The ceiling pulsed.
A soft yellow light—off, then on.
Off.
Then on.
Not quite a heartbeat.
But close enough to lie.
Kellon didn't blink.
He hadn't for a while.
The restraints were gone.
Leyla had removed them, yet he still hadn't moved.
Not really.
Not since she told him the truth.
Not since she said it out loud.
Across from him, Leyla leaned against a nearby table—arms crossed, eyes fixed on the floor.
Her breathing came slow and shallow, like she was afraid of stirring the wrong algorithm.
As if the air itself might wake up.
Somewhere above, the world raged.
Explosions. Screams. Fire.
But down here—
Silence.
No alarms.
No panic.
Just hums.
Just echoes.
The kind that feel more like memories than sound.
The air hung thick, musky.
As if it had been trapped for years—filtered, sterilized, forgotten.
Finally, Kellon shifted.
Just his fingers.
They flexed once.
Then stilled.
Leyla's voice broke the stillness—not loud, not sharp. Just tired.
"So… how long have you known Doran?"
A beat passed. Maybe two.
Kellon's throat worked around the dryness before he answered.
"Only three days."
He didn't look at her.
His eyes stayed on the ceiling.
On the flickering light.
"In all honesty," he murmured, "I didn't really trust him until I met you."
Leyla blinked.
"Don't get me wrong," Kellon continued. "I respected him. Hard not to. But there's something more he's not telling me."
His gaze narrowed.
"There's a weight in his silence. A pain that doesn't flinch. Like he's already made peace with something the rest of us haven't seen yet."
Slowly, he turned his head—meeting her eyes for the first time since the lights came on.
"And if I'm being honest… whatever he's hiding? It scares him more than it scares me."
Leyla didn't reply.
Didn't nod.
But her hands tightened where they rested on the metal edge.
Her voice came, soft and low.
"…You've seen it?"
Kellon's eyes held hers—clear, sharp, unwavering.
But not defensive.
"Not the whole thing," he said.
"Just enough to know I don't want to see the rest. I think he holds back."
Leyla looked down again.
Not in shame.
In memory.
Like something was quietly unraveling behind her eyes—
a thread she'd once tied off, now fraying.
"…He's only told me pieces. Just fragments of what he's been through."
Her voice trembled, not from weakness, but from the shape of a truth too big to hold.
"It terrifies me. I don't know how he can carry it all by himself."
She paused, her chest rising as she drew a slow breath.
"I've engraved weapons for soldiers… for kings… even for killers. And I've learned to live with that."
Her gaze shifted—just slightly—toward the table where Kellon lay.
"But the ones I made for him…"
She swallowed.
"They didn't feel like tools."
She turned her head over her shoulder, eyes meeting his again.
"They felt like graves."
Kellon turned the words over in his mind.
Graves.
He looked down at his own hands.
Scarred.
Slightly trembling.
"…Then why keep helping him?"
His voice came soft. Not doubtful.
Just… curious.
Leyla didn't answer at first.
She ran her thumb along the cold edge of the table—
a nervous habit, etched dull from repetition.
"…He may be an asshole," she said finally, "but he's honest. More than most."
A small breath slipped through her lips.
"He really is a caring guy. Just… seems like he chose the wrong path growing up."
Kellon furrowed his brows, confused.
"You don't know what happened to him?"
Leyla gave a small shake of her head.
"Not really," she admitted. "He doesn't open up much. When I ask, it's mostly small talk—just stories about the jobs he's taken, or how his gear ended up in the shape it's in."
Kellon shifted, slowly rising on one elbow.
His voice dropped lower—softer, darker.
"His village… it's something I can't even comprehend."
Leyla stilled.
Kellon stared forward, eyes unfocused.
"Everything was golden," he said. "The homes. The streets. The farmland. Even the people."
His hands curled slightly into the blanket beneath him.
"All of them—statues. Frozen in their last moments."
Leyla blinked.
"…Golden?"
Kellon nodded.
Slow. Heavy.
"But it wasn't beautiful," he whispered.
"It was like an explosion had gone off… and time just stopped."
The ceiling pulsed again.
Off.
Then on.
