Chapter 6: Drawn to Mystery

Zara’s POV

The footsteps seemed so close, and my heart began to sound loudly. I was pretty sure that whoever was coming towards the garden could hear it.

The footsteps outside the garden were quick, steady, deliberate, echoing alongside the night side owls like a countdown waiting to get hold of us doing a bad thing.

I suddenly remembered Kai's presence when his hand brushed against mine. That contact was one thing I hated and, at the same time, seemed to like.

He whispered gently, "We have to move."

I nodded in affirmation as we both slipped behind a flowering tree just as two figures emerged from the dark. Their academy uniforms are now replaced by black long coats that stopped at their knees. I could recognize one of the men who seemed to act like patrol members, Mr Lorn, Dr. Voss's assistant. His voice was quite low, but Kai seemed to pick up a few things as he repeated his words judiciously.

“Voss wants Subject N-13 relocated by morning,”

I froze at that information.

Subject N-13.

The name seemed to have an impact on me as cold tremors built inside me.

"Who was that?" I thought.

The second man spoke.

“After what happened at the ceremony, the board’s nervous, the containment readings went off the charts.”

Lorn gave a very short and humourless laugh.

"Let them be nervous. She’s the only one who survived phase one. They’ll do whatever Voss says."

Lorn and the other guy moved over to the east wing, their boots crunching over gravel until their sounds faded into silence.

I didn't realize that I had been holding my breath for a long while until I felt that sizzling connection again. Kai had touched my shoulder.

"We need to go, now." He said quietly. 

So we slipped back through a side entrance, keeping it low as we passed the dimly lit corridors. Somewhere in the upper floors, a bell chimed softly in the background, a suggestion that it was time for midnight curfew.

A shiver ran through my bones as we walked. It felt like the darkness overshadowing the academy at night had a life for themselves, like the walls could listen to conversations said in the dark.

At the hallway fork, Kai turned to me.

“Go back to your room. Pretend you don’t know anything. I’ll find out what they meant by that code name.”

“And what about you?” I whispered, still trembling with an inner fear for him.

“I’ll be fine.” He hesitated, his silver eyes flickering in the dim light.

“Zara… don’t trust anyone. Not even me.”

Before I could respond, he was gone, swallowed by the dark corridor.

Why couldn't I trust him? The first person to ever show me a bit of kindness and affection.

I stood there for a long time before slowly turning towards the basement wing or what I thought was the basement. Even after 5 years of staying here, I still got missing sometimes due to the layout of the academy.

It seemed like I was in the wrong place, but I couldn't stop my legs from moving. The air was colder and filled with the scent of metal and ozone.

At the end of the hall was a door, sleek, metallic, and covered in faintly glowing symbols.

My heart skipped.

I had seen those symbols before.

On the screens in Dr. Voss’s medical lab.

And where else?

The computer with the strange blue light!

I approached slowly. The closer I got, the more the symbols seemed to pulse in rhythm with my heartbeat. When I reached out to touch one, a faint hum shivered through my fingertips.

At that point, the door slid open as if to welcome me.

Inside, the room was dimly lit by a single blue, white glow from a console at the far end. Dust coated the shelves, but the air wasn’t stale, it felt… alive. Machines hummed quietly, some flickering to life as I stepped inside.

“Hello?” I whispered.

No answer.

My eyes adjusted, revealing what looked like storage pods, old monitors, and a long wall filled with data drives. Most were dead, but one in the center blinked faintly.

Drawn to it, I reached out to touch it. Just then, it flickered to life, projecting a holographic display in front of me. Strange symbols cascaded down the screen, rearranging themselves into words I could read:

PROJECT LUNARIS

STATUS: INCOMPLETE

SUBJECT NIGHT, AWAITING ACTIVATION

My breath caught.

Subject Night.

That was my last name. This couldn't be a coincidence.

I stepped closer, staring at the words as if they might rearrange themselves into something that made sense.

“What does all this mean?” I whispered.

The screen responded to my voice, lines of data scrolling rapidly.

ZARA NIGHT, GENETIC VARIANT CLASS UNKNOWN

CONTAINMENT PRIORITY: LEVEL OMEGA

My pulse thundered in my ears. Omega. The same label everyone at the academy used to mock as my weakness. But here, it felt… different. A classification. A warning.

Suddenly, the console beeped sharply, and new text appeared:

ADMINISTRATIVE ACCESS DETECTED

REPLAYING MEMORY FILE: ARCHIVE07

Before I could take a step back, the air shimmered, goosebumps rose onto my skin, and then I began to look at a moving image.

A younger version of myself, maybe twelve, maybe thirteen, stood in a bright white room. I was smiling, my eyes wide with innocence.

Standing beside me was Dr. Voss, wearing the same cold expression she always did.

But her voice this time was softer when she spoke:

“Begin phase two.”

The hologram flickered, glitching, before the image distorted now replaced by flashing red warnings and an eerie mechanical hum that made the room vibrate.

I stumbled back, my mind spinning.

“No,” I whispered. “That can’t be me. That’s not possible.”

The lights overhead began to flicker, dimming one by one until only the blue glow of the console remained. The humming grew louder, deeper, as if something beneath the floor had awakened.

Then I heard it.

Footsteps.

Slow. Deliberate.

I should run. This smelt like danger.

I should have listened to Kai.

My pulse raced. I turned toward the doorway, but the moment I moved, the holographic display changed again, unprompted.

My own face reappeared, this time older, my current self. But my expression wasn’t confused or afraid. I was calm. Almost… expectant.

And in a distorted, almost mechanical version of my voice, the hologram spoke:

“You shouldn’t have come here, Zara.”

The door slammed shut behind me.

The hum turned into a roar.

And then, in that split moment, everything went dark.