The girl in C-21 was not supposed to survive.
Tae-Hyun learned that three nights later.
He was cleaning near the data console when two technicians spoke without lowering their voices.
"Neural degradation is past recovery," one said. "They'll terminate her tomorrow."
"Transfer?"
"No. Disposal."
The word settled heavily.
Disposal.
As if she were broken equipment.
He glanced through the glass.
She sat in the same chair.
Thinner.
Palest.
Still alive.
Her eyes were open.
Not begging.
Just… there.
He looked away.
He shouldn't interfere.
Every instinct trained in his old life told him this was not the moment.
He was not ready.
He had no structure.
No shield.
One unexplained anomaly in Helix's deepest level could unravel everything.
But his body didn't care about strategy.
It recognized suffering the way lungs recognized oxygen.
And something in him… reached.
That night, he couldn't bring himself to go home.
Instead, he waited.
Watched shifts rotate.
Watched Section C quiet.
At 2:13 a.m., the corridor emptied.
The cameras pivoted into night-cycle positions.
He stood before C-21 again.
The glass was colder this time.
He placed his palm against it.
Not to test.
Not to explore.
To decide.
The hum rose immediately.
Not violently.
Purposefully.
He focused past the barrier.
Past fear.
Past thought.
On her.
On the way her cells screamed exhaustion.
On the way her nervous system misfired like a storm with no sky.
On the simple, human truth:
she didn't want to die.
Something in him responded.
Not with command.
With correction.
The world narrowed.
The glass disappeared.
He was not in the corridor anymore.
He was inside a body.
Signals.
Breaks.
Damage.
Patterns that shouldn't coexist.
He didn't impose.
He listened.
Then he adjusted.
One system at a time.
He didn't try to make her stronger.
He tried to make her quiet.
To give her biology a moment to remember how to be human.
The monitors inside the room began to tremble.
Her breathing shifted.
Shallow.
Then slower.
The spasm in her fingers eased.
Her head rolled slightly to the side.
And the terrible noise inside him… softened.
He released.
Staggered back a step.
The world rushed in.
The corridor.
The lights.
His own heartbeat—too fast now.
Too loud.
He pressed a hand to the wall.
Steady.
Steady.
He had not meant to do so much.
Or felt so much.
Inside the chamber, the girl exhaled.
Long.
Deep.
The first peaceful breath he had seen her take.
He left before the system could register the change.
Dr. Seo found him two days later.
Not in the lab.
In the hospital stairwell.
He was sitting on the steps, head slightly bowed, eyes unfocused.
She had come down for air.
She had not expected to find him there.
But the moment she saw his face—
she knew.
"What did you do?" she asked.
He lifted his gaze.
There was no triumph in it.
Only fatigue.
"I don't know how to watch it anymore," he replied.
Her jaw tightened.
She stepped closer.
"Vitals in C-21 stabilized overnight," she said. "After weeks of steady decay."
He didn't speak.
She searched his face.
"You were there," she said.
"Yes."
"You interfered."
"Yes."
"Do you understand what that means?"
He met her eyes.
"It means I crossed the first line."
She exhaled.
Ran a hand through her hair.
"They'll investigate," she said. "They always do when something impossible happens."
"Good."
Her gaze snapped back to him. "Good?"
"I want them to start asking the wrong questions," he said quietly.
She stared at him.
At the man who should not exist.
Who had just altered a life like adjusting a setting.
And had not smiled.
"You can't save them all," she said.
"I know."
Silence.
Then, softer, "Why her?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Because the truth wasn't strategic.
It wasn't useful.
It wasn't even safe.
"She was alive," he said finally.
Dr. Seo closed her eyes briefly.
When she opened them again, something in her had shifted.
Not fear.
Decision.
"If you do this again," she said, "you won't survive this place alone."
He watched her.
The woman tied to the system he meant to destroy.
And somehow… becoming the one person who might keep him from becoming it.
"I wasn't planning to," he replied.
She hesitated.
Then sat beside him on the cold stair.
Not as a doctor.
Not as a researcher.
Just as someone who had also seen too much.
"Then don't start now."