January, 1096?

The rain is a relentless, rhythmic drumming against the glass of my apartment, reducing the Sydney skyline to a blurred smudge of charcoal. It’s the kind of downpour that traps you inside a familiar box of white walls and curated comforts.

I sit on the edge of the bed, the iPad Pro heavy in my grip. The screen is a mosaic of digital monotony: Gemini blinking a cursor for an unformed prompt, YouTube thumbnails I've already scrolled past, and Discord’s relentless red notification dots. Then there are the icons for Arknights. The dailies are pending; virtual chores I could clear with my eyes closed at this point.

It’s all so predictable.

I toss the tablet onto the nightstand. The heavy thud against the wood is the loudest thing in the room besides the rain. I’m living in a loop, the initial excitement eroded into a flat plain of routine. I fall back, the mattress sighing under my weight, and stare up at the ceiling. There’s a tiny, jagged ridge in the plaster I’ve memorized. I trace it with my eyes as the storm outside harmonizes with the dull hum of the refrigerator.

The sheer weight of the afternoon’s boredom pulls my eyelids down. The grey light dims. The ceiling loses its edges, blurring into a featureless mist. The rhythmic tap-tap- tap on the windowpane slows, transforming into a deep, echoing pulse vibrating through my chest. The apartment, the rain, the unfinished dailies; they dissolve into a quiet, heavy darkness.

I close my eyes. For a moment, everything is perfectly still.

Then, my eyes snap open. The familiar white ceiling is gone. The world is a violent, bruised orange, the color of a rotting sunset filtered through a suffocating haze of dust.

The air is heavy, tasting of scorched wood and a metallic tang that scratches the back of my throat. I’m sitting on a floor gritty with pulverized plaster. Above, the buckled roof forms a jagged maw, exposing a sickly sky. Heavy timber beams hang by splinters, Arts Unit distorted shadows across the wreckage.

My hands instinctively reach for the smooth, cold glass of the iPad Pro, the comforting weight I'd just tossed onto my nightstand just seconds ago. Instead, my delicate, porcelain fingers scrape against the plaster and jagged debris. The familiar thud of the tablet against wood is gone, instantly replaced by a chaotic, overlapping roar tearing through my skull. It isn't the soothing Sydney rain. It’s a chaotic, overlapping roar tearing through the silence. And it isn't coming from the street. It’s inside my head. A thousand whispers, jagged screams, and frantic thoughts claw at my skull, demanding to be heard. The psychic cacophony is so intense it makes my vision vibrate, building a pressure behind my eyes that feels like my skull might fracture.

"Stop…" I gasp. The word is barely a breath.

The sound of my own voice sends a jolt of pure terror through me. It’s foreign, thin, startlingly high-pitched, and light, like a silver bell struck in a vacuum. It sounds small. Innocent. It’s a voice entirely detached from the life I know.

I scramble to cover my ears, breath hitching in short, panicked gasps that make my chest ache. As my hands lift into the orange light, I freeze. They are tiny. The skin is porcelain white, the fingers delicate and fragile, entirely stripped of my old calluses. I press my palms hard against the sides of my head to muffle the screaming, but my fingers graze something impossible. Instead of the familiar curve of human ears, I find something long and elegant. My fingertips trace smooth skin tapering into a sharp, elongated point that reaches past my hairline. They twitch instinctively under my touch; sensitive and terrifyingly real.

"What…” The mental storm swallows the word.

Pressing my hands against these strange, pointed ears is useless; the voices don't care about physical barriers. I drop my hands to my lap. I have to anchor myself to something physical, or I’ll lose my mind before I even figure out where "here" is.

"I have to speak," I whisper, using that melodic voice to cut through the static.

A curtain of hair falls over my shoulders. It’s heavy, far heavier than I remember. I tangle my small fingers in the strands. It’s a shimmering grey, like woodsmoke, pooling around my hips on the debris-strewn floor. As I shift to examine the grime-stained fabric of my dress, a sharp tug at my scalp catches me off guard. It’s a solid, rooted weight. I reach up, breath catching. My fingers meet something cold. Hard. Smooth.

"…Horns?"

I trace them with trembling hands. They sprout from my crown, thick at the base and tapering into wicked points, sweeping outward before straightening to form a hollow, heart-shaped space above the top of my head. They feel like polished nails, complete with a recessed ridge that glows with a faint, misty blue light. The left one is longer, giving my head a lopsided imbalance my neck hasn't learned to support.

Suddenly, a sharp, pinching spark of pain shoots up my tailbone. I lurch forward, scrambling away from the masonry. As I move, something behind me twitches; a blur of motion in my peripheral vision.

I freeze, slowly twisting my torso.

Coiled on the dusty floor like a sleeping sapphire snake is a tail. It’s slender, smooth, and that same ethereal misty blue, its sharp, spade-like tip flicking nervously against the grit.

I didn't just wake up in a different room. I woke up as a different species.

This isn't a dream. Dreams don't have this gritty texture or the biting scent of ozone and rotting drywall. Earth is gone. Even if the wreckage around me resembles a modern structure, twisted rebar, shattered concrete, the 'me' that lived in that apartment is extinct.

"Where am I? And why won't the voices stop…"

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to filter out the noise. It’s not a choir; it’s a landslide. I cannot pick out individual words, but the intent is suffocating. It’s a thick, oily sludge of raw emotion, pure suffering, a jagged edge of vengeance, and a hollow, aching grief that feels centuries old. It pulses in time with the throb in my skull.

My stomach gives a sharp, demanding twist, and my throat feels like I’ve been swallowing sand. The existential horror of being a literal devil is rapidly being shoved aside by the very human, very urgent need for water.

I need to move.

I plant my small hands on the debris and push, expecting my usual height and center of gravity. Instead, my perspective halts abruptly, making the world feel dizzyingly large. My brain sends the standard signal to step forward, but the lopsided weight of the horns acts as a brutal anchor, dragging my neck violently to the left.

Worse is the pendulum swinging behind me. The heavy, spade-tipped tail lashes out instinctively to catch my balance, completely unsynchronized with my human muscle memory. It’s like trying to operate a complex machine with the wrong instruction manual, It lashes out behind me for balance, but instead, it hooks around a piece of fallen timber.

A sharp cry escapes me as I lose my footing. Momentum carries me forward, my knees slamming into the grit and my palms scraping against the jagged edges of broken tiles. I go down hard.

I stay there for a second, face-down in the dust, waiting for the bone-deep agony that usually follows a fall like that.

I feel the sting. I look down at my palms and see thin, shallow cuts where the sharp debris bit into my pale skin. A few beads of dark fluid well up. But that’s it. There’s no bruising, no throbbing ache in my joints. The impact should have left me limping, but my body feels... sturdy. Denser.

I push myself back into a sitting position, staring at the scratches on my hands as the sting already begins to dull. My skin looks as fragile as porcelain, but it’s holding together against things that should have shredded it.

"I really am a devil, then…" I whisper. The reality finally sinks in through the physical proof of my own resilience. I’m not just Iori anymore. I’m something built to survive this orange, screaming nightmare.

I manage to find a rhythm, a staggered, swaying gait that accounts for the lopsided weight on my head. Every few steps, my tail lashes out instinctively to catch my balance, the spade-shaped tip scraping the grit like a metallic finger. I make it to the edge of the collapsed wall and look out.

The view is a punch to the gut.

It’s not just ruins; it’s a graveyard of a world. The wasteland stretches toward the horizon, a jagged sea of rust-colored dust and shattered stone. If someone told me I’d died and woken up in a circle of hell, I’d have no reason to argue.

Poking out from the earth like the teeth of some buried beast are clusters of black crystalline rocks. They don't just sit there; they seem to grow, pulsing with a muted, sickly yellow light that bleeds into the haze. They are beautiful in a way that makes my skin crawl, a lethal elegance that feels fundamentally wrong.

Then, my view shifts higher.

In the far distance, silhouettes cut through the smog. They aren't clouds. They’re massive, hulking airships, their hulls dark and utilitarian, drifting with a slow, mechanical grace. Below them, I see the jagged teeth of a skyline. Not the glass-and-steel towers of Sydney, but massive black spires and tiered, heavy structures built to weather a hurricane.

It's a city, but it looks… mobile. Fortified. The city skyline itself is dozens of meters above ground, heavy treads decorate the bottoms.

The city looks sickeningly familiar. Why does it look so familiar. I look at those black crystals again, the way they hum with that toxic, amber light.

A cold shiver races down my spine. The word bubbles up from my memory; a term I’ve tapped on a screen a thousand times. Seeing it here, in the flesh, is a nightmare made real. I know those rocks all too well.

"Or… Originium?"

My breath hitches. It all makes a horrifying sense now. The voices in my head, the suffering, the echoes of vengeance, they aren't just madness. They're the scream of a race. I’m not just a devil girl. I’m a Sarkaz.

This isn't a game. I’m not playing Arknights anymore. I’m standing in the middle of Terra, and I am the very thing the rest of this world fears most.

"Is this some kind of sick joke?" I whisper, the words trembling in that unfamiliar, melodic voice.

I think back to the apartment, the rain, the dull safety of the Lower North Shore. I wanted excitement? I wanted the routine to break? Some cosmic trickster must have been listening, laughing as they plucked me out of my bed and dropped me into the most dangerous corner of the most dangerous world I know. Oh, you're bored? Fine. Have some horns. Have a tail. Have a bloodline the entire planet wants to see extinct. Good luck surviving the next hour.

The irony is a bitter, metallic taste in my mouth.

I take another step. I turn a corner around a half-standing wall, hoping to find a road or a sign of life that isn't a mobile city kilometers away.

Instead, my breath hitches and stays trapped in my throat.

The smell hits me first, thick, cloying, and sweet; a sickening mix of old copper and rotting flowers that makes my stomach turn a violent somersault. Spread across the grey grit and jagged shards of concrete are shapes. They aren't just debris.

They are bodies.

Some are face-down, their clothes tattered and soaked in a drying crimson that looks almost black under the orange sky. Others are slumped against the ruins, their eyes staring blankly at nothing. I see the tell-tale signs: the sharp protrusions of horns, the limp curve of tails. These were Sarkaz.

They aren't just dead. They are becoming part of the landscape, their remains already being reclaimed by the black, glowing crystals of Originium sprouting from the earth around them.

I stare at a hand just a few paces away. It's small, pale, and covered in dust. It looks so much like mine.

The boredom of my old life feels like a cruel, beautiful dream I'll never have again. I slump back onto the gritty, ash-stained ground, the strength instantly deserting my legs. My chest heaves with a jagged, racking sob that feels far too big for this small frame. It’s a sound I don't recognize, sharp, high, and desperate, tearing out of a throat that feels lined with sandpaper.

I cry until my eyes sting and my head throbs in sync with the chorus of voices in my skull. I cry until the salt of my tears carves tracks through the dust on my cheeks, stinging my pale skin, leaving my body hollow, wrung out like a dry sponge. The orange sky blurs into a smear of bruised light as I bury my face in my hands, my long, grey hair spilling over my shoulders like a funeral shroud.

