The morning began with blood in the sand.
Behind the southern section of the Stella Empire's underground complex, rows of genetically-augmented children lined up under the watch of instructors and steel-eyed guards. The training grounds were barren, scorched, and surrounded by humming barrier walls. Above them, fake sunlight poured through artificial panels—enough to make them forget the cold sterility of where they truly were.
They were soldiers in the making. Subjects. Weapons.
Children from chambers 1 through 12 stood ready. They came from different backgrounds—some born in conquered provinces, some snatched from dying noble lines, and others, like AB-774 of chamber 12, grown in vats and raised on nutrient drips.
The sparring session began. The ground turned muddy with sweat and sand as the children clashed. U-776, from chamber 7, was paired with a hulking boy from chamber 9—Z-105. He mocked her, calling her a 'failed sister' of U-777, but his grin faded quickly when her elbow met his jaw with unnatural speed.
She didn't smile. None of them ever did.
Guards barked orders. "Kill the hesitation!" they shouted. "If your body is enhanced but your will is weak, you're nothing but trash!" Their voices echoed across the walls, drowned only by the sound of impact and labored breathing.
Near the edge, O-243 from chamber 1 watched everything with narrowed eyes. Born of a fallen noble house, his precision in movement was unsettling—efficient, cold, calculated. He struck down his opponent in seconds, then waited, expressionless, for his next command.
The creature from chamber 5—no name, just a monster—fought three others simultaneously. He didn't use form or training. He used fury. When one of the instructors tried to stop the fight, he lunged at them too. He was subdued only after four guards used electro-pikes to pin him down.
And AB-774?
He didn't fight today. He was ordered to observe.
They said it was because of his recent neural tests, but in truth, no one expected much from the boy in chamber 12. He was small. Quiet. Strange. A child who never cried, never screamed, and never smiled. He simply… endured.
After the drills came the educational period. Children filed back into their chambers, each rigged with projectors, desks, and occasionally, dusty screens. Mechanical lectures played automatically: ancient languages, machine assembly, battlefield theory, and empire-approved philosophy.
Then, as always, came the two hours of controlled "freedom."
Doors unlocked. Movement within the compound was permitted, though only within their quadrant.
Some children returned to their chambers to nap or meditate. Others played crude games made up on the spot, while a few whispered about escape routes that didn't exist. In chamber 7, S-410 and S-411 sat cross-legged, reviewing handwritten notes and drawing up crude diagrams of the facility from memory. S-411 occasionally glanced at the ceiling, calculating something.
U-777, in the same chamber, was silently sketching a new prosthetic design for humanoid combat units on the back of a disassembled instruction sheet.
AB-774, as always, went to the library.
It was deep underground, a quiet and narrow room lit by a dying fluorescent bulb. The shelves were sparse—half of them empty—but to him, they were more alive than anything above ground. Books on the mind, on perception, on ancient illusionary practices. Texts about gods who never existed and the paradoxes of identity. He devoured them.
He read like someone trying to remember something long forgotten.
That day, a voice interrupted the silence. Cold, familiar.
"Children," said Marla.
She was already standing at the front of the room by the time the last of them arrived—tall, gray uniform, sharp face. Emotionless as ever. She had been part of the compound for years now, assigned to explain things they were "too young" to know, but "too important" not to learn.
Her indifference was absolute. She never encouraged questions. Never offered comfort.
"Today's topic," she said, activating the dusty projector, "is evolution. Not the kind we injected into you. The kind that crawled from the mud with broken teeth and a burning stomach."
Images of cave fires and stone tools flickered above her.
"We weren't always in this world, you know," she continued flatly. "We came from another. A place called Earth."
The projector displayed silhouettes of primitive humans—hunting, discovering fire, clashing over territory.
"They learned how to harness flames. Built cities. Made machines. Killed gods of their own imagination. Eventually, they left their planet. Reached into space. You are their legacy. The part they threw away."
A boy in the back—R-006 from chamber 4—raised a hand. His voice cracked slightly when he asked: "If we had spacecraft… why can't we go to the other side of the Great Border? Or into space?"
For a moment, silence.
Marla didn't smile, but her eyes narrowed, amused at the question.
"Because," she said, "there's a barrier."
Another image appeared—vague outlines of the planet encased in a shimmering veil.
"It was formed decades ago, when a pact was made between the two sides of the world. A technological-mechanical god-barrier built with help of legendary mages in secret and deployed into the upper atmosphere. Anything that rises above the exosphere is disintegrated instantly."
She said it without drama. Just fact.
"There is no outer space. Not anymore. Just ash."
The children stared, wide-eyed. One girl, K-488, whispered something like a prayer.
Marla ignored it.
"Why was it made?" another asked.
She blinked. "Because too many people wanted to run."
Then, as if bored of the discussion, she shut the projector off.
"You have one more hour," she muttered, stepping away. "Try not to waste it. Or do. I don't care."
When she left, the silence remained heavy. Some returned to reading. Others sat quietly, unsure what to make of her words.
Back in the chambers, the guards began logging performance reports. Doctor Scoff reviewed them with a sneer, while Tenji—aged and shaking—highlighted candidates for the next major experiment. He paused briefly when he came across chamber 1's O-243 and the twins of chamber 7.
"Still showing promise," he muttered.
Then his eyes landed on AB-774's file. It was marked as neutral, uncertain.
"Keep watching," he whispered. "The anomaly hasn't bloomed yet."
In chamber 12, AB-774 lay still on his bunk. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling.
The hum of the barrier filled the compound again, signaling nightfall. A child from chamber 2 whimpered softly. Somewhere else, one of the guards laughed. In chamber 5, the monster scratched at the wall until his fingers bled.
Everything continued, as it always did.
Just beneath the surface of obedience—something waited.