The light above my bed cycles on at 0600 hours. It doesn't flicker, nor fade in. One moment, there is darkness, the next instant there is light. It's as if someone flipped a switch outside my doorless room.
I sit up. My body moved without thought, purely muscle memory. Conditioning. Coding, in a sense.
I don't feel tired.
I don't feel awake.
I just am.
The Hum is quieter in the mornings. It seeps into the walls, like something hiding until it's needed or discovered.
At 0605, the door opens. No sound, no warning. Just the soft hiss of hydraulics and the red light above the door turns off.
Attendant #9 enters. I know them by the scar on their left hand, a thin white line across the knuckles. It seems to be a sort of cut or wound that never healed. They carry the tray with a cup, a tablet, and a folded paper.
"Morning cycle", they say. Their voice is monotone and flat, like a recording.
I take the tray, and they leave without waiting for a response. They never do.
The cup contains water with a dissolved nutrient paste. It's tasteless, gray, and thick enough to coat my throat and make swallowing uncomfortable. The tablet is today's enhancer. I swallow it without water.
Inside the folded paper is my schedule. I read it every day. I memorize it. But I still will read it.
0630 - Hygiene cycle
0700 - Neural calibration
0830 - Cognitive assessment
1000 - Resonance observation (grouped)
1200 - Nutrient intake
1300 - Dream log submission
1430 - Sub-level briefing (Subject A-01)
1600 - Isolation Reflection
1800 - Nutrient Intake
1900 - Dream suppression therapy
2100 - Lights out
Everything's the same. Except for the sub-level briefing, and the new subject they found there.
Hygiene cycle is ten minutes in a white room with a showerhead which releases warm mist instead of water. It smells faintly of antiseptic and something metallic, like dried blood. A brush appears from the wall and scrubs my body while I stand still. I don't touch myself. I don't need to.
After, a gown is dispensed. Clean, identical to the one I wore before.
Neural calibration is next. Room 7-B. The chair is cold. Wires attach to my temples, my spine, the base of my skull. A screen flickers to life, showing my brainwaves in real time, alive jumping lines of blue and green.
Dr. Lien watches from behind the glass. I know her name because I saw it on a badge once. She doesn't speak to me, just observing. Her eyes move across the monitors, then to me, then back again. She reminds me of a camera, small, precise, always watching.
"Alpha waves stable," she says to nobody in particular. "Theta activity elevated. Nothing Anomalous."
I don't know what that means. I just know that if it was anomalous, they would sedate me.
After calibration comes cognitive assessment. A series of tests on a tablet. Memory recall, pattern recognition, emotional response. I answer quickly, automatically. I don't think about the questions. My hand moves before my mind registers the image, as if I already know the answers. In a sense, I already do.
One question pauses on the screen.
"Which of these images does not belong?"
Four images:
A child laughing.
A tall green structure, which I know is a tree, burning.
A clock with no hands.A door slightly ajar.
I select the laughing child.
The screen binks red.
Incorrect.
The correct answer was the door.
I don't understand.
But I don't ask.
They never explain.
At 1000 hours, I am escorted to observation chamber III for resonance observation. The others are already there.
The First Child stands at the northern point of the room. Second Child in the east. Third at the south. Fifth at the west. Sixth and Seventh lean against the far wall, shoulder to shoulder, eyes closed.
Noone greets me.
Noone moves.
We are not required to interact. We are required only to be present.
A low tone begins. The Hum, but shaped, modeled into a frequency that makes my teeth and inner ears ache. My arms hang at my sides, my breath slows, and my vision blurs.
This is supposed to synchronise us.
I don't know why.
Neither do I know what we're synchronizing to.
After fifteen minutes, the tone cuts out. The others blink. I blink.
Resonance observation is complete for this cycle.
Noone speaks as we're led back to our halls.
At 1200, I consume my second nutrient paste. This one is slightly warmer, with a hint of salt. I drink it standing. There is no chair in my room.