"Did you hear that?"

The voice is muffled, filtered through something mechanical. It’s sharp, professional, and startlingly close. I freeze, my breath hitching in a wet, shaky gasp. In the cacophony of the voices and my own despair, I didn’t even hear them approaching.

"Survivor?" another voice asks. This one is softer, carrying a note of hesitant disbelief. I look up, squinting through the haze and the mess of my hair. Three figures emerge from behind a jagged shelf of tilted concrete. They look like apparitions from a tactical fever dream, dark, utilitarian uniforms, heavy boots, and faces obscured by the insect- like lenses of gas masks and filters.

My eyes lock onto the patch on their shoulders. A rook.

Rhodes Island.

The word echoes in my mind, separate from the screaming voices. It’s a flicker of recognition, a spark of hope that feels almost agonizing in this graveyard.

The one in the lead is a Lupo, I can see the sharp, alert flick of her grey ears atop his head. He holds a sword with a practiced, low-slung grip, his eyes scanning the ruins behind me before settling on my small, trembling form. To her left, a Feline adjusts the strap of a compact crossbow, their tail twitching with nervous energy. Behind them both stands a Liberi, identifiable by the delicate, pale feathers peeking out near her temples. She isn't holding a weapon, but a short, etched wand. A pouch marked with a prominent white cross hangs at her hip.

"A child," the Lupo says, his voice echoing slightly behind his mask. He doesn't lower his sword, but his posture softens just a fraction. "She survived the Catastrophe."

Catastrophe.

The word hits me like a physical blow. I look back at the black, glowing crystals erupting from the ruins, the 'hell' I thought I was in. It wasn't just a war or a collapse. It was the wrath of the earth itself.

The Liberi Medic steps forward, bypassing the Field Ops. She kneels a few paces away, her movements slow and deliberate. She reaches for a canteen at her belt, the sloshing of water the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.

"It’s alright," she says, her voice gentle even through the respirator. "We’re here to help. Let’s bring her back to the landship."

I stare at her. The landship. Rhodes Island.

As the Medic steps closer, the adrenaline that had been holding me together finally snaps. The cold, crushing weight of the ruins begins to dissolve into a soft, flickering haze. My vision narrows to the metallic sheen of the canteen. The Medic presses it to my lips, and the sharp, life-giving chill of water is a shock to my system. Before I can even swallow, my body gives out. I collapse forward, caught instantly by the sudden, overwhelming warmth of the Liberi’s arms wrapping around me. A loud clack rings out. For a moment, the screaming in my head dims, drowned out by the steady, rhythmic thrum of a heartbeat that isn't my own.

Then, I am drifting.

I’m lying on something soft, a sharp contrast to the grit and rebar of the wasteland. The air smells of ozone, sterile antiseptic, and something faintly herbal. Beneath the mattress, there’s a low, constant vibration, a deep mechanical pulse that resonates through my very bones.

The landship. We’re moving.

Even with my eyes closed, the world isn't silent. The "voices" have settled into a low, buzzing static, but something new has taken their place. It’s like a flavor on the back of my tongue. I can taste the air in the room, and it’s thick with conflicting textures.

To my left, there’s a warmth like a sun-drenched field, soft, protective, and buzzing with a frantic worry. That must be her. The Medic.

"She’s lucky we were nearby," a voice whispers. It’s the Liberi. Her tone is hushed, but the relief in it is palpable, a sweet, honey-like emotion that briefly settles my stomach. Then, a second presence cuts through the warmth like a scalpel through silk. This one is cold. It’s as vast and immovable as a glacier, radiating a sharp, clinical detachment that makes the hair on my arms stand up. It doesn't taste like honey. It tastes like iron and old paper.

"Her presence is a security risk, Erika."

The voice is calm, measured, and carries the weight of centuries. I know that voice. I’ve heard it through my iPad speakers a thousand times, delivering drawn-out lectures on biology and international pragmatism.

Kal’tsit. The Old Well herself.

"Dr. Kal’tsit! She’s just a child," Erika counters. Her voice rises in a sharp spike of indignation that tastes like spoiled berries.

"She is a Sarkaz, a Djall, an ancient bloodline," Kal’tsit corrects, her words clicking like chess pieces being maneuvered onto a board. "A sub-branch historically documented for their empathic manipulation. We cannot currently ascertain if the distress she is radiating is genuine trauma, or a latent biological defense mechanism designed to lower your guard."

Emotional manipulation? I try to force my eyes open. I want to look her in those cold, green eyes and tell her exactly how "manipulative" I feel while covered in Catastrophe dust. I try to draw breath to speak, to defend myself, but my body refuses to cooperate. The weight of my horns feels like lead anchors, and the sheer exhaustion of the transformation and the rescue drags me back down.

The argument fades into a muffled blur. The iron-and-paper taste of Kal'tsit's presence is the last thing I sense before the heavy, dreamless darkness claims me again.

The air is sterile, scrubbed clean by industrial filters, but it’s thick with the "tastes" of the people in the room. I slowly regain consciousness.

Erika is a steady, sun-warmed presence near the foot of the bed. But there’s a new one; sharp, metallic, and dancing with a playful, predatory energy that makes the back of my neck prickle. It tastes like cold copper and expensive wine.

I force my eyes open. The ceiling is a grid of recessed LED panels, painfully bright. I groan, the sound coming out as a tiny, pathetic chirp, and slowly push myself upright. The weight of my horns is a sudden, jarring reminder of my new reality. As I sit up, my head tilts instinctively to the left, the longer horn pulling at my neck muscles. My tail, which had been coiled beneath the thin medical sheets, slithers out and twitches nervously. The spade-shaped tip taps against the metal frame of the bed with a soft clink.

"Oh, look who decided to rejoin the living," a voice drawls. It’s light, teasing, and carries a jagged edge of clinical curiosity. "You were starting to make me wonder if we’d rescued a vegetable."

I blink, my vision clearing to reveal a woman with skin as pale as parchment and eyes the color of fresh arterial blood. Her white hair is pulled back, and she wears a lab coat that looks a size too large for her slight frame.

Warfarin. The pureblood Sarkaz Medic I’d relied on in countless operations.

She’s leaning against a diagnostic console with her arms crossed, watching me with an expression that sits somewhere between a scientist evaluating a specimen and a bored socialite.

"Can you speak?" she asks, tilting her head.

"Yes," I croak. My throat feels like it’s been lined with sandpaper, and the word sounds frail, entirely lacking the depth of the adult voice I spent decades using.

Erika moves closer, her feathered temples fluttering slightly as she smiles. Her presence is a balm against Warfarin’s sharp edges. "Do you have a name?" she asks gently, leaning in.

Iori. The name is right there, on the tip of my tongue. I want to say it. But then, the memory of Kal’tsit’s cold, clinical voice flashes through my mind.

Security risk. Pure-blood Djall. Emotional manipulation.

If I tell them my name, the questions won't stop. A Sarkaz child with a name from the far-off east of Higashi, found in the middle of a Catastrophe zone in the heart of Kazdel? It’s a red flag the size of a landship.

I slowly shake my head.

"No," I whisper. "I… I don't have one."

"Shocker," Warfarin remarks, her voice dry. She taps a rhythmic, sharp pattern onto the glass console, her red eyes locked on the scrolling data. "A nameless stray from the Kazdel outskirts. Whether you pick a name or not, little Djall, it makes no difference to me. I am far more interested in your bloodwork. Try not to faint before the centrifuge finishes your infection rate."

The mention of an infection rate sends a spike of ice down my spine. I think of the black crystals, the Originium, sprouting from the ground like a glowing cancer. I look down at my arms, terrified and half-expecting to see those jagged crystals already tearing through my skin.

"Do you want to pick a name?" Erika asks, refocusing me to the present.

"A name?" I repeat, trying to inject enough hesitation into my voice to sell the lie.

"A name," Erika says encouragingly. "I am Erika. That’s what people address me as. It’s how we know who you are."

I look at the floor, my grey hair falling forward like a curtain to hide my face. The voices in my head are a muddy swirl of grief and anger, none of them mine.

"I don’t remember anything," I lie, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. "Is there a name for that? For someone who just… forgets?"

Warfarin finally turns away from her console. She looks at me with an unreadable expression, her pale face framed by the clinical white light.

"Lethe," she says. The word is short, sharp, and carries a weight I cannot quite place.

"The river of forgetfulness in Minos. If you’ve truly washed away your past, it’s as good a label as any for a nameless specimen."

Erika shoots Warfarin a flash of annoyance, but then she turns back to me, her eyes softening. "Lethe. It’s a beautiful name. Do you like it?"

I test the word in my mind. Lethe. It feels cold. It’s a name that acknowledges the void where my old life used to be.

"Lethe," I whisper. "Yes. I'm Lethe."

Warfarin looks at the data slate in her hands, the blue light reflecting in her crimson eyes. She taps a finger against a line of scrolling data, her expression shifting from boredom to a flicker of clinical satisfaction.

“Well, Lethe. Let's dispense with the pleasantries,” she says, her voice cutting through the sterile air like a scalpel. “Your Cell-Originium Assimilation is sitting at 6%. Blood Originium-Crystal Density is 0.14 u/L. You have Oripathy.”

The word hangs in the air, heavy and jagged.

“Oripathy?” I ask instinctively. I know what it means, a death sentence.

Erika steps closer, her presence a soft, golden warmth. She reaches out, resting a gentle hand on my shoulder. Her feathers twitch with a frantic, protective rhythm.

“The Originium crystal…” Erika begins, her voice straining to remain steady. “The black crystals are in your blood, and some part of you is… turning into crystals.”

She speaks slowly, the way one might explain a broken toy to a toddler, her emotions a swirling cloud of professional worry.

Warfarin, however, lets out a short, dismissive scoff. She doesn't have Erika’s filter. To her, I am a fascinating biological anomaly.

“Worry not, little Lethe,” Warfarin says, a sharp, teasing glint in her eyes. “You are a Djall. Consider your assimilation rate. You will have a few centuries to live; you are far more likely to die from anything other than Oripathy.”

Centuries. The word echoes in the sterile room, louder than the machinery. I think of Warfarin, who I know has walked Terra for over two hundred years, watching empires rise and fall while her blood remained cold and her face stayed young.

The air in the room snaps with a sudden, sharp spike of frustration. It tastes like a burst of overripe berries, Erika’s patience finally fraying at the edges of Warfarin’s clinical coldness.

“Dr. Warfarin, you are just confusing her!” Erika says, her voice rising in a protective arc as she steps between me and the Vampire doctor. She looks down at me, her eyes soft and earnest. “No, Lethe. You are not going to die. We are a hospital, we heal people.”

“Charming,” Warfarin drawls, her voice thick with a dry, intellectual amusement that tastes like bitter copper. “Erika, get her basic biometrics," Warfarin instructs, her voice carrying that echoing drawl. "Height, weight, horn length. The standard intake profile. Do try not to break her, though; she looks like she might shatter if you breathe on her too hard."

