The first week blurred into a single scream.
Time stopped meaning anything. There were no windows, no clocks, only the swinging bulb and the wet sound of our own breathing when the white-coats let us surface long enough to beg. My back felt like someone had peeled it open and poured salt into the raw meat beneath. The iron they used was never red-hot just warm enough to sear without breaking the skin, always placed where no suit collar would ever reveal it. Professional. Cruel in its precision.
Luca had stopped whispering encouragement by day four. Now he only moaned when the needles went in, a low animal sound that made my chest cave in worse than my own pain. Torin's massive frame had started to shake uncontrollably between sessions, his quiet strength cracking like old ice. Mara… Mara had begun to laugh sometimes, soft and broken, right before she passed out. I hated that laugh more than the scalpels.
I kept my eyes on the ceiling most of the time, counting the tiny cracks in the black stone like they were stars. Every time the pain crested, I dragged my mind back home. Mom's hands kneading dough on a Sunday morning. Mia's sticky fingers pressing a crayon drawing of the three of us into my palm. "For when you miss us," she'd said the day I left. I still had that drawing folded in my mind like a talisman. It was the only thing that kept me from begging them to just end it.
On what I think was the ninth day, the door hissed open and Draven stepped inside alone. No white-coats. No cart of gleaming tools. Just him, carrying a small black speaker the size of a book. He looked almost gentle in the yellow tie loosened, sleeves rolled, the same faint smile he'd worn at dinner.
"Today we try something different," he said.
He set the speaker on the floor between us and pressed a button.
Music flooded the cube.
Silent Night.
The Christmas carol. Soft piano at first, then the familiar lullaby voice pure, almost angelic floating through the damp stone. Holy night… all is calm… all is bright…
It wasn't Christmas. Not even close. Outside these walls it was probably still late summer, the kind of sticky heat where kids ran through sprinklers and families argued over barbecue. Yet here was Silent Night, clear and perfect, wrapping around my chained wrists like cold fingers.
Luca lifted his head, eyes glassy. "What the hell…?"
Torin made a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. Mara's cracked lips moved in time with the words for half a second before she caught herself and turned her face away.
Draven crouched beside me, close enough that I could see the silver threads of exhaustion in his own eyes. He wasn't enjoying this the way a monster would. He looked like a man performing surgery on his own heart.
"Why?" I rasped. My throat was raw from screaming. "Why this song?"
He tilted his head, listening to the music as if it were giving him instructions. "Because we and our kids remember the longest night, Elias. The night your father stood in these same mountains and chose his side. The night we were forced to give out lands, the night we were murdered for no just cause. We played this song then too, broadcast it across every frequency so the soldiers would hear it while they died. So my people would be given hope, It helps the resonance. Makes the suffering… harmonious."
The song swelled. Sleep in heavenly peace…
The first cut came right on the word "peace." Not deep. Just a thin line across my ribs, precise and slow, while the melody continued. Blood welled, warm and sticky, and the focus crystal they'd taken from me now hanging on a chain around Draven's neck flared bright blue in time with the piano notes.
I felt it inside my chest. The Aether that had been waking up answered the music like a dog hearing its master's voice. It twisted, not fighting the pain but leaning into it, turning every slice and burn into something almost… beautiful. My scream came out broken, half melody, and the shame of that burned hotter than the iron they pressed to my spine a moment later.
Draven's voice stayed soft, almost fatherly. "Your father understood. He carried a recording of this song in his pack the night he betrayed us. Did you know that? He told us the Aether needed a lullaby to remember its purpose. We're just finishing what he started."
Lies. They had to be lies. But the song kept playing on loop now, verse after verse, and with every repetition the pain sharpened into something new. It wasn't just physical anymore. It felt like the music was reaching inside my skull and pulling memories out by the roots.
I saw Mom crying at the kitchen table the first Christmas after Dad died, trying to smile for Mia while the tree lights blinked like dying stars. I saw Mia in her too-big coat, singing Silent Night off-key at the top of her lungs because she thought it would make Dad come home. I saw myself at seventeen, promising them both that I would fix everything. That I was strong enough.
The iron touched my back again, right between the shoulder, and this time the scream tore something loose inside me. Tears streamed down my face without permission. Not from the burn from the sudden, crushing certainty that I might never see them again. That the last thing they would remember of me was a boy who left to play hero and never came back.
Luca was crying openly now, the song forcing his own memories to the surface. "My little brother… he loved this song," he whispered between sobs. "Used to make me dance with him every December…"
Torin had gone completely silent, eyes fixed on the speaker like it was the devil himself. Mara's laughter returned, high and brittle, syncing with the chorus until I wanted to rip my own ears off.
Draven stood slowly. "The more it hurts, the clearer the song becomes. Four more weeks of this and the resonance will be strong enough.
He left the speaker playing.
For the next three days it never stopped. Silent Night on endless repeat, the same gentle voice promising peace while scalpels traced patterns across our skin and syringes pumped liquid fire into our veins. The white-coats worked in shifts now, always careful, always professional. They fed us just enough to keep us conscious. They wiped the blood away so it wouldn't stain anything visible. And all the while the carol played, piercing straight through whatever was left of our souls.
I started talking to the song.
Not out loud at first. Just in my head. Begging it to stop. Then cursing it. Then, on the worst night, singing along under my breath because the silence between verses was somehow worse. The Aether inside me answered every note. I could feel it spreading thin black threads under my skin that glowed faintly blue when the music hit the high notes. It didn't hurt the way it should have. It felt like coming home to something ancient and starving.
On the fourteenth night or maybe the fifteenth, I had lost count, Draven returned alone again. The speaker was still playing, but softer now, almost a whisper.
He knelt in front of me and pressed two fingers to my pulse. His touch was gentle, almost tender.
"You're doing beautifully, Elias," he murmured. "The Aether is listening. Soon they'll sing back. And when they do, your country will finally pay for what it took from us."
I wanted to spit at him again. I wanted to scream that my father had been a good man. But all that came out was a broken whisper.
"Why Christmas?"
Draven's smile was sad this time. "Because on the longest night, even monsters need a lullaby. Your father taught us that."
He stood, adjusted the volume until the song filled every corner of the cube once more, and left.
I hung there in my chains, tears mixing with sweat and blood, listening to the carol promise heavenly peace while something inside my veins began to hum in perfect harmony.
And for the first time since the ambush, I realized the terrible truth.
The Aether wasn't just waking up.
It was remembering me.