At 1300, I submit my dream log.
It's a tablet with a single prompt.
"Describe your dreams from last night."
I type:
"I dreamed of a large room with no ceiling. The walls were made of something that looked like flesh or skin but wasn't. There was a sound like breathing, but it wasn't coming from me. I saw a figure on a cross, but I couldn't see its face. I woke up."
I submit it.
The screen flashes:
"Log accepted. No further action required."
At 1430, I am taken to Sub-level briefing.
This is new.
A-01 was detected and designated yesterday. They want us to observe it.
I've never seen an angel before.
We walk through a series of descending corridors. The air grows colder. The Hum deepens. The walls change, less white, more metal, streaked with something dark and dried.
We reach a viewing chamber.
Glass separates us from Sub-level 9.
A-01 is inside.
It is… difficult to describe.
It is a circle of faces.
Not floating. Not attached to bodies. Just faces, suspended in the air, orbiting a cluster of faces in a central point. They are all asleep, mouths slightly open, eyelids fluttering.
They are all different, ages, genders, skin tones, but they are all the same. Like variations of a single face.
The faces orbit slowly, clockwise. Then counter clockwise. Then they stop. Then they begin again.
I don't feel fear.
I feel…
Recognition…?
As if I've seen this before.
As if I know these faces.
Then the dream begins.
It starts in my peripheral vision.
A warmth, a pressure. Like sinking into a warm bath.
I am no longer in the viewing chamber.
I am in a white space.
No walls, no floor, no ceiling.
Just light.
And I see them.
The other Children.
First, Second, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh.
We stand in a circle.
But we are not in our gowns.
We are children.
Younger, barefoot. Wearing simple white clothes.
And we are happy.
Laughing.
Holding hands.
Spinning.
I don't remember this.
But I feel it.
It's real.
It's our memory.
Third Child turns to me. Their eyes are clear now. No fog. No blur.
"This is my memory," they say.
I open my mouth, but the Fifth Child grabs my hand.
"They weren't supposed to be here," they whisper. "This is mine."
I look at the others.
The First Child is crying.
The Second Child is humming.
Sixth and Seventh are whispering to each other, their voices blending into one sound.
And then I hear it.
The Hum.
But not from the complex.
From them.
From us.
It's coming from our chests. From our throats. From our bones. From our souls.
We are singing.
And the white space begins to glow.
Brighter.
Hotter.
Painful.
I try to let go of the Fifth Child's hand, but their grip tightens.
"No," they say. "Not yet. You have to remember."
But I don't want to remember.
And then I do.
I'm back in the viewing chamber.
The others are gasping.
The First Child is on their knees.
The Second Child is bleeding from their nose.
The Third Child is laughing, high, unnatural noises escaping their chest.
The Fifth Child looks at me. Their eyes are wet.
"We were together," they say. "Werent we?"
I don't answer.
I don't know what happened.
But I know this.
It wasn't a dream.
It was a memory.
And it wasn't just the Third Child's.
It was ours.
But I don't remember it.
And that terrifies me more than anything else.
We are escorted back to our rooms.
Noone speaks
Noone looks at each other.
At 1600, I enter isolation reflection.
It's a small room with a chair and a light. I sit. I stare at the floor. I am supposed to reflect on my emotional state.
I don't feel anything.
I just think about the faces.
The sleeping faces.
And the memory that wasn't mine.
At 1900, dream suppression therapy begins.
They strap me into a chair in a dark room. A machine hums at my temples, a different frequency than neural calibration. It's supposed to suppress my REM activity.
It doesn't work.
I still dream.
I dream of the white space.
I dream of the singing.
I dream of the faces.
And I dream of her.
The crucified figure.
Her eyes still closed.
But I know she's waking up.
At 2100, the light above my bed cycles off.
Darkness.
But not silence.
The Hum is louder now.
It doesn't sleep.
It waits.
And I lie here, wondering.
If I don't remember my past…
Then who put it in my dreams?