A heartbeat that wasn't alive.
Leyla's voice came with the next breath. Not soft. But careful. Like stepping onto ice that might not hold.
"…How did he survive that?"
Kellon didn't answer right away.
When he did, it came slow—like something buried clawing its way back up.
"I don't know."
He looked at her then.
Eyes bloodshot around the edges. But still sharp. Still here.
"No one should've. But apparently… there's another one who lived."
His voice dipped lower, heavier.
"But he's not someone I ever want to see again."
Kellon's breath quickened. Sweat began to form along his brow.
"Doran had flames. But he—"
He swallowed.
"His was the opposite. Something dark."
Kellon's hands trembled, drawn close to his chest.
"It wasn't fire. It didn't burn."
His gaze drifted—unfocused, distant.
"It consumed."
A whisper now.
"Like a shadow… suffocating you from the inside out."
His breath caught, then doubled.
Fast. Shallow.
Panic crept in like a virus through cracked glass.
"I should've died."
He pressed both palms to his temples, fingers digging in.
"I'm no leader. I'm a failure of a soldier."
A tremor in his voice.
"I deserve to die."
Leyla pushed herself off the table.
No hesitation this time.
She stepped forward and placed a hand gently on his knee.
"You deserve to live."
Her words were quiet, but firm. The kind that tried to hold someone back from the edge.
"I don't know you, but I know this—"
She looked into his eyes.
"You're smarter than most. You see your flaws. You claim them. That alone puts you above people who—"
Hiss.
The door slid open with a cheerful chime that didn't match the weight in the room.
In stepped Ruby and Jade, carrying two metal crates between them like presents. Their voices, chirping in perfect synchronization, broke the moment like glass under boots.
"Miss Leyla! We got the crates from your room!"
Leyla didn't look at them.
Instead, she reached for a small hammer and struck Kellon gently below the knee.
A mechanical voice coated in clinical detachment escaped her lips.
"I need to see how you move before the surgery."
Kellon's leg twitched slightly.
"What are you—?"
Without waiting, Leyla slammed him back down onto the table, locking a strap across his chest with a harsh snap.
"Quit struggling against the inevitable," she said—tone too cold to be real, too precise to be hers.
The girls set the crates down with a metallic thunk and hurried to the table, giddy.
"Father told us to help!" Ruby beamed.
"He said it needs to be done as soon as possible!" Jade chimed in.
Leyla still wouldn't look at them.
She couldn't.
Kellon grunted, the new straps cutting into his arms.
"What the hell are you doing?" he hissed.
No answer.
She reached for a scanner—hands steady. Too steady.
Her face was blank.
Cold.
Calculated.
Ruby clapped once, delighted. "She's so good at this!"
Jade leaned over Kellon's shoulder, eyes wide with fascination.
"Ooooh! Should we prep the spinal gate now? Father said to start with the nerves!"
Leyla's breath hitched.
Just for a second.
Then—she snapped.
"No," she said. "Not yet."
Her voice had bite. A practiced edge.
But underneath—
There was pleading.
"His system is still adapting," she added quickly. "If I start now, the overload could cause full cascade failure."
Ruby tilted her head.
"But Daddy said—"
"I don't care what Daddy said!"
Leyla's voice cracked like thunder in the room—too loud.
Too fast.
The silence that followed swallowed everything whole.
Kellon froze.
Ruby blinked.
Jade stared.
"…You're not supposed to say that," Ruby said quietly.
Her voice, still syrupy-sweet, turned just slightly… off.
Leyla's hands shook.
Then stilled.
She straightened her coat. Smoothed the wrinkles that weren't there. Let the hammer fall gently onto the tray beside her with a quiet clink.
"I meant," she said softly, voice now wrapped in silk again, "I need time to do it right."
The room fell into silence.
Not the kind that soothed.
The kind that strangled.
Kellon's breath hitched—caught between disbelief and something colder.
Jade stared at Leyla, unblinking.
Ruby blinked once. Then her voice returned.
Small.
Sweet.
Wrong.
"…You're not supposed to say that."
Leyla moved slowly, like she was waking from a dream she didn't want to be in.
