Subject 01...

The silence in my room felt more oppressive than the sirens that had gone off moments earlier.

I could still taste the trace of Umbryn dust lingering in the air, that bitter ash clinging to my palate.

But hidden beneath that twisted flavor was something far harder to ignore: the taste of a past that had been stolen from me.

Subject 02.

That damn name had lodged itself in my mind, gnawing at any rational thought.

The image of the white room and that small, terrified child’s face returned again and again whenever I tried to close my eyes.

I didn’t know whether it was a genuine memory or just another layer of lies my own fear had decided to reveal.

---

The call to Commander Thorne’s office came with the first light of dawn… if you could even call it dawn inside Fortress-7.

Early.

Too early to be a good sign.

A direct order. The kind you always have to follow, without the right to protest.

The hallway leading to his office was always cold, which was especially uncomfortable when you were summoned first thing in the morning.

To make it worse, the polished metal walls reflected my worn-out figure. A stupid reminder of the boy I really was.

I felt like a marked animal, being led to the slaughter.

That pressure in your chest that makes you want to turn around… and yet you keep walking anyway.

—Don’t mention the vision —Akihiro muttered just before the doors opened—. Just talk about the Umbryn.

I barely paid attention to the order; my mind was somewhere else

In the end, the doors simply opened.

Commander Thorne’s office was the very definition of spartan—brutally efficient.

A metal desk. A cold touch screen. And the massive, oppressive emblem of Fortress-7 on the wall: a clenched fist crushing a broken gear.

Our symbol.

Thorne, a man in his fifties with graying hair, bore a scar cutting across his upper lip—rugged, yet strangely magnetic.

Although he was unquestionably my superior, the commander was incredibly popular.

I have to admit, he had plenty of admirers. He received so many gifts every day that his desk looked like a department store counter, and he even had an active fan club on the fortress’s internal networks.

I suspect even his secretaries felt something for him…

I once caught one red-handed.

She was smelling his coat with almost passionate intensity.

When she saw me, she gave me a panicked look and silently begged me to keep quiet.

Anyway, I suppose those things weren’t my concern.

He watched me comfortably from behind his desk, his gray eyes examining every detail of my posture.

Pretty unsettling—if he weren’t Commander Thorne. But since he was, I guess that was just his version of “normal.”

—Kurayami.

His firm voice sounded like an order.

—Acceptable performance in the Lower Markets. Containing a B3 Wanderer without civilian casualties isn’t something you see often in a recruit.

I inclined my head. His approval never really sounded like approval.

It felt more like cataloging a rare anomaly in a file.

—However —he continued.

He leaned forward, resting his weight on the desk.

—You identified the mimetic before it manifested. The sensors detected nothing. Can you explain that, cadet?

I knew Thorne wasn’t stupid, so I chose my words carefully.

—My Code, sir.

I tried to keep my posture calm.

—I don’t perceive their energy… I perceive intent. That unnatural void right before the attack.

Despite my answer, he didn’t look convinced.

His gaze pinned me like a sharp scalpel.

I swallowed.

Fighting to keep my composure.

Feeling cold sweat gather at the back of my neck.

—A useful power —he said at last, breaking the tension—. And a dangerous one. If I’m correct… the records say your Code manifested at age twelve, during an Abyssal incursion in the Quarantine Zone. You survived alone. A miracle, I’d say.

I tried to take it as a compliment.

But deep down, I knew his words were just a reminder in disguise.

Still, there was some truth to them: that was the official story.

The version I repeated so many times that I eventually believed it myself.

—Yes, sir.

I lied… or maybe I didn’t. It all depended on the point of view.

The taste of copper returned to my mouth instantly, a metallic aftertaste of lies and blood.

—Very well —Thorne concluded, looking away—. I’ll assign Akihiro to train your perception. The fortress needs every weapon it can get. But remember this, Kurayami: some weapons eventually cut the ones who wield them.

—…

I had no words.

After that disturbing conversation, we finally left the commander’s office.