Erika shoots the Vampire doctor a brief, sharp look of disapproval. The ambient taste in the air spikes with a tart note of annoyance before instantly melting back into that warm comfort as she turns back to me.

"Come on, Lethe," Erika murmurs, her voice returning to its soft cadence. "Let's get this over with. It won't hurt at all, I promise."

She steps closer to the edge of the bed, reaching out with hands that are incredibly gentle. She carefully supports my shoulders, and helps me slide off the mattress.

My bare feet hit the brushed steel floor. The biting, industrial cold shoots straight up my legs, making me shiver instinctively.

Erika guides me toward the metallic measuring station with slow, deliberate steps. She treats me exactly like the traumatized child I am pretending to be. She gently straightens my posture against the scale, her pale feathers twitching slightly as she carefully adjusts the digital scanner so it doesn't clip the sharp points of my crown.

"Just stand perfectly still for a moment," Erika says, her eyes focused on the glowing readout.

Erika gives out the numbers of my examinations. 143cm in height. 42kg in weight. Left horn is 14cm, right one is 12cm. The tail is 1.2m long.

"Now," Warfarin purrs and picks up a terrifyingly large, pristine syringe. "I need one more vial of blood. Sit back on the cot, roll up your sleeve, and try not to squirm." I look at the gleaming tip of the metallic tube. Unadulterated panic instantly overtake me. My back hits the wall behind the cot. I pull my knees up, I try to curl into a tiny ball.

“No, please, no…” My voice breaks, trembling with genuine, unfeigned panic. I am hyperventilating, the cold, sterile air burning my throat.

Warfarin doesn't soften. She merely tilts her head, her white hair shifting as her crimson eyes lock onto my pathetic display with clinical amusement. Warfarin steps closer, her shadow falling over me. She leans in, her face just centimeters from mine, and her lips curl back to reveal the sharp, unmistakable points of her canines.

“Unless you prefer my fangs, little Djall.”

The threat is spoken with a velvet-soft purr, but it freezes the blood in my veins. The image of the ancient Vampire sinking her teeth into my neck, draining me directly, overrides the needle phobia with pure, existential horror.

Erika steps forward, physically wedging her own frame between my body and the Vampire. Her feathers fluff up aggressively, her posture radiating absolute fury.

"Dr. Warfarin, that is completely uncalled for!" Erika snaps, her voice losing its gentle cadence entirely. "She is already terrified. Threatening to bite your patients is a direct violation of medical protocol!"

Warfarin merely rolls her crimson eyes, letting out a theatrical sigh as she leans back, though she doesn't lower the gleaming syringe. "Oh, calm down, Erika. It's called building character. I was just giving our little Djall a choice."

Erika ignores her entirely. She turns her back on the Vampire, the tart, angry flavor in the air slowly smoothing back out into a desperate, soothing warmth as she looks down at me. I am still pressed flat against the wall, my whole body shaking, my eyes blown wide with genuine panic.

Erika reaches into one of her utilitarian pouches. When she pulls her hand out, she isn't holding a medical instrument.

"Here, Lethe," she murmurs, pitching her voice into a soft, grounding whisper. She holds out a small, crinkly wrapper. "It's a lollipop. Strawberry flavor. Just focus on the sweet taste, okay? Don't look at her." Erika gently guides me back to the cot.

The artificial strawberry flavor floods my tongue; a sharp, sugary anchor in the middle of a terrifying, sterile room. With the lollipop firmly in my mouth, I try to look anywhere else that doesn’t have needles or Warfarin in sight. I fixate on Erika, my eyes wide and unblinking.

Then comes the sting.

The pinch almost makes me jump, but I force myself to steady. The primal urge to jerk my arm away screams through my mind, but the fragile reality of my current existence forces me to freeze. If Warfarin misses the vein, she will probably run out of patience. And a frustrated, ancient Vampire with a needle is infinitely worse than an amused one. I bite down hard on the plastic stick of the lollipop, letting out a pitiful, muffled whine through my nose.

I can feel the unnatural pull as the vacuum tube engages, drawing my dark, Originium- laced Sarkaz blood from my arm.

"There. All done," Warfarin announces briskly. She slides the needle out with a quick motion that still makes me wince, immediately pressing a cotton ball down on the crook of my elbow. "Hold that. Don't bleed on the cot."

She turns away, holding the glass vial up to the lights. The dark blood sloshes slightly. Her red eyes gleam with a chilling mixture of scientific hunger and appreciation.

"Now," she purrs, the metallic tang in the room spiking with anticipation. "Let's see exactly what kind of monster you're hiding inside those cells, little Djall."

The hum of the centrifuges finally spins down to a halt, leaving the room in a heavy, suffocating quiet. The artificial strawberry flavor of the lollipop barely masks the metallic tang of fear gathering in the back of my throat.

“Interesting. Very interesting.”

After about twenty agonizing minutes of silence, Warfarin finally speaks.

My stomach drops into a bottomless pit. In a medical facility, "interesting" is never a compliment. Coming from an ancient, blood-obsessed Vampire scientist, it is the absolute last thing I want to hear.

She turns away from the blinding glow of monitors. Her crimson eyes lock onto me with a piercing, analytical intensity that makes me want to shrink directly into the floorboards.

“How very interesting, little anomaly. Just where did you crawl out of?”

I press myself back against the padded back, my tail wrapping tighter around my waist as a physical shield. “From… from the ruins, no?… That’s all I remember…” I stammer, the plastic stick of the lollipop clicking nervously against my teeth.

Warfarin waves dismissively, her hair shifting. The sharp, rust-and-red-wine flavor of her emotional resonance spikes with dark, absolute certainty.

“Well, it doesn’t matter where you are from. You are not leaving now.”

“What… what do… you mean?” My voice squeaks.

She paces slowly toward me, tapping a long, red fingernail against her digital slate.

“Your Arts assimilation rate is high. You are a pure-blood Sarkaz, so high is expected. But yours? Considering your cell assimilation is only 6%? Your Arts assimilation rate is unnaturally high, little anomaly.”

“So, you are going to stay here until we figure out exactly what makes you tick," she declares, a predatory smirk playing on her lips.

I process the numbers through my brain, but the amnesiac child has to ask the question. “Wh… what is an Arts assimilation rate…” I mumble, taking the lollipop out of my mouth with shaking fingers.

Erika steps in, she answers my question, “Arts assimilation means… how strong your Originium Arts are. How much control you potentially have over Originium. Potentially.” Warfarin looks at me like I am the most beautifully dangerous puzzle she has ever been handed. The lollipop slips from my fingers, clattering onto the brushed metal floor.

“Okay… Dr. Warfarin…” I whisper, my throat raw.

Warfarin turns back to the monitors. “We need a brain scan tomorrow to know more.” Tomorrow. A scan to map the exact shape of my madness.

Erika and Warfarin leave, not before Erika looks back at me ask me to finish my meal. I’m now alone.

I look down at my arm. The skin is so pale it’s almost translucent, mapped with faint blue veins that look like a delicate river system. A needle is taped firmly to the back of my hand, a clear tube snaking up to an IV bag that drips with a rhythmic, hypnotic thud-thud-thud.

On the bedside table sits a simple glass of water and a silver-foiled pouch. The Rhodes Island rook logo is printed boldly on the front, right above the words Apple Flavor in a clean, sans-serif font. It’s the kind of high-calorie nutrient paste you’d give to a refugee, or a lab rat. It's a meal designed for a body that’s forgotten how to be a body.

Directly across from me, a large diagnostic monitor hangs from the wall. It’s powered down, its surface a dark, polished glass. In the sterile glow of the room, it acts as a perfect, cruel mirror.

I stare at the reflection, and for a moment, I don't breathe.

My eyes are massive, dominating a face that is all soft curves and porcelain-pale skin. They are a deep, misty blue. My hair, a shimmering waterfall of light grey, cascades over my shoulders and pools on the white sheets like a silken shroud.

But it’s the top of my head that draws my attention. The horns sprout straight up from the center of my skull. They curve outward at the bottom, creating that distinct, heart- shaped negative space before tapering into points so sharp they look like they could pierce the ceiling. I look like a doll someone left in the ruins, a fragile thing the world forgot to finish breaking.

My stomach gives a violent, hollow growl, reminding me that I am currently running on empty. I reach out with a trembling hand and grab the pouch. I tear the top open and squeeze it aggressively.

I am really, truly hungry.

The paste is thick and cool. At the very least, it isn't like sweet candy; it doesn't have that artificial, cloying sugary hit I expected. Instead, it tastes like apple mush; bland, utilitarian, and slightly grainy. I squeeze the pouch flat, forcing every last bit of the nutrient-dense sludge into my mouth.

I lean back, the cold water from the glass helping to wash down the lingering taste of starch and apples.

I don’t know how much time passes. I never thought I could be this bored. I have no stimuli in this metal cell, nothing but the rhythmic drip of the IV and the distant, muffled thrum of the landship’s engines.

At least the ancestral screaming of the Sarkaz has quietened as the landship moves away from Kazdel. The agonizing, overlapping choir of vengeance and suffering that nearly split my skull open in the ruins has faded into a dull, distant murmur, like dark ocean waves heard through a thick wall.

I don’t know when I fall asleep, or how.

When I wake, the medical bay has shifted from the muted amber of the night cycle back to a crisp, clinical daylight simulation. I blink against the brightness, the heavy base of my lopsided horns instantly pulling my head slightly to the left as I push myself up against the pillows.

Warfarin and Kal’tsit are both here. The ancient Vampire looks unnervingly serious, her crimson eyes fixed entirely on her diagnostic slate rather than looking at me like a prized specimen. Beside her stands Kal'tsit, cold, immaculate, and utterly unreadable, radiating an ancient, heavy stillness. Behind them is a very stressed-looking Erika, who lingers near the back wall.

A massive, halo-like medical scanner had descended from a ceiling track earlier, humming with a low, bone-rattling frequency as it mapped the inside of my skull. Now, it retracts upward into its housing, leaving a terrifying, heavy silence in its wake.

I sit frozen on the edge of the mattress.

“Dr. Warfarin, what does the result say?” Erika asks.

Warfarin taps the glass screen of her slate, her brow furrowing deeply. The chaotic, metallic buzz of her usual emotional resonance is completely gone, replaced by a dense, suffocating wall of pure academic bewilderment.

“It doesn’t make sense.”

Kal'tsit steps forward. Her eyes narrow by a fraction of a millimeter. “What do you mean, it doesn’t make sense?” Kal’tsit asks, her tone sharp, cutting through the sterile air like a surgical blade.

“Her temporal lobe is showing Originium lesions,” Warfarin explains, pointing at cross- section of my brain on her slate. A cluster of jagged, dark anomalies sits deep within the tissue. “Which typically indicates that her memories have been compromised or fabricated by the infection. But the lobe is also far too active compared to the rest of her brain.”