She straightened her coat. Smoothed the wrinkles that didn't exist.
Her fingers released the hammer. It dropped onto the tray beside her with a quiet clink that somehow sounded like a confession.
"I meant…" she said, voice lower now. Smoother. Controlled. "I need time to do it right."
Jade didn't stop smiling.
But something in her eyes flickered.
Red.
Once.
Then again.
Then it was gone.
"Okay," she said cheerfully.
"Thank you," Leyla replied, quieter this time. More careful. As if trying not to wake something with her tone.
She turned back to the table, to the motionless body strapped beneath her hands.
"Now… the brain is the first thing extracted," she murmured. "And we don't have a freezer-box ready to hold it."
Her words slid into command.
"Can one of you go grab that while the other sets up the EMW machine?"
Ruby perked up with mechanical delight. "I'll get the freezer-box!"
"I'll set up the wavy-zappy thing!" Jade chimed, already skipping across the lab to a console embedded in the far wall.
Their voices echoed against metal and wires and dead air.
Too happy for this place.
Too cheerful for what was about to happen.
Leyla didn't move.
Didn't blink.
She stood over Kellon's body like a sculptor asked to carve from a corpse. Like a mortician forced to paint a smile onto a face she knew.
Kellon shifted slightly beneath the straps, voice dry, scraped from somewhere deep.
"…What's an EMW?"
Leyla leaned closer—just enough so that her shadow slid across his face.
Her lips barely parted.
Her breath barely moved the air.
"Electromagnetic wipe," she whispered.
Kellon's body tensed.
"…Memory?"
Leyla nodded.
Just once.
Slow.
The kind of nod that felt like a blade being drawn.
"They'll kill us in an instant if we disobey," she said. "I can't do anything."
"I'm sorry."
Her fingers brushed over a panel embedded in the table near Kellon's ribs.
A faint beep.
The panel lit up green.
She pressed one button.
With a soft hiss, two metallic prongs extended upward from either side of Kellon's head—sleek, precise, unfeeling.
Leyla's hand hovered over the second button.
She didn't press it.
Not yet.
Tears welled in her eyes, blurring the sterile glow of the lights. Her breath came shallow, silent, trembling just beneath control.
From the far side of the room, Jade's voice chirped cheerfully.
"System charging! Full scan in thirty seconds!"
And then—
The sound of soft wheels.
Ruby pushed in the freezer-box, its cube-like frame exhaling a cold mist that hissed across the floor. Its core pulsed a cold, hungry blue.
"I got it!!" she beamed, like a child delivering a birthday cake.
Leyla turned to face them—slow, composed.
Her body blocked Kellon from their view.
Her shadow hid what was left of her shame.
And behind her, on the slab—
Kellon's eyes drifted shut.
His voice came out soft. Like breath trying not to exist.
"…What do you think is worse," he asked, "being a puppet… or dying?"
Leyla didn't answer.
She couldn't.
She just watched as the two robotic girls gleefully prepared to erase someone who was still alive.
"I used to say I'd rather die than be a puppet," Kellon whispered. "But now that I'm here… looking back on everything…"
His eyes opened again.
They caught the flickering yellow light above him—pulsing in silence like a false heartbeat.
"I was already one," he murmured. "A soldier. Blind. Following orders handed down by cowards too clean to bleed."
He exhaled, as if he were trying to release something heavier than air.
"All of it… just for men who couldn't be bothered to stain their hands."
Ruby and Jade returned to the table—one on each side of him, smiling like it was a game.
"Everything should be ready!" Ruby declared with glee.
Jade's voice sparkled. "Can I do the cranial removal?"
"No fair! I wanted to slice open his head!" Ruby pouted.
Leyla's voice cut between them.
Flat. Hollow.
"I'll do it. You two just stay ready with what I need."
She turned to the tray.
Picked up a syringe.
"First," she said, "we start with the injection."
Her voice was almost mechanical—each word an echo of a script she didn't believe in.
"It'll shut off brain-to-body communication for thirty minutes. Keeps the mind active… so it doesn't lose any of its functions."
She raised the syringe.
The liquid inside shimmered—clear, but with a faint tint of blue.