And even though no one said it out loud, the air felt heavier than usual.

Akihiro, on the other hand, looked almost relaxed.

He seemed genuinely used to those surreal conversations with our superior.

—You handled it well —he said with a slight shrug—. Thorne is paranoid, but he’s not an idiot. He knows your worth.

—And how much does that worth cost? —I asked, stopping in the middle of the hallway—. Who is Subject 02?

Akihiro opened his mouth, probably ready to deny everything again, keeping up his obvious façade.

But at that exact moment, my Code showed me a distress call.

A sharp stab in my chest, like being stabbed straight through the heart.

That human feeling I control so naturally—the same one that makes me want to vomit so often—manifested without mercy.

It was the whisper of chaotic, pure, undiluted desperation.

I staggered, losing my balance, and had to lean against the hallway wall to keep from falling.

—Yūsha…

Akihiro looked alarmed when he saw my face.

—There —I gasped, pointing toward a half-hidden service door at the end of the corridor—. Someone… is terrified.

Without waiting for an order, I moved toward the door.

Fear flickered like Fortress-7’s alarms, flashing inside my mind.

But I kept going, faster and faster, driven by someone else’s anguish.

I pushed the door carefully.

It gave way with a creak, revealing a narrow service staircase descending into darkness.

At the bottom, under the dim, flickering light of an emergency lamp, there was a curled-up figure.

If you asked me, I’d say with absolute certainty that I was standing before a goddess descended from the sky.

But reality was different: it was a girl.

Fragile and delicate, the kind you’d think you could break just by touching her. Still, she was a girl.

And somehow, none of that diminished her beauty.

If anything, I’d bet that fragility made her even more beautiful—in a tragic way.

She couldn’t have been older than sixteen.

Her appearance clearly matched someone my age… or even younger.

She wore an oversized lab coat, and purplish bruises stained her arms like dark tattoos.

Even so, what truly took my breath away were the lines.

The lines of weakness over her body, invisible to normal eyes but brutally clear to mine.

They glowed white, like fresh scars, winding around her neck, her wrists, her torso.

So many that they almost formed a map of fractures.

As if she had been broken and put back together over and over again.

The final result reminded me of a stuffed toy sewn together from different scraps of fabric.

Imperfect… yet strangely moving.

The goddess lifted her head.

Her crimson eyes opened wide.

They were large, yes—but they fit perfectly with her unusual beauty.

Within them wasn’t just fear: there was also an instant, unsettling recognition when she looked at me.

An intuition far too strange. Far too much.

—You… —she whispered, her voice barely audible—. The boy of the quiet dreams. Subject 01.

The ground vanished beneath my feet.

Subject 01…?

The number the cold voice in my vision had associated with me?

No. The number was two.

So then… how many subjects were there?

Akihiro reached my side, visibly shaken.

—What?! How did you get out of—? You have to go back right now!

The girl ignored him.

Her crimson eyes had only one target: me.

Yūsha Kurayami. The boy who controls fear.

—They did this to us...

A single tear slid down her cheek.

—You are the fearful boy. I am the girl who suffers. They say we are two sides of the same broken coin. And now that you’re awake… he’s coming for us.

Before I could say a single word—before I could even process the flood of revelations—Akihiro grabbed her arm.

Unusually gentle. He was usually rough, blunt.

With her, though, he was almost careful.

Which, instead of calming me, only deepened my unease.

—I’m sorry, Yūsha —he murmured as he pulled her into the darkness—. This is bigger than you think.

The last image I had was her turning her face toward me as she disappeared down the stairs.

Her eyes…

Her eyes were screaming something I still couldn’t fully understand.

The door closed with a heavy, ironically soft slam.

And I was left alone in the hallway, her wor

ds forming a storm of emotions and unanswered questions.

You are the fearful boy…

I am the girl who suffers.

And, as Stephen King makes clear in his stories, fear doesn’t appear out of nowhere.

It’s born from something that was already broken.