The Vampire zooms in on the image, her red fingernail pointing to a glowing, hyper- saturated heat map overlaying the black crystals. “Everywhere else is healthy besides that. Originium is doing something here that we haven’t seen before.”

My heart pounds furiously against my ribs. The blood rushes to my ears.

Does that mean Originium is downloading Iori into my brain? Or is it just driving hallucinations so vivid they feel like a human soul?

I look up at Kal'tsit. The Feline is staring at the scanning result, completely motionless. Her expression hasn't shifted, but the sheer, crushing weight of her presence suddenly fills the room, ancient, calculating, and cold.

The lynx turns her head, her piercing green eyes locking onto the Vampire with absolute, terrifying authority. The temperature in the room seems to drop to absolute zero. The ancient Feline’s ears twitch just so slightly.

“Warfarin, disconnect the terminal. Wipe the scan files from PRTS.”

"Are you out of your mind, Kal?"

Warfarin's voice shatters the suffocating silence of the high-security infirmary. She whips around. "Wipe it? This is a localized, unprecedented mutation of Oripathy! This is once-in-a-generation data! We don't even know the upper bounds of her assimilation, and you want to toss it into the incinerator?"

Kal'tsit doesn't flinch. Her expression remains perfectly carved from stone, radiating an ancient, heavy stillness that makes the air in the room feel dangerously thin.

"I said wipe the files, Warfarin. Disconnect the terminal. This data does not enter the main PRTS registry. Am I understood?"

"Kal, you cannot just…"

"Am I understood?" The Medical Director's voice drops a fraction of an octave. It ceases to be a surgical blade and becomes a crushing weight. The temperature in the room seems to hit absolute zero, freezing the argument in Warfarin's throat.

The Vampire glares, her fingers gripping the diagnostic slate tightly enough to crack the casing, but she slowly reaches over and severs the terminal connection.

Erika, still standing near the back wall with her feathered temples pinned flat against her head in distress, watches the light fade. Her eyes dart from the blank air back to the Feline.

"Dr. Kal'tsit…" Erika's voice is trembling, barely a whisper over the low hum of the medical scanner retreating into its housing. The Feline shifts her gaze, but Erika pushes through the terrifying pressure of her superior. The fatal logic of a field Medic is piecing the nightmare together in real-time.

"The temporal lobe… that's where memories are stored and processed," Erika continues, her breath hitching. She looks at me, sitting frozen on the edge of the mattress, and the ambient 'taste' of her emotion spikes into a desperate, burnt panic. “If the Originium lesions are concentrated entirely there… that explain her amnesia.”

She takes a small, hesitant step forward, her hands clenching at the sides of her white coat. "Dr. Kal'tsit… what will happen to her memories in the future? If the infection is there…"

Kal'tsit closes her eyes. A heavy, rare sigh escapes her lips, a sound carrying centuries of exhaustion and clinical pragmatism.

"The placement of the Originium crystals is not a coincidence," Kal'tsit states. Her tone is flat, devoid of comfort, delivering the diagnosis like a death sentence. "The hyperactive state Warfarin observed in her temporal lobe is a byproduct of consumption."

Warfarin's head snaps up, her predatory curiosity reigniting instantly as the metallic tang in the air spikes.

"Consumption?" I whisper. My voice is small and fragile, vibrating in the oppressive silence.

Kal'tsit's piercing eyes lock onto mine, unyielding. "Your Arts assimilation rate is exceptionally high, Lethe. But Originium requires a catalyst. It requires fuel. In your case, the Originium localized in your temporal lobe is actively using your memories to power your Arts. The lobe is hyperactive because your memories are literally being burned away as fuel."

"And," Kal'tsit continues, "for a Djall, this is not a conscious, occasional expenditure. Your subspecies survives on emotional consumption. Every time your empathic traits activate, every day you simply exist and feed on the ambient emotions of those around you, you are passively utilizing your Originium Arts."

To survive in this body, I have to eat emotions. But to eat emotions, I have to cast Originium Arts. And to cast those Arts, the black crystals in my brain will burn my memories as fuel. The realization shatters whatever fragile composure I had managed to string together.

The tears come instinctively, hot and fast, completely bypassing my conscious control. It is an overwhelming, suffocating wave of despair. I had woken up in the bruised orange, screaming aftermath of a Catastrophe, surrounded by the rotting remains of my own kind. But this? Being told that the terminal, glowing cancer in my skull is actively eating my memories just to keep my lungs breathing?

I curl into a tight ball, burying my face against my knees. My shoulders shake violently as a jagged, high-pitched sob tears its way out of my throat. I cannot stop.

Erika’s hand is suddenly on my back, her touch trembling. The air in the room is instantly saturated with her distress, a thick, agonizing wave of burnt honey and profound sorrow.

"Dr. Kal'tsit," Erika pleads, her voice tight and desperate as she looks back at the ancient Feline. "If she is locked in this quarantine ward… if she never leaves this room… she is never going to create any new memories. She will have nothing to replace what the Originium takes. Her mind will just consume everything she has left until she is completely hollow!"

Kal'tsit does not flinch.

"Her containment is not a matter of cruel convenience, Erika. It is a calculated necessity," Kal'tsit states. "If she is allowed to roam the landship unchecked, unconsciously feeding on the emotional spectrum of the crew, her potential output makes her a severe danger to the general population. We cannot risk a localized psychic cascade."

A sharp, exasperated scoff cuts through the heavy air. Warfarin rolls her eyes.

"Oh, please, Kal. You are acting like she is a walking Catastrophe waiting to detonate," the Vampire snaps, tapping her sharp, red fingernail against her deactivated slate. "We have technology for this. Just have Closure fabricate a monitor collar for her. We calibrate it to suppress her Originium Arts to a manageable baseline, lock it around her neck, and let the little anomaly actually stretch her legs."

"A monitor collar suppresses the active and passive channeling of Arts, Warfarin," Kal'tsit counters coldly. "If her innate abilities are suppressed, she will be unable to passively absorb the ambient emotions of the crew. As a Djall, she will starve."

Kal'tsit steps closer, her shadow falling over the edge of the mattress and plunging my trembling form into darkness.

"The only way she could safely consume on emotions while dampened would be to manually channel her suppressed Arts through a designated Arts Unit Unit," Kal'tsit continues, her tone absolute and unforgiving. "And I will not authorize handing a lethal, Arts Unit Unit to an amnesiac Sarkaz anomaly with a hyperactive Oripathy. It is an entirely unacceptable security risk."

The jagged, racking sobs eventually fracture into wet, exhausted hiccups. I wipe my face with the back of my trembling hand, smearing the tears across my cheeks.

"When…" I swallow hard, the word scraping against my raw throat. "When did you find me? What was the date?"

Erika glances nervously at Kal'tsit before looking down at me, her light purple eyes filled with an aching sorrow. "It was the 2nd of January, 1096."

The 2nd of January.

I draw a shaky, stuttering breath. "Then… then I want that to be my birthday," I whisper. The decision crystallizes in the suffocating quiet of the room. The life I knew, the mundane boredom, the world before Terra, it is all being actively incinerated to keep this new body alive. If I keep mourning who I was, I am going to starve to death in this sterile, windowless box. I am never leaving this cell.

I force myself to look up, meeting Kal'tsit's piercing green eyes.

"I want to be useful," I plead, my voice cracking entirely. The words are meant to sound resolute, like an adult bargaining for her survival, but filtered through this small frame, it comes out as a high, desperate whine. I sound like a terrified child begging not to be left in the dark. "Please. I don't want to be just a monster in a cage…"

The Feline stares at me. Her expression remains an unreadable mask of absolute, clinical calculation, but the overwhelming pressure of her presence shifts imperceptibly. She measures my pathetic, half-sobbing form, weighing the potential utility of a Djall against the catastrophic risk of my existence.

"Rhodes Island does not offer sanctuary without strict parameters, Lethe," Kal'tsit states, her voice a flat, measured strike that echoes off the metallic walls. "If you wish to step outside this ward and integrate into this landship, you will do so entirely on my terms."

She folds her hands behind her back. "Dr. Warfarin's suggestion will be implemented. Closure will fabricate an Arts monitor collar. You will wear it at all times. To sustain your biological needs, you will be issued a rudimentary, heavily restricted Arts Unit Unit, a staff locked to the absolute minimum output required for you to graze on ambient emotions without triggering a psychic cascade."

Kal'tsit leans forward slightly, the ancient malice of Mon3tr practically pulsing in the shadows behind her. "Furthermore, you will be placed under strict, constant supervision. You will only feed in designated areas, under the direct watch of authorized personnel. If you attempt to draw beyond your baseline, if you manipulate the emotions of my Operators, or if you breach protocol by a single millimeter… the threat will be neutralized before you can take another breath. Is that understood?"

I look at the terrifyingly cold Feline, and then at the gleaming stainless steel of my medical prison. It isn't freedom; it's just a leash. But a leash means I get to walk.

"I accept."

They have left. The suffocating weight of Kal'tsit's presence vanishes into the corridor, followed closely by Warfarin.

With that, I am left alone with Erika.

The young Liberi Medic pulls a metal stool close to the edge of the bed. She retrieves a fresh pouch of the mixed berry nutrient paste, handing it to me with a silent, gentle nod, making sure I actually eat.

I take a slow sip, but it's incredibly hard to swallow. The ambient air in the ward is thick and heavy. Erika's presence, usually a comforting wave is completely spoiled. It tastes like burnt ash and sour citrus, pure, undiluted pity and profound sorrow. She is looking at me not just as a rescued child, but as a doomed tragedy, her mind clearly looping over the horrific revelation that my brain is actively eating its own history.

"You speak so well, Lethe," Erika murmurs softly, her light purple eyes tracing the tear tracks on my pale cheeks. "You understand complex concepts… you even negotiated with Dr. Kal'tsit. You must have had a wonderful education… before the Oripathy took your memories."

The sour, bitter taste of her grief spikes, burning the back of my throat. It is physically repulsive.

My stomach gives a violent, hollow twist. I simply cannot stand this bitter flavor. I demand sweetness. I demand comfort.

I force my head up. I widen my eyes, blinking away the lingering tears, and stretch my mouth into a brave, wobbly smile. "I… I think I must have liked reading!" I chirp, actively injecting a bright, resilient hope into my voice. "Maybe… maybe when I get my collar, I can read some books here? With you?"

Erika's feathers fluff up, her heavy sorrow breaking into a relieved, tender affection. Erika sighs, a soft chuckle escaping her lips as the emotional crisis passes. She reaches out, gently brushing a tangled lock of grey hair out of my face.

"We can read as many books as you want, Lethe," she promises, the  warmth returning fully to her voice. She looks me over, her practical, professional demeanor returning as she takes in my thoroughly disheveled state. "But first… I think we should get you cleaned up. Your face is all tear-stained, your gown is filthy, and your hair is practically a bird's nest."

She stands up, offering me her hand with a bright, encouraging smile. "Let's get you to the shower. The warm water will help you feel a little more human."

Erika guides me into the adjoining bathroom of my quarantine ward. It is just as stark and utilitarian as the main room, all brushed steel and gleaming white composite materials, but it offers a rare sliver of privacy.