As it passed beneath the ceiling light, it caught the glow. And for a moment—It looked gold.
Kellon's eyes stayed open.
Still locked on the ceiling.
Still watching that soft yellow light.
It blinked again—
Off.
Then on.
He didn't flinch when the needle touched his skin, when it pressed gently against the side of his neck.
But Leyla did.
Just a twitch. Just in her thumb.
But it was there.
A hesitation.
Small.
Visible.
And noticed.
"Miss Leyla?" Ruby's voice chimed, sugary and static-laced. "You're slowing down."
Leyla inhaled through her nose, quiet and sharp. A breath she couldn't afford to waste.
"I'm just making sure the dose is exact," she said, the lie slipping from her tongue like it belonged there.
She pressed the needle in.
Injected the liquid.
And the moment the plunger clicked—
Kellon's eyes stayed open.
Still.
Focused.
Alive.
A breath passed.
Then another.
"Vitals dropping. Neural conductivity softening," Jade reported, tapping at the console beside her. "Oooh! Look how fast it's working!"
Across the room, Ruby bounced lightly on her heels. The frost from the freezer-box curled around her legs like a fog hunting for flesh.
"He's gonna go sleepy now!" she sang. "And then we get to carve!"
Leyla's hand lingered too long on the needle.
Too long.
She pulled it out with a motion that felt more like surrender than surgery.
The world around Kellon blurred.
Edges smudged.
Sound dulled.
His thoughts unraveled slowly into the dark.
But he smiled.
Just barely.
"I'll be with you soon, brothers…" he whispered, the words crumbling off his lips like ash.
Leyla turned to the table and picked up her scalpel.
"Can one of you start the EMW machine?" she asked flatly. "I need the other to create the cutting lines on his head."
"Ooo! I can do the lines!" Jade said, her hand already raised like a schoolgirl begging for homework. "I practiced on a doll yesterday—he didn't even scream!"
"I'll get the zapper going!" Ruby chirped, skipping toward the EMW console. Her small hands blurred across the interface with eerie precision. "Charging in twenty seconds!"
Jade moved to Kellon's side.
She raised her hand high over his forehead, a small projector embedded in her palm sparking to life.
A thin red beam slid across Kellon's scalp—clean, steady.
It didn't burn.
But it marked him.
Each pass as precise and gleeful as a child coloring inside the lines.
Jade giggled, delighted.
"Perfectly symmetrical!"
Leyla stood frozen.
The scalpel trembled in her grip.
Behind her, the hum of the EMW console deepened—rising like a low chant echoing through metal bones.
Ruby clapped once, childlike and thrilled.
"Ten seconds!"
The mist from the freezer-box curled around the operating table like winter breath, coiling at Leyla's ankles, licking at the edges of the steel like it, too, wanted in.
Jade leaned in, admiring her work.
"His skull's not very round," she said, almost pouting. "That's okay. I can adjust as we go."
The prongs flanking Kellon's head began to glow.
Their hum shifted pitch.
"Five seconds!" Ruby chirped, bouncing on her toes like it was a countdown to candy.
Leyla closed her eyes.
She tried to breathe through the heaviness pressing against her ribs.
Tried to hold back the sting behind her eyes.
You're just the surgeon. Just the hands. That's all you've ever been.
But the scalpel disagreed. It shook—whispering truths through steel she didn't want to hear.
Then—
ZZHRRROOOMFFF
The air shimmered.
The space between the prongs warped into rippling spirals, twisting like invisible wind over water. Waves bent the light around Kellon's skull.
Jade leaned in close, wide-eyed.
"Oooh… it's so pretty…"
Ruby shut off the machine with a dramatic flick of her finger. "The next part is my favorite to watch!" she squealed. "Are you sure I can't cut his head open?"
Leyla didn't respond.
She couldn't.
Her hands hovered over Kellon's forehead, the red line still glowing like a wound waiting to be born.
The scalpel trembled harder now—like it could feel the difference.
That this wasn't routine.
That this wasn't right.
Jade and Ruby stood to either side of the table, smiling wide with the joy of children—
But joy that didn't blink.
