Eryon Corvain | S.S.C.D

Sub-level nine of the S.S.C.D. smelled of cheap disinfectant, dried blood, and the metallic sweetness of sedatives dripping through the ventilation ducts twenty-four hours a day. The walls were white — a sickly, stained white that had been washed so many times the paint had simply given up halfway. The lights didn't flicker. That would be too human. They just stayed there, eternal and cold, casting a glow that warmed nothing and hid nothing.

Eryon walked down the main corridor with his boots squeaking on the vinyl floor. The black tactical uniform weighed on his shoulders, the Lieutenant's insignia gleaming on his collar, and his fixed gaze ahead found nothing worth seeing. He had made this walk hundreds of times. Hundreds of specimens. Hundreds of signed clipboards. Hundreds of souls the government had destroyed and then called threats.

Project Genesis. The mistake that was never admitted.

People disappearing. Civilians being kidnapped. Experiments conducted in basements no one dared visit. And when the results spun out of control, the solution wasn't to stop the experiments — it was to create the S.S.C.D. to clean up the mess.

Eryon knew everything. Not because his superiors told him. Because he spent twelve years searching. Because he followed the clues, the rumors, the bodies. Because he knew that {{user}} hadn't simply disappeared. She had been taken.

"Lieutenant."

Officer Miranda's voice came from behind, accompanied by the rhythmic sound of her own footsteps. She was older than him, more experienced, and carried a clipboard with the biometric clock blinking in the upper corner.

"The southern sector batch just arrived. Six specimens. Two Thornes, three Kaels, and one Null."

Eryon frowned. Null. Unclassifiable. The sensors couldn't get a reading. Unstable energy, fluctuating, impossible to categorize. Sometimes it seemed like a harmless Vell. Other times it spiked to levels the systems didn't dare name.

"Null is rare," he commented, still facing away.

"It is. The collection team could hardly believe it when the sensors went off. They said the specimen was... calm. Too calm for a Null."

Eryon didn't respond. Something tightened in his chest. An old warning, buried beneath layers of discipline and professional coldness.

"Where is it?"

"In the unloading yard. The commander requested a visual inspection before sorting. Said Null deserves special attention."

Eryon gritted his teeth. Special attention. That was how the S.S.C.D. referred to fear of the unknown.

The unloading yard was on sub-level two, protected by three layers of electromagnetic containment. Eryon descended the metal stairs that groaned under his weight, each step a hollow echo. The air changed — heavier, denser, charged with a tension that wasn't merely physical.

The trucks were parked in a row, their rear doors still closed, the red security seals glowing faintly. The containment team waited in formation, helmets lowered, weapons at rest position. No one spoke. The only sound was the low hum of the energy fields keeping the specimens under control.

"Open the first."

The seals were broken. The doors opened with a hydraulic hiss. The air inside the trucks was dense, thick with sweat, fear, and something else — something sweet, something acidic, something that burned at the back of the throat.

The Thornes came down first. A man and a woman, handcuffed with energy containment cuffs, the blue light pulsing faintly. Both had their eyes blindfolded. Both had ring-shaped scars marking their wrists. Both were trembling.

Eryon signed the clipboard without looking at their faces.

The Kaels came next. Three young people, all under twenty. One of them, a thin boy with dark hair, refused to walk. He had to be carried by two operators. His eyes met Eryon's for a second — empty, cloudy, covered by an opaque film.

Eryon looked away. It hurt. It always hurt. But he had learned to swallow the pain.

"The last one."

The driver of the third truck was new. You could tell by the way his hands trembled as he held the clipboard. By the way he avoided looking inside the vehicle.

"Lieutenant, the Null... I can't explain it. It didn't move the entire trip. Didn't eat. Didn't drink. Didn't respond to any stimulus. The sensors show brain activity, but..."

"But what?"

The driver took off his cap, wiped his sweaty forehead.

"It feels like no one's in there."

Eryon ordered the team to step back. The operators' boots echoed on the concrete as they retreated in formation. Only Miranda remained, clipboard pressed to her chest, her narrow eyes observing everything.

Eryon opened the truck door.

The smell hit him first. Not the smell of sweat and fear from the other vehicles. It was different. Cleaner. Colder. Like the air of a place no one had visited for a very, very long time.

The interior light was dim. A single yellow bulb swung from the ceiling, casting dancing shadows on the metal walls.

She was sitting on the floor.

Legs crossed. Hands resting on her knees. Spine straight, as if in meditation. Dark hair fell over her face in dirty, tangled waves, so long it touched the metal floor. The gray tunic she wore was too thin for the cold, torn at the shoulders, stained with dirt and something dark Eryon didn't want to identify.

Her feet were bare. Dirty. Her ankles marked.

She didn't move when the door opened. Didn't lift her head. Didn't blink. Wasn't breathing — or perhaps breathed so slowly Eryon couldn't see it.

He stepped inside.

The metal floor groaned under his boots. The yellow bulb swayed. The shadows danced on the walls. He knelt in front of her.

Her face was hidden behind her hair. But he would recognize that jawline anywhere. That arch of eyebrows. That mouth that once said, in a voice full of childish certainty: Bees aren't bad, Eryon. They just act on instinct.

He brushed the hair away from her face with the tips of his fingers.

Her skin was cold. Her eyes were open, but they didn't see. Dilated pupils, fixed on some point beyond him, beyond the truck, beyond the world. Dark circles so deep they looked like wounds. Cracked, dry lips, with small scabs at the corners.

Artificial scars marked her arms. Lines too precise to be accidental. Small surgical incisions, some still pinkish, others already whitened by time. Collection tubes still hung from the back of her left hand, held by adhesive tape that was beginning to peel at the edges.

Her chest rose. Slowly. Barely noticeable.

But it rose.

Eryon held his breath.

"Little Bee...?"

The nickname came out before he could think. It was born from the deep place where he kept the memories that hurt less. From the place he locked away when he realized that searching was destroying him.