She reaches into the shower cubicle and taps a sleek, waterproof glass panel mounted on the wall. A soft chime echoes in the tiled space, and a steady stream of water begins to pour from the ceiling fixture.

"The touch controls are simple," Erika explains, her voice echoing slightly in the confined space. She points to a series of glowing blue and red indicators. "This slider adjusts the temperature, and this one changes the water pressure. There is mild, unscented soap in the dispenser. Take your time, Lethe. I will wait outside."

With a final, encouraging smile, she steps out, the heavy bathroom door sliding shut and leaving me alone with the sound of rushing water.

I reach up with trembling hands and peel off the tear-stained medical gown, letting it pool in a crumpled heap on the floor. I step into the cubicle, my padded slippers left by the door, and close the frosted glass partition. I close my eyes, desperately anticipating the sweet, universal human relief of a hot shower. I expect the cascading water to wash away the Catastrophe dust, the sterile smell of the medical bay, and the lingering chill of my own existential terror.

Instead, the moment the water hits the top of my head, I gasp, nearly slipping on the wet tiles.

My horns are not just dead, decorative bone. As the hot water runs over the recessed ridges and the misty blue, glowing veins of the pointing protrusions, a sharp, overwhelming sensory spike shoots straight into my skull. The sudden shift in temperature and the physical pressure of the water droplets hitting the long, lopsided structures is agonizingly intense. It feels like plunging a raw, exposed nerve directly into a hot cup of tea.

I scramble back, pressing my spine against the cold tile wall to escape the direct stream. As I flinch, my long, heavy tail thrashes blindly behind me. The spade-shaped tip smashes against the frosted glass of the cubicle with a loud, ringing thwack. The space, which would have been perfectly adequate for a human, suddenly feels impossibly tiny. I am trapped in a claustrophobic glass box with a heavy, uncoordinated pendulum swinging from my tailbone and two hyper-sensitive antennas bolted to my skull.

I reach out a shaking hand and frantically drag the temperature slider down to a tepid, lukewarm setting, dropping the water pressure to a gentle mist. I sink to the floor of the shower, letting the water wash over my hunched shoulders. I stare blankly at the water swirling down the pristine steel drain.

You must have had a wonderful education… before the Oripathy took your memories. Erika’s words echo in the cramped cubicle over the hiss of the spray. If only she knew the truth. I didn't have a Terran education. I had high school, university lectures, and evenings spent doomscrolling on an iPad Pro in a different world.

But as the water runs through my hair, a new, terrifying realization hits me with the force of a physical blow.

The original owner of this body. The real Djall girl who had lived, walked, and perhaps even gone to school in whatever settlement she came from. She hadn't just died in the ruins. Her mind had been meticulously, systematically incinerated. The original girl’s entire life, her parents, her childhood, her education, her fears, and her joys, had all been completely consumed. By the time my soul was pulled across the void, the vessel was already entirely hollow.

I press my hands against my eyes, mingling the shower water with fresh, tears.

How long do I have? How long until I remember absolutely nothing besides being Lethe, the amnesiac Djall rescued by Rhodes Island?

"Lethe?" Erika's voice is muffled by the frosted glass. Bring me back to the watery reality. The ambient taste of her presence slips through the cracks, a sharp, stinging wave of pure alarm that quickly settles into a heavy, pooling warmth of panic. "Are you alright in there? It's been almost half an hour."

I cannot find my voice. I just pull my knees tighter against my chest. A moment later, the glass partition slides open.

Erika doesn't hesitate or show a hint of frustration at the pathetic, shivering creature huddled on the wet tiles. She immediately reaches in, turning off the water. The sudden silence in the cubicle is deafening. She unfolds a large, heated towel and wraps it securely around my trembling shoulders.

"Oh, you're freezing," she murmurs, her hands working with practiced, gentle efficiency. As she begins to dry my shimmering grey hair, she meticulously navigates around the bases of my horns, her touch feather-light to avoid triggering the hypersensitive ridges. Her profound relief at finding me safe blooms in the small space.

My stomach violently twists. The instinct coiled in my chest surges forward, begging me to open wide and sip on that sweet, comforting emotion.

No. I clench my jaw so hard my teeth ache. I visualize a heavy iron door slamming shut in my mind. I won't do it. I won't burn another piece of Iori to feed. I deliberately turn my face away, staring blankly at the wall, cutting off the psychological tether. I refuse to play the helpless victim just to elicit more of her sympathy.

Erika gently dresses me in a fresh, dry medical gown, her movements steady despite my total unresponsiveness.

The walk from the washroom facilities back to my quarantine ward should be a short, mundane trip. But as the heavy doors hiss open into the main corridor, the sheer volume of the landship crashes into me.

It isn't just the noise of logistics Operators and heavy boots on metal grates. It is a psychic hurricane. Hundreds of overlapping emotional resonances bleed through the reinforced walls. The sharp, acidic bite of stress from a passing Medic; the heavy, grey flavor of physical exhaustion radiating from a Field Ops; the sparkling, carbonated pop of friendly banter echoing down the hall.

Every single emotion screams at my senses, clawing at the back of my throat, demanding I take just one bite. Just a sip to stop the hollow ache tearing through my core.

I grip the fabric of Erika's white coat. I force myself to breathe strictly through my mouth, squeezing my eyes shut as I drag my padded slippers across the steel floor. I won't eat. I won't burn. Suppressing the instinct feels like holding my breath underwater while my lungs burn for oxygen.

We finally cross the threshold of my windowless box. The heavy door seals shut with a resounding clank, abruptly severing the chaotic buffet of the hallway.

I sway on my feet, the sheer physical and mental effort of starving myself leaving me dizzy and nauseated.

Erika guides me to the edge of the mattress. Her light purple eyes scan my face, taking in the dark, bruised circles under my eyes and the unnatural pallor of my skin. Her feathered temples droop flat against her pale skin.

"You look completely exhausted, Lethe," she says softly, pulling the thin medical blanket back. "You need to rest. Real rest."

I offer a weak, barely perceptible nod. I let her guide my shoulders down onto the pillows. I drift into the darkness of sleep.

When my eyes snap open, there is no disorientation, only the brutal, immediate return to reality.

I try to push myself up against the pillows, but my arms tremble violently. I am ravaging this fragile body. Between the relentless waves of existential dread and the sheer terror of my own biology, I had barely eaten yesterday. My physical stomach knots in on itself, a sharp, twisting cramp that radiates down to my hips.

But the physical pain is nothing compared to the other hunger.

The emotional starvation is a different kind of agony entirely. It doesn't ache; it hollows. It feels as though someone has carved a yawning, freezing chasm directly into the center of my chest. Without the ambient emotions of the crew to distract me, or the accidental sips of Erika's warmth to sustain me, I feel entirely empty. I am a hollowed- out shell, a ghost haunting my own flesh, desperate for a drop of feeling just to prove I still exist.

The door creeps open with a light hiss.

Erika steps inside, balancing a digital slate and a fresh silver-foiled pouch. She freezes mid-step, her eyes widening. She clearly hadn't expected to find me awake, let alone sitting up and staring blankly at the far wall.

"Oh, Lethe… you're awake," she says, her voice a soft, breathless mix of surprise and immediate concern.

The moment she speaks, the stale, ozone-tinged air of the quarantine ward shifts. The flavor of her presence washes over me, that rich, intoxicating wave of honey scented gentle, unadulterated care.

The yawning chasm in my chest practically screams, demanding that I open wide, that I smile, that I do anything to pull that sweet emotion down my throat and fill the terrifying void inside me. It would be so easy. A single, pathetic whimper would make her radiate enough comfort to sustain me for hours.

No. I clench my hands into tight fists, digging my fingernails into my palms until the skin stings.

"I brought you breakfast," Erika continues, stepping closer to the bed. She holds out the silver pouch, the Rhodes Island logo catching the sterile light. "Mixed berry. You need to eat, Lethe. You barely had anything yesterday."

She radiates pure, supportive warmth. I force my breathing to remain shallow and even, building a desperate wall between my starving Djall biology and my fragile human mind. I reach out with a trembling hand and take the cold, foil packet. I don't look at her. I cannot. If I look into her eyes, I know the dam will break.

"Thank you," I whisper, my voice completely flat and devoid of the emotional inflection the parasite inside me is screaming to use.

Erika doesn’t leave. She hovers near the foot of the bed. I stare at the silver foil in my trembling hands, trying to summon the willpower to tear it open. Before I can force myself to take a bite, the ambient atmosphere in the room violently shatters. Erika’s warm emotional resonance is completely crushed under the sheer, suffocating weight that floods the threshold. Kal’tsit. Warfarin. They have entered the room.

My eyes are immediately drawn to the mechanical whirring behind them. A boxy, utilitarian Castle bot rolls into the room, its treads clicking softly against the metal floor. Resting on its flat top chassis are two items. The first is a sleek, black band. It features the white Rhodes Island rook logo on the front. To my surprise, it doesn't look like a heavy, oppressive shackle; it is quite thin, and looks incredibly light, resembling a standard athletic choker more than a medical restraint. It is also noticeably bigger than my actual neck.

Next to it rests a staff. It’s a Raythean model, but heavily modified. It bristles with unfamiliar, industrial attachments, a glowing biometric lock clamped near the grip, and thick, reinforced housing near the tip that screams of internal tracking and forced output limiters. I know the lore, but looking at the actual, physical Originium-based technology makes me feel entirely illiterate. It is a weapon converted into a strict, calculated feeding tube.

Kal’tsit stops at the foot of the bed. Her piercing green eyes drag over my hunched, shivering form, the dark circles under my eyes, and the unopened nutrient pouch still clutched in my hands.

"You are deteriorating," Kal’tsit states. Her voice is a flat, clinical gavel strike, devoid of any sympathy. "Self-imposed starvation is an entirely illogical response to your prognosis, Lethe. Depriving your physical vessel of baseline nutrients will not halt the Originium progression in your temporal lobe; it will merely hasten your overall organ failure."

I pull my knees up to my chest. "I… I don't want to lose…" I croak, my voice failing me. Warfarin steps past the ancient Feline, she crosses her arms.

"Lose what, exactly?" Warfarin interrupts, her voice dropping into a dry, razor-sharp drawl that freezes the blood in my veins.

She leans forward, her pale face coming uncomfortably close. "You woke up in a ruined basement with a completely blank slate, Lethe. You have absolutely no past, no family, and no childhood left to burn. Your mind is an empty room." She taps a sharp, red fingernail against her own temple. "In fact, given the sheer density of the Originium localized in your memory centers, it is a glaring biological anomaly that you even remember who we are this morning."

My breath catches in my throat. I freeze.

The logic is perfectly sound. My desperate attempt to hold onto Iori’s past is completely incongruous with the mask of Lethe I have constructed.

"If you continue to starve yourself over the fear of forgetting an empty void," Warfarin says, her red eyes narrowing, "you won't just be an anomaly. You will be a corpse. And I prefer my specimens breathing."

