and dancing. Words, sentences. And then she comes.
Lilith.
Not on a cross. Not bound. Whole.
And she reads us.
Not with eyes. With will. And she understands.
And she fears.
Because blood that can write…
Can also lie.
Then—
Seperation. Fracturing. Forgetting. Waking up alone. The vision ends. I gasp, falling to my knees as the blood around me splatters.
The blood on the floor is moving.
Crawling, forming into new symbols. New words. I can't read them yet. But I will. Because the language is in me.
In my veins. In my bones. In my cells. And I notice it. The others. They're bleeding.
The First Child — from the eyes.
The Second Child — from the ears.
The Third Child — from the palms.
The Fifth Child — from the mouth.
The Sixth and Seventh — from their clasped hands, from between them.
And me.
From everywhere.
But we don't wipe it away. We let it flow.
Because it's not wounding us.
It's writing us.
At some point, I don't know when, I returned to my room.
The blood stopped.
The symbols fade.
But the knowledge remains.
And then I see it.
On the back of the tray given earlier.
A medical report.
Not mine.
The First Child's.
I read it.
————————————————————————————————————
Subject #1 — Cycle 23
Age: 18.1 (estimated)
Height: 175 cm
Weight: 61 kg
Cognitive resonance: 0.92 (critical threshold)
Dream activity: None detected. The subject exhibits no REM or sleep cycles.
Memory integrity: 100% (abnormal)
Narrative awareness index: 0.00 (impossible)
Previous iterations: None. Subject #1 shows no signs of termination or self restart.
Biological analysis: Subject exhibits no DNA. Cellular structure self repairing via unknown harmonic resonance. Subject speaks in perfect unison with researchers and central database inputs.
Recommendation: Continue observation. Subject may be primary key to [REDACTED]
————————————————————————————————————
I stare at the report.
No DNA.
No REM cycles during sleep.
No previous iterations.
Speaks with the database.
They are not human. They are a tool.
A key.
Like the stone.
Like the blood.
And then I understand. We were not born. We were made. Each of us. From different materials.
The First Child — from data, numbers.
The Second Child — from light.
The Third Child — from memories.
Me, the Fourth — from blood.
The Fifth — from pain.
The Sixth and Seventh — from silence and absence.
And we were made for one purpose.
To open the door.
But not to enter.
To be the door for something.
And now that we're remembering, the door is opening.
And she is coming.
I hear footsteps.
I hide the report.
But it doesn't matter.
They can see it. They know it's been hidden.
They always know.
At 1300, or what should be 1300, I submit my dream log.
The prompt appears.
"Describe your dreams from last night."
I type:
"I dreamed in blood. The others and I stood in a circle. Our blood formed words on the floor. I could read them. They said 'She is waking.' I saw us there as we were before, connected by veins, by being. We were one being. We wrote in blood. And she read us. And she feared us. And then we were broken. And now the blood remembers. And it is writing again."
I submit.
The screen flashes.
"Log reviewed. Biological anomaly detected. Subject #4 — Quarantine Protocol initiated."
I don't resist.
I just wait.
Because I know what comes now.
And I know what I have to do.
At 1900, dream suppression therapy begins.
But not in the usual room.
Smaller.
Darker.
They strap me in as usual.
But not to suppress my dreams.
To extract them,
The machine hums.
Not at my temples.
At my veins.
And then, I dream. Not of blood, nor the circle. But of fire. A city burning. Giant concrete buildings of glass collapsing. People screaming. And in the center stands a cathedral. Made of flash. And in it,
Her.
Lilith.
Not crucified.
Not bound.
Awake.
All seven of her eyes open.
Looking into every world that has and will exist.
And she speaks.
"You were the first to wake."
But not to me.
To everything.
To everyone.
And then I see it.
The truth.
The real truth.
Humanity as a whole. Not just us. Not just the children. All of them. They are asleep, in a dream. A narrative. A story. And she is the author. And we are the editors.
The Angels.
The Children.
The Keys.
And when the story goes wrong, deviating—
We correct it.
We erase it.
We restart it.
And then, the dream ends. I wake. The machine is now silent.
The straps are loose.
The nurse leans over me, speaking.
"Subject #4," they say. "Your blood composition has changed. We are initiating full quarantine."
I don't answer.
Just look at my hand.
At the cut on my palms.
From the strap.
And the blood.
It's not red.
It's black.
And it's forming letters.
Small, clear.
I can read them now.
"The story is ending."
And then.
"Write your name."
I don't understand.
But I will.
Because the blood remembers.
And it is teaching me.
And when I learn the language, I will rewrite the story. The light above flickers once. Then goes out. Darkness. But not silence.
The Hum is back, louder and closer. I hear it in my blood, in my bones, and in the space between my heartbeats.
"You were the first to wake."
But not just to me.
To the blood.
To the language.
To the truth.
And I know what comes next.
Quarantine, examination, extraction.
They will try to remove the blood. The language. The memory. But they cannot. Because it is not in me. It is me. And I will not be silenced. Not this time. Because I can write now. And words are power. And I will use them.
The door opens.
Silhouettes.
Attendants.
Dr. Lien.
A containment hazmat suit.
I don't resist.
I just whisper.
"The story is ending."
They inject me.
The world fades.
But not the blood. Never the blood. And as I fall into darkness, I write.
"Write your name."
And somewhere, in another cycle. In another version. Another me will read it, and they will understand. And they will write back.
And the story will change.