Joy that didn't breathe.
Joy that had never known the taste of sorrow or consequence.
They were wrong.
Everything about this is wrong.
The room stank of frost and oil.
Of static.
Of loss.
Leyla's breath shivered in her lungs.
Leyla pressed the scalpel to his forehead.
And cut.
The blade kissed flesh.
A thin line. Straight. Steady.
Because her hands had been here before—not on Kellon, but on others. Too many. Too often. She didn't need to think anymore. Her hands remembered for her.
The skin parted like cloth, clean and unresisting. No blood. The EMW kept everything still, suspended in that mechanical hush that didn't belong to life.
Just hums.
Just control.
Just silence pretending it had a purpose.
Ruby bounced on her toes beside the table, her voice chirping through static.
"Ooooooh! That's the spot!" she giggled. "Make sure to pull the sides open evenly! Daddy gets mad when the brain gets scratched!"
"Like peeling fruit!" Jade added, her fingers twitching with anticipation.
Leyla said nothing.
She parted the skin along the glowing red line—slow, exact.
Pale bone glinted beneath the light.
Kellon didn't move.
Didn't resist.
His eyes were still open, watching the ceiling. Watching that same dull light pulse above him—
Off.
Then on.
Off.
Then on.
Leyla reached for the bone saw.
"This is where the buzzing starts!" Jade announced, her voice delighted.
The saw whirred to life—soft at first. Then it screamed.
CRRRKKKKKTTTT.
The teeth met skull.
The sound filled the room like a scream no one made. A scream the walls couldn't unhear. A scream the ceiling light didn't flinch from.
It just pulsed—
Off.
Then on.
Leyla's arms moved with the precision of a machine.
Not because she was cold.
But because if she let her hands remember who this was, they'd stop.
With one last turn, the skull came free.
The brain lay exposed.
Leyla set the saw aside, reached for the L-shaped extraction tool. Slid it in. Felt it connect.
A click.
A curve.
A detachment.
And then, just like that—
Kellon's mind was no longer his body.
Ruby rushed the freezer box to her side, the frost already leaking out like ghost-breath across the floor.
Jade clapped. "Now to replace his flesh!"
Leyla didn't respond.
She didn't blink.
She stood there, holding what was left of him—warm, fragile, whole—in her gloved hands.
Like she was cradling something sacred.
Something guilty.
Something already mourning.
She lowered it into the box.
Hiss.
The frost surged up to meet it.
A soft, final click echoed as the lid sealed.
And with that—
Kellon was gone.
His body still lay on the table.
Skin pale.
Skull open like a lidless tomb.
His chest didn't rise.
His limbs didn't twitch.
His eyes—still open—remained locked on the ceiling light.
Off.
Then on.
Off.
Then on.
But whatever had been Kellon—
It wasn't there anymore.
"Now to replace his flesh!" Jade chirped, skipping toward the far wall.
Above her, panels hissed open in the ceiling. Mechanical arms descended like vultures with scalpels for beaks, injectors for talons. They spun and clicked, eager.
"Starting full facial shell replacement," she sang. "Switching to polymer frame. Daddy wants this one handsome!"
Ruby giggled, bouncing where she stood. "Don't forget the smile! Daddy said all his soldiers need to smile now!"
Leyla didn't move.
But something inside her did.
A crack.
Hairline. Silent. Deep.
Not in her hand.
Not in her voice.
In her soul.
Then—the door hissed open.
A shadow stepped through.
"Leyla."
Gar Allasupa's voice thundered with no need to shout.
"How were my sons beaten?"
His boots struck the steel floor once.
Then again.
Heavy.
Controlled.
Deliberate.
He towered in the doorway like a monument carved from arrogance and iron. His suit was immaculate. His silhouette, sharpened by the stark backlight, looked more myth than man.
Gravity had chosen a face.
And it was his.
Leyla didn't turn to face him.
Not yet.
Ruby's voice pierced the tension like glass. "Daddy! We're almost done!"
Jade beamed. "We got to do a lot of help!"
Gar didn't look at them.
Didn't even blink.
His eyes locked on Leyla.
The room held its breath.