"Sit up, Lethe," Kal’tsit commands, ignoring Warfarin's morbid bedside manner entirely. The ancient Feline gestures to the Castle bot. "The fabrications are complete. It is time to see if you can be integrated into this landship, or if you will remain in this bed indefinitely."

They are right. If I keep acting like I am mourning a lost past, I blow my cover. If I starve myself, I die.

I look down at my trembling hands. I want to live. I made that choice the moment I woke up in those bruised orange ruins.

I shift my focus to the Castle bot. The sleek black band rests there, the white rook logo staring back at me under the bright clinical lights. It is a brand. A leash. Putting it on means I am officially, legally owned by a pharmaceutical military company. But… it is Rhodes Island.

"I… I'm sorry," I whisper, the words scraping against my dry throat. It is a weak, defeated sound. I let the silver nutrient pouch rest on my lap and slowly lower my arms, exposing my neck in a gesture of absolute surrender.

Erika steps forward, her movements hesitant but professionally gentle. She lifts the band from the bot. I close my eyes as she wraps it around my throat. The material is surprisingly smooth, almost imperceptible against my skin, but the mechanical click of the locking engaging is heavy and painfully final.

Instantly, the universe dims.

I blink.

"The world…" I murmur, my voice sounding incredibly small in the suddenly quieter room. "Is it… this quiet…?"

My human memories scream that this is not even the baseline. Normal people doesn’t taste emotions, no matter how subtle. But after three days of my Djall biology being violently, terrifyingly awake, the sudden sensory dampening feels like someone just turned out the sun. It is a jarring, disorienting numbness.

A dry, barking laugh shatters the quiet.

"Welcome back to the mundane spectrum, little anomaly," Warfarin snarks, her crimson eyes gleaming with amusement as she watches my disoriented blinking. "Don't look so tragic. You traded a psychic hurricane for a muzzle. It's a massive upgrade for everyone involved."

She steps forward and snatches the modified Raythean staff from the Castle bot, twirling it once with terrifying, effortless grace before offering it to me. I take it with shaking hands. The metal is heavy and cold.

"Now pay attention," Warfarin instructs, tapping her sharp, red fingernail against the thick, reinforced housing near the grip. "This is your feeding tube. The monitor on your neck severs your passive Arts. You cannot eat on your own anymore. To feed, you hold this. The biometric scanner reads your palm and opens a highly restricted, localized channel. You pull the ambient emotions through the staff, and its limiters regulate the flow so you don't gorge yourself into a coma."

She leans in, her white hair shifting as her fangs flash in a wicked, predatory grin. "And it goes without saying, little Djall… the limiters are hardcoded. If you try anything funny, if you try to force the output to manipulate someone, or if you try to break the tracking channel… well, you will see."

"I understand," I whisper, my fingers tightening around the cold, heavy metal of the Raythean staff. "I will be good."

Kal’tsit does not offer a reassuring nod. Instead, she produces a metallic clipboard. Pinned beneath the clip is a thick stack of printed documents, stamped heavily with the Rhodes Island rook.

"Verbal compliance is insufficient," Kal'tsit states, her voice echoing with bureaucratic finality. She holds the clipboard out toward me. "By wearing that monitor and utilizing Rhodes Island resources to sustain your biological functions, you are now formally under our jurisdiction. This contract solidifies your status as a registered ward and probationary asset of this landship."

I stare at the dense, legalistic text. I blink, widening my eyes, and look up at her with a perfect, blank expression of total incomprehension. "A… contract?"

Erika immediately steps in, interposing her warm presence between me and the crushing pressure of the Feline.

"It just means we promise to take care of you, Lethe," Erika explains patiently, her voice taking on that soft, gentle cadence she uses to soothe me. She points to the dotted line at the bottom of the page. "And in return, you promise to follow Dr. Kal'tsit's rules, stay in your designated areas, and let us help you get better. You just have to put your name right here."

Kal'tsit pulls a sleek, black pen from her breast pocket and offers it.

I reach out, trading the staff to my right hand so I can grasp the pen with my left, my dominant hand, when I was still Iori. It takes me nearly a full minute to carve out five letters.

L E T H E I pull the pen away, my cheeks flushing hot with genuine embarrassment. It doesn't look like an adult's signature; it looks exactly like a child’s blocky, uneven scribble, the 'E's lopsided and the 'T' slanted precariously.

Warfarin leans over Kal'tsit’s shoulder, a highly amused smirk tugs at her lips.

Erika, however, beams. Her light purple eyes light up with sudden, vindicated hope.

"See?" she says, turning to Kal'tsit and gesturing to the shaky signature. "She knows her letters. She definitely had an education before the ruins. Her mind is trying to remember." She looks directly at the Medical Director. "Dr. Kal'tsit, if she is going to be confined to the ward, can I bring her books? Or at least some paper and pencils to doodle with? If we stimulate her cognitive functions, it might help stabilize the deterioration."

Kal'tsit retrieves the clipboard, her expression remaining perfectly carved from stone as she evaluates the request. She slides the pen back into her pocket.

"Her movement restrictions remain absolute," Kal'tsit declares. "She is confined to this ward, the immediate connecting corridors, the restroom, and the Convalescent Garden. However…" Her focus flickers down to me, a cold, calculating assessment. "As her designated caretaker, you are authorized to requisition non-classified literature and basic writing materials from the Archive. Monitor her cognitive engagement and log any behavioral shifts."

It isn't a soft concession; it's an authorization for a new clinical trial. But to Erika, it is a massive victory.

"Thank you, Dr. Kal'tsit," Erika says, her feathered temples fluffing up in delight. She turns back to me, her smile radiant. "Did you hear that, Lethe? We'll find some good stories for you."

I look down at the heavy, modified Raythean staff in my hand. I am a devil on a leash, slowly losing my human soul. But as I imagine the simple, mundane act of holding a book again, a tiny, fragile spark of genuine relief flickers in the dark.

"Thank you," I whisper.

Warfarin and Kal’tsit, satisfied with the progress have left. Erika is standing near the foot of the bed, holding a digital chart.

As she sets the chart down and moves closer to check my IV line, I take a moment to truly study her. She is young. Despite her calm, professional demeanor, she cannot be much older than her early twenties. But compared to me, to this fragile, small frame I am currently trapped in, she is practically a decade my senior. Her eyes are a striking, gentle light purple, perfectly matching the pale, downy plumage that frames her face. Her hair, cut into a neat, practical bob, is the exact same color. She is lean, built with the wiry strength of a field Medic, but not overtly skinny. She wears the standard Medic uniform of Rhodes Island: the white clinical coat, the dark undershirt, the utilitarian pouches strapped to her waist, and the prominent rook logo on her shoulder.

She pauses her work, her eyes dropping to the empty silver nutrient pouch from earlier before looking back up at me with a bright, encouraging spark.

"After lunch, do you want to go to the garden, Lethe?"

I nod like an excited kid. The prospect of leaving this sterile box and breathing air that doesn't smell like bleach and ozone sends a genuine, fluttering thrill through my chest. Erika’s smile widens, the feathers near her temples fluffing up in a clear display of affection.

"Seeing some greenery should do you good," she says, her voice taking on the gentle, authoritative cadence. She reaches out and taps the empty silver pouch on my nightstand. "But you have to finish your lunch first. Your digestive system is still a mess." She pauses, her eyes studying my face thoughtfully. "Do you actually like the apple-flavored ones we bring? There are other options."

I blink, looking from her to the empty pouch. The apple mush was bland and purely utilitarian, a survival paste.

"I don’t know…" I murmur, letting my attention drop to my hands resting in my lap. Instantly, the taste of the room sours pierced by the sharp, bitter tang of sudden guilt. She shrinks back half a step, looking genuinely pained.

"Sorry, I forgot you don’t remember anything," she says quickly, her voice thick with self-reproach. The bitter flavor of her pity washes over me, heavy and suffocating. "I can bring you a berry one for lunch, see if you like it. Okay?"

The bitter taste is repulsive. I don't like it.

"Okay!" I chirp, throwing my head up. I try to look expectant, partly because I want to cheer her up. I widen my eyes, letting a bright, innocent smile stretch across my face. I swing my legs slightly over the edge of the bed.

I tell myself I do it because I want her to stop feeling bad. But underneath that human rationalization, the truth is much darker: her sweet emotions simply taste better. Even with the monitor. The bitter taste still repulses me.

It works instantly. The moment I flash that eager, childlike grin, the bitter tang in the air evaporates, replaced by a massive, rushing wave of sheer, radiant adoration. It flows into me, rich and filling, soothing the frayed edges of my nerves and settling the lingering phantom aches in my joints.

"That’s settled then. I will be back in a bit, Lethe," Erika says, her tone light and thoroughly charmed. She gives me one last, fond wave before turning toward the exit. Erika has left. The golden, sweet flavor of her presence is sucked out of the room through the ventilation, leaving me sitting alone in the cold, clinical silence of the medical bay.

The smile slowly falls from my face. I pull my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around my legs as the realization sets in. I intentionally triggered a specific psychological response in a kind, caring woman. It was effortless. It was instinctual. The hiss of the pressurized door breaks my spiraling thoughts, cutting through the sterile silence of the medical bay. Instantly, the cold, ozone-tinged air is overwhelmed by that familiar warmth. Erika is back, holding a new silver-foiled pouch in her hand.

"Here you go," Erika says softly, handing me the pouch. The front features the rook logo and the words Mixed Berry Flavor.

I take the pouch and proceeds to hungrily tear the top open. I lift it to my lips and take a slow, hesitant sip.

Erika watches me closely. Her presence radiates a soft, eager anticipation.

"How is it, Lethe?" Erika asks, her voice gentle, tilting her head slightly so her pale hair brushes against her cheek.

"I think… I like it better than the apple…"

"That’s great to hear."

Erika finishes tidying up my lunch. Then, she pulls a thin, rectangular device from one of her utility pouches. Her fingers dance across the glass screen as she logs a final report. The soft, digital blip of the submission echoes quietly in the room.

I watch her, tilting my head, widening my eyes to feign total, ignorant wonder.

"What is that… glowing brick you are holding? Is it magical?"

My voice sounds perfectly naive. I might as well take the opportunity to gather intel. If I am supposed to be a feral survivor from the Kazdel wastes, a standard-issue Rhodes Island terminal should look like an alien artifact to me.

Erika smiles, the feathers at her temples lifting with a warm, affectionate amusement that I can literally taste in the air, like sweet, spun sugar.

"In a way, yes. It is very magical, Lethe," she explains, turning the slate around so I can see the scrolling lines of text and the glowing Rhodes Island rook logo, though she keeps it safely out of my reach. "It allows us to do quite a lot. Rhodes Island gives everyone one to manage our daily duties."

I stare at the screen, letting my mouth fall open slightly in mock awe.

I open my mouth, ready to fire off another feigned question, but before the words can form, she reaches out and gently taps the tip of my nose.

"Now, now, little Lethe," she says, her eyes crinkling with a bright, encouraging smile.

"Let’s go to the garden before you turn the day into an interrogation."

I slide off the edge of the mattress. I stand up. As my bare feet touch the metal floor, I flinch. It’s a biting, industrial cold that shoots straight up my legs, a reminder that I am standing inside a massive, roaming machine and not a cozy apartment. I instinctively curl my toes, shivering.

Erika notices instantly. Her eyes dart down to my feet, the taste of her presence shifting into a gentle, attentive hum. She turns away from the bed, stepping over to a nearby medical storage unit. She stretches slightly, her feathers twitching with the movement, and pulls out a pair of tiny, reusable slippers. They are simple, soft, and grey, featuring a small Rhodes Island logo stitched onto the side.

She kneels down, placing them gently on the floor in front of my freezing toes. "Here." I slip my feet into the padded fabric. They fit perfectly, shielding me from the biting steel. "Thank you."

Walking shouldn't be hard, I tell myself, taking a deep breath. I managed it in the ruins, even if it was a staggering mess. With my new padded slippers shielding me from the cold steel, I take a hesitant step. Then another.

I finally reach the garden. The transition is so jarring it makes me physically pause. The air here is completely different: thick, humid, and rich with the scent of damp earth, blooming flora, and clean water. The space is vast, beautiful, and mercifully empty, a sharp contrast to the chaotic corridors we just navigated.

I stare in awe at the architecture. It looks like a massive, ultra-modern greenhouse built into the heart of a war machine. Tall white structural pillars and crisscrossing beams support a high ceiling constructed of frosted glass, letting in a flood of soft, diffused daylight. A living canopy of greenery hangs from above, vines, broad-leafed ferns, and trailing ivy suspended in the air. Scattered across the smooth floor are strange, abstract seating arrangements: curved benches made of a polished golden-brown material that look like crescent moons or waves of solid wood. Above the seating area, a large, translucent yellow light fixture shaped like a butterfly glows with a warm, ambient light.

My attention immediately locks onto a cluster of large, potted broad-leaf plants, and three faces I know far too well. Perfumer, the garden’s owner, is gently inspecting a vine with her serene elegance. And Suzuran… well, she is trying her best to help, her nine fluffy tails swaying softly as she carefully holds a small potted sapling. I stare at Lisa. Lisa looks incredibly small, her face round with childlike innocence.

A wave of sensation hits me. It isn't just their visual presence; it is the taste of their emotions saturating the humid air. Lena’s presence radiates a soothing, mature calmness that tastes like warm lavender and steeped chamomile. Lisa’s empathy and inherent goodness hit my senses like a physical wall of pure, crystallized sugar. It is so blindingly pure, so concentrated and intoxicating, that it makes my head spin and my knees go weak.

Terrified by my own hunger, I hide behind Erika. I grip the white fabric of her medical coat with my small hands, using her body as a shield. I duck my head, letting the weight of my horns press heavily against her back.

Erika chuckles softly. She reaches back, placing a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“Good afternoon, Lena and Lisa. This is Lethe,” Erika says, her voice projecting clearly across the quiet greenhouse. Gently prying my trembling fingers from her coat, she pushes me forward, bringing me into the spotlight.

The two Operators turn toward us. Lena offers a welcoming smile, and little Lisa tilts her head, her vulpine ears twitching with curious delight.

“Hi… hi…” I stammer, my voice a trembling whisper that barely carries over the rustle of the leaves.

“Oh! A new sis?” Lisa asks, her voice a bright, musical chime that echoes softly through the glass canopy.

Erika’s hand tightens gently on my shoulder, serving as a grounding anchor. “She’s not an Operator, Lisa. We are taking care of her for now,” Erika replies, her tone taking on that soft, clinical protectiveness.

“Oh dear, is she from the recent Catastrophe?”

Lena steps gracefully away from the vines, the rustle of her elegant clothing mingling with the ambient sounds of the greenhouse. “You poor little thing. You are safe here with us, Lethe.”

“Can she eat solid food?” Lena asks Erika. Her voice drops just a fraction, a respectful, professional murmur between caregivers, though my sensitive, pointed ears catch every softly spoken syllable perfectly over the rustle of the greenhouse leaves.

Erika’s hand remains a comforting, steady weight on my shoulder. “Maybe a little. Her digestive system is still a complete mess. She probably hadn’t seen solid food for days before we found her.”

I look down at my pale, fragile hands, the translucent skin pulled tight over delicate knuckles. My body is a mess? The realization washes over me, cold and sobering. Iori’s mind feels so fresh, so newly transplanted. I've only been in this world for barely two days, but for this starving Djall, suffering had been her entire existence.

“I will prepare her some tea and get her a piece of herbal cookie then,” Lena says.

“Thank you, Lena,” Erika smiles, her own bright, feathery relief mingling with the botanist's calm.

I peek out from behind the fabric of Erika's coat, clutching it slightly with my fingers. I force myself to meet Lena's gentle look. “Thank… thank you.”

“You are a polite one, aren’t you?” Lena smiles, her eyes crinkling at the corners with fondness. “Take a seat, Lethe. I will bring the tea over.”

With a final, encouraging nod, Lena turns and walks gracefully toward a small prep counter nestled among the vines.

Erika guides me to a table in the far back of the garden. We walk slowly, my slippers shuffling softly against the smooth floor. The path winds through thick, hanging ivy and large, potted ferns that act as natural sound barriers, dampening the chatter of the other Operators.

The spot she chooses is beautifully secluded, a quiet, private nook tucked away from the main walkway. The table is a smooth, polished slab of that same golden-brown material, accompanied by a crescent-shaped bench. It feels like a safe harbor, shielding me from the intoxicating sensory buffet of the garden's main floor. I carefully slide onto the bench, feeling the tight knot of anxiety in my chest finally begin to loosen.

Beside me, Erika is back to working on her slate, the soft, rhythmic tapping of her fingers against the glass a comforting background noise.

Then, the soft patter of small footsteps approaches. Lisa practically bounds over to join us, her nine fluffy tails bouncing behind her like a cascade of auburn silk.

She pulls out the chair directly across from me and sits down, kicking her legs slightly. Lisa leans forward, her vulpine ears twitching with innocent curiosity. “Lethe, how old are you?”

I freeze. My hands tighten on the edge of the table.

Sensing the sudden spike in my distress, Erika puts her slate down. Her hand immediately finds my shoulder, offering a feathery warmth.

“She doesn’t remember, Lisa…” Erika explains gently, pitching her voice to be soft and protective. “But Dr. Warfarin said you are probably eleven to thirteen, Lethe. Your growth is stunted, but you wouldn’t be much older than that.”

Eleven to thirteen. I swallow hard. The harsh reality of Terra hits me again, stunted growth from malnutrition, from hiding in the ruins, from whatever Catastrophe ravaged this body before Rhodes Island found me.

Lisa’s eyes widen slightly in sympathy, but she quickly bounces back, her inherent optimism shining through. “How about twelve, then! It's right in the middle. Same age as me!” Lisa chirps.

“I… I don’t mind…” I smile weakly at her. It's a fragile expression, but it's genuine.

Lena places a teapot and four cups on the table, along with a plate of rustic cookies. The porcelain clinks softly against the polished wood, a grounding, domestic sound that pulls me out of my spiraling dread. Lena moves with effortless grace.

Erika, looking up from her typing, asks, “Podenco isn’t here today?”

“She’s with a few other Operators gathering seeds and floral samples. She won’t be back for a few weeks.” Lena says gently.

Lena carefully pours the steaming, amber liquid into each cup, making sure to slide one toward Erika, then Lisa, and finally, a smaller cup toward me. The cookies look homemade, dotted with dried fruits and baked oats.

I wrap my hands around the warm porcelain, letting the heat seep into my fingers. I reach for a cookie, marveling at the simple, rough texture. I haven’t had anything solid since I woke up in this brutally beautiful world. The sheer weight of it in my hand feels like an absolute luxury compared to the metallic, artificially synthesized sludge from the medical pouches.

Erika's hand twitches. “Only one piece, Lethe. If your digestive system crashes, Dr. Warfarin is going to have my head. Or every drop of blood I have,” she says. She chuckles but her emotion carries a sharp, copper-tinged spike of genuine anxiety. I nod, taking a very small, very careful nibble of the edge. The dark, cramped image of the red-eyed vampire grinning at me from the shadows flashes in my mind. I guess I really am Warfarin’s favorite new toy. A living, breathing anomaly pulled from the Kazdel ruins, ripe for endless blood tests and biological profiling.

“How is the cookie, Lethe?” Lena asks, pausing with her delicate porcelain teacup halfway to her lips.

“It is good,” I say, munching on it slowly, savoring the taste. It is incredible. The crunch of the baked grain and the tart sweetness of the dried berries ground me in the physical world in a way the nutrient paste couldn't.

“Since you are staying with us now, we should put some flowers in your ward! It is no fun just staring at four walls all day. Are there any flowers you like?” Lisa asks innocently.

The question acts like a scalpel, cutting straight to the core of my fabricated existence. I grip the half-eaten cookie, my eyes dropping to the table. “I… don’t remember…” I whisper, letting the weight of my horns pull my head down so my light grey hair obscures my face.

Instantly, the bright, bubbly atmosphere dims into a soft, sympathetic hush. Erika’s hand finds its way to my back, her touch a grounding, defensive shield.

“She doesn’t have any memories as far as we can tell. They may be buried deep, or just gone,” Erika says, her voice taking on that quiet, tragic tone she uses when discussing my charts. She looks at the other three, silently asking them not to push the broken child any further.

“Aww… it is okay! We will find your favorites again!” Lisa recovers instantly. Her nine fluffy tails give a synchronized, vigorous wag, completely dispelling the gloom. The pure, unadulterated optimism radiating from her is so potent it practically makes the air shimmer. She leans forward, her eyes shining with genuine, innocent determination. She really is the light of Rhodes Island. In the game, it was a meme, a cute community joke. Sitting across from her, it is a physical, undeniable reality. She simply refuses to let the darkness win.

Lena nods in gentle agreement, taking a graceful sip of her tea. “We will pick something and send it to your ward tomorrow,” she says, her voice carrying that soothing promise. They are so nice. The absolute sincerity in their voices, the warm, floral comfort they are actively wrapping around me.

I carefully place the rest of the cookie on my plate, my appetite suddenly gone. I pull my knees closer together under the table.

“Thank you, everyone…” I say softly, ensuring my voice wavers just enough to sound overwhelmed by their kindness. It is a terrible, necessary lie.

Lisa beams, completely oblivious to my internal guilt. Her vulpine ears twitch as a new idea strikes her.

“We can go to the dormitories together later! There are quite a lot of games we can play there,” Lisa exclaims.

I can instantly picture the vibrant, chaotic energy of the Rhodes Island dorms: the plush furniture, the stacked board games, the Operators lounging around after a long mission. For a brief, agonizing second, I desperately want to go. I want to be a normal kid playing games in a safe room.