"Why were my sons beaten?" he asked again—softer this time.
But that softness only made it worse.
Leyla's fingers curled tighter around the tray in front of her, gloves squeaking under the pressure. Her knuckles faded to white.
"I gave them everything," Gar continued, taking a step forward. "Strength. Steel. Purpose."
Another step.
Another nail in the floor.
"They should have killed him."
His voice dipped into something darker. Something more dangerous.
"What did you do to them?"
Leyla finally turned.
Slow.
Measured.
Her body moved with a precision she didn't feel.
Her eyes met his—calm, but not cold.
"I engraved every part of their body to the best of my ability," she said. "Exactly as you instructed."
Her voice didn't waver. Not yet.
"You're the one who built your family," she added. "I only did the rune engraving."
Gar's jaw clenched.
Subtle. Just the faint twitch of muscle along his cheekbone. But it was the kind of tension that came before storms. The kind that had broken lesser people under far less.
He took another step forward.
"You only engraved them?" he repeated, his voice low. Quiet like the chamber of a loaded gun. "Is that how you excuse this failure?"
He didn't raise his voice.
He didn't need to.
His presence carried judgment like a blade pressed to the throat. It didn't need to cut. It only needed to exist.
Ruby and Jade froze mid-task, eyes wide but smiles unbroken.
Leyla didn't flinch.
"I did what I was told," she said. "They were faster than any human should be. Stronger. More durable. But at the end of it all… they were still human beneath the armor."
Gar's eyes narrowed.
"No," he said flatly. "They weren't."
His tone cracked—and through it, the flood came.
"My family died thirty-seven years ago!" he shouted, voice rising like thunder on steel. "I rebuilt them! To preserve them! To make sure they never faded again!"
He stepped forward with each word now, pacing as if even the walls needed to hear.
"I took this crime-filled planet and turned it into something beautiful! I took the jealousy, the hatred, the endless rot in its bones—and rebuilt it all!"
His chest heaved.
His eyes shone with righteous fury.
"A place where no one is hungry. Where peace comes through fear. Where purpose is not chosen, but given. Where everyone has work. Has worth. Has life."
Silence followed.
Not from peace, but from the pause between blows.
Leyla said nothing.
She didn't need to.
Gar's voice dropped into something colder.
Sharper.
"This is your last chance to preserve your ideology of life."
He pointed—not at her, but at the table.
At what remained of Kellon.
"Finish him. You have until the clock tower rings."
The yellow light above flickered violently.
And somewhere beyond the walls, gears groaned awake—deep, heavy, like the lungs of a beast waiting to breathe.
Gar stepped back toward the door.
"Remember," he said, "this city lives. I'm not afraid of one man fighting a city. I'm afraid of your failure breaking what I've built."
The door hissed.
He turned.
"One hour from now," he said without looking back, "that clock tower will ring. He better be on the surface before then."
Then the door slammed shut behind him.
Hard enough to make the ceiling pulse.
Off.
Then on.
The silence left behind was not empty.
It was full—bloated, suffocating.
Stuffed with the echo of Gar's voice. With the weight of his words. With the pressure of eyes—unseen, but watching. Always watching.
The door had slammed shut.
But the room was still listening.
The walls seemed to hum louder now. Not from machines, but from something deeper. Something alive. The gears of the city churned beyond the steel, grinding like teeth behind a clenched jaw.
The city had heard its master's command.
And it was ready to obey.
One hour.
The clock tower would ring.
And if Kellon wasn't on the surface by then—rebuilt, perfected, erased—then Leyla wouldn't just lose her freedom.
She would lose everything.
"Miss Leyla!" Jade broke the silence, voice as cheerful as it was wrong. "We should hurry!"
She skipped toward the waiting mechanical arms, their tips gleaming with metal teeth and surgical fire.
"Daddy is scary when he is mad!" Ruby added, dragging a synthetic face mesh from one of the crates. It shimmered like oil in the light—shaped like a man, but stretched too thin.
Leyla didn't move.
Couldn't.
Something inside her had cracked.
Not her fingers. Not her will.
But deeper.
A fracture in her soul.
A quiet break.
One that no machine could fix.