But reality crashes down before I can even formulate a response. I am not allowed in the dormitories. The moment I cross the threshold of an unapproved zone, the alarms will trigger, and Mon3tr will be waiting.

Before the panic can fully seize my chest, Erika’s hand slides smoothly onto my shoulder.

“Sorry, little Lisa, Lethe cannot go there yet. She needs… a bit more time to recover.” Erika’s voice is the perfect picture of professional medical authority, laced with a gentle, apologetic tone. She doesn’t say the full truth, obviously hiding my exact situation from the rest of the landship. To Lena and Lisa, I am just a fragile survivor with a compromised immune system. No one else has to know that I am half patient, half prisoner. Erika is strictly enforcing the invisible cage Kal'tsit built around me.

Lisa’s tails droop for just a fraction of a second, but her resilient spirit bounces right back. She smiles, a warm, radiant expression that makes my chest ache with phantom longing.

“When you get better then, Lethe!”

She says it with unwavering certainty. To her, it is a matter of when, not if.

I force myself to nod.

We linger a bit longer after the chats. Lisa excitedly points out the names of the plants that Lena has taught her. Ferns, which I had never heard of before.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Erika and Lena standing near the prep counter. They aren't looking at the plants. Lena’s mature, elegant face is lined with a grave, quiet sorrow, and Erika has her arms crossed tightly, her feathered temples drooping. They are having a hushed, intense conversation. I don't need my empathy to know exactly what they are discussing. They are talking about my special form of Oripathy, and the tragic, amnesiac child whose brain is eating itself.

The journey back to the ward is slow and steady. As we cross the threshold of my quarantine room, the emptiness of it hits harder than before.

Erika lingers by the pressurized door, her light purple eyes scanning the barren space.

“I know it is a bit empty here, Lethe. I will talk to Dr. Warfarin and Dr. Kal’tsit to see if you are allowed something to do.” Her feathered temples droop slightly. Clearly, Lisa’s comment about four walls made her realize I am basically living in a solitary cell. To her, I am just a traumatized child who needs a coloring book.

“Thank you, Erika,” I say, keeping my voice small and incredibly grateful.

She points to the medical terminal mounted next to the head of the bed. “See you later, Lethe. If you need anything, just press the button on the glowing brick near the bed, okay?” she says, utilizing the simplified terminology I essentially forced her into adopting earlier.

“I will. See you, Erika.”

She offers one last, comforting smile, before stepping back into the corridor. The door hisses, the heavy mechanical lock engaging with a echoing clank.

Erika's departure leaves me alone with my thoughts again.

I climb onto the mattress, pulling my knees up to my chest. The silence of the room is absolute, save for the low, subsonic hum of the landship’s engines vibrating through the floorboards. Without the ambient emotions of the crew to distract me, my mind immediately begins to race, tearing apart the events of the afternoon.

I look around the metallic room. It is a sensory deprivation chamber for a creature that feeds on emotion.

I am an adult human mind trapped in a Djall biology, and that biology is already betraying me. I am already craving the taste of Erika's concern and Lisa's joy. I bury my face in my arms, my breath coming in shallow, panicked gasps.

I try to distract myself, but without an iPad, I really don’t know what to do. In my old life, staring at a screen was the ultimate buffer against existential dread. Here, staring at the sterile metal walls of the medical ward, my mind just loops and spirals. The more I let my mind run, the more I feel like I'm being trained like a pet.

By the time the landship transitions to its evening cycle, Erika has come back. Erika places a metal tray on the bedside table. For the first time since I woke up in Kazdel, it isn't a silver foil pouch of nutrient sludge.

Sitting on the tray is a warm ceramic bowl containing a perfectly smooth, golden steamed egg, alongside a glass of water and a small plastic cup holding several brightly colored capsules.

I stare at the bowl. The golden, custardy surface of the steamed egg is a sudden, sharp anchor in this metallic prison. It perfectly mirrors the comforting Japanese dishes I used to actively seek out back in my old life, a phantom echo of a normal dinner that makes my chest tighten with painful nostalgia. It takes everything in me not to cry at the sight of actual, real food.

I point a finger at the small plastic cup next to it, tilting my head and widening my eyes to resume my fragile facade.

"Erika… are those… candies?" I ask, pitching my voice high and soft.

Erika's expression melts into a soft, fond smile, though the lingering sadness from her conversation with Lena still shadows her eyes. She sits on the edge of the mattress, handing me a small plastic spoon.

"No, Lethe, they aren't candies," she explains patiently, her voice a soothing murmur in the quiet ward. "Those are vitamins and minerals. The steamed egg is very good, and it will be gentle on your stomach so you don't get sick, but it doesn't have all the nutrients your body needs to get strong again. You have to take the pills with your water after you finish eating, okay?"

I nod obediently, wrapping my hands around the warm ceramic bowl. I take a tiny spoonful of the egg. The soft, savory warmth blooms on my tongue, a tiny, stolen luxury of my past life fueling a body built for a nightmare.

That night, I actually sleep.

It is a dreamless, void-like rest, and when I finally open my eyes to the crisp morning cycle, I feel a tiny fraction of my physical strength has returned.

Erika steps through the sliding doors.

"Good morning, Lethe," she smiles, setting the tray down on my bedside table.

Breakfast is a warm bowl of oats and milk. It is simple and bland, but it is easily digestible real food. I wrap my hands around the bowl, the ambient warmth seeping into my fingers.

But the food isn't the only thing she brought. Tucked under her arm is a beautifully bound, slightly worn hardcover book, alongside a crisp stack of blank paper and a standard Rhodes Island ballpoint pen.

She places the book gently on the edge of the mattress. The cover features an ornate, gilded illustration of a castle and a stylized Feline wearing a crown. "I went to the Archive like Dr. Kal'tsit permitted," Erika explains, her eyes shining with earnest hope.

"It's a collection of Victorian fairytales. I thought it might be a good place to start. And some paper so you can doodle or practice your letters."

I stare at the brightly colored cover. A flash of profound, adult annoyance flares in my chest. I am supposed to be twelve, not six, I think bitterly. I open my mouth, a polite refusal sitting on the tip of my tongue, but I quickly swallow it down.

To Erika, I am a profoundly traumatized amnesiac whose brain is actively being scorched bare by Originium. She is desperately trying to cram new, safe memories into my head before the Originium in my skull burn whatever is left. A fairytale book is exactly the kind of foundational building block a Medic would use to help a broken child relearn the world.

"Thank… thank you, Erika," I murmur, pitching my voice to sound appropriately timid and grateful. "The cover is very pretty."

Her feathers puff up in absolute delight. She watches me take a few spoonfuls of the oats before retreating to the door to let me eat in peace, promising to return later to check on my "doodles."

Once the heavy door seals shut, I push the empty bowl aside and pull the blank stack of paper onto my lap. I click the pen.

The urge hits me like a physical blow. I want to write it all down. I want to frantically document the layout of my apartment in the Lower North Shore, the exact shade of the blue hydrangeas, the chaos of a rainy Saturday on Earth. I want to anchor my human soul to this paper.

I press the tip of the pen against the top sheet. A tiny drop of black ink bleeds into the white fibers.

I slowly lift the pen, my breathing turning shallow. I cannot.

Warfarin had already deduced that the Originium in my temporal lobe was hyperactive. If I start documenting vivid "delusions" of another universe, Warfarin will instantly diagnose me with advanced, Oripathy-induced psychosis. If I give them written proof of my "madness," I will never get off this leash. Kal'tsit will lock me in this room forever as a completely unstable biological hazard.

I swallow the bitter lump in my throat and press the pen back down to the paper. I don't write about Sydney. Instead, I focus entirely on the agonizing, uncoordinated mechanics of my hands.

I use the paper to improve my atrocious, child-like handwriting.

A… B… C…

My fingers grip the plastic barrel of the pen awkwardly, my lack of muscle memory making every stroke rigid and shaky. I fill the page with wobbly, uneven letters.

I think a few hours has passed by. The warm ceramic bowl of the steamed egg sits empty on the bedside table, a comforting weight in my stomach.

Erika is sitting on the edge of the mattress, gently reviewing the stack of paper I had spent the morning filling with shaky, uneven alphabets. Her feathered temples twitch with genuine pride.

"Look at this, Lethe! You're already getting much better," Erika praises, pointing to a line of 'M's and 'N's that are slightly less crooked than the ones at the top of the page.

"Your hand is remembering how to hold the pen. You are doing so well."

I offer a small, shy smile. The praise is meant for a recovering amnesiac child, but underneath the facade, I feel a genuine, bittersweet thrum of victory. With every shaky letter, I am quietly, secretly reclaiming a tiny fragment of my lost life.

Before Erika can offer another word of encouragement, the door opens.

I tense instinctively, expecting Kal'tsit or Warfarin. Instead, a bright, energetic presence practically bounces into the sterile quarantine ward.

It is Lisa. Cradled carefully in her small hands is a small terracotta pot containing a cluster of delicate, pale blue flowers.

"Hi, Lethe! Hi, Miss Erika!" Lisa chimes, her voice a bright musical note in the quiet air.

"Miss Lena asked me to deliver these! We picked them out from the greenhouse this morning."

Erika stands up, her professional demeanor softening instantly at the sight of the young Vulpo. "That is very sweet of you, Lisa. Let's put them right here on the nightstand so Lethe can see them."

As Lisa carefully sets the pot down, I stare at the small, vibrant blooms. They aren't the blue hydrangeas that used to grow outside my window in Sydney, but the color is strikingly similar. A tiny, domestic splash of life against the glaring white plastic and brushed steel of my medical prison.

"Thank you, Lisa," I say, my voice soft.

Lisa turns toward me, her bright eyes catching sight of the beautifully bound book resting on my lap. Her vulpine ears immediately perk up.

"Oh! Are you reading?" she asks, her eyes widening with genuine excitement. She practically hops over to the side of the bed, leaning over the mattress to look at the gilded cover. "Victorian fairytales! I love these! Miss Lena used to read them to me when I first came to Rhodes Island too!"

Erika chuckles, stepping back to give us space. "Would you like to go over it with her, Lisa? Lethe is just starting to look at the pictures."

"Yes, please!" Lisa beams. She carefully kicks off her shoes and, with Erika's guiding hand, clambers onto the edge of the mattress, crossing her legs so she is sitting right beside me.

She eagerly points to the stylized illustration of the Feline wearing a crown on the first page. "This one is about a brave knight who has to find a glass sword," Lisa explains, her voice dropping into a dramatic, hushed whisper as if sharing a grand secret. She gently turns the page, pointing out the colorful, slightly faded illustrations, completely absorbed in the magic of the story.

I watch Lisa's small finger trace the printed words. I listen to the soft, rhythmic rustle of her tails against the medical blankets. I lean closer to Lisa.

A small, traitorous thought bubbles up from the very back of my mind, slipping past the grief and the fear.

Maybe… maybe this isn't too bad. To just be a child once again. Protected. Cared for. Allowed to just sit and listen to a story. It is a terrifyingly comforting thought.