Zero With Line Through It Novels & Stories

Zaria whispered to herself and smiled a little to cheer herself up, petting her cheeks to let all the gloomy air fly away from her body. Lisa only gazed at her with a sad expression. "Where's uncle?" Zaria turned her head in all the directions and saw that her uncle was not present here. "Did no one inform uncle? Where is he?"

The yard was quiet at dawn, the sky streaked with pale gold and gray. The air carried the scent of dew and iron—the smell of earth after a storm, though no rain had fallen. We were in a random open field, a place Ciro claimed no one would find us. I’d finally acknowledged my power and he’d seen it too. Now here I stood in the middle of the clearing, my arms wrapped around myself as if I could contain the restless energy thrumming beneath my skin.

Loggins suddenly became excited, acting as if he had caught the Death Inquisitor. “There are two steel troughs in the glass cover. If my deduction is correct, the red one is the line of fire, and the blue one is the zero line. Every time I lift the steel frame, the steel troughs will stretch to both sides. The higher I lift, the larger the gap between the steel troughs. If I’m not wrong, as long as I lift the steel troughs to the largest position, the gap between the steel troughs will be enough for the steel bars inside to fall. If that happens, the two steel bars will come into contact, and the line of fire and the zero line will come into contact. What will the result be? The whole circui

The wet, gray concrete of the helipad disappeared, replaced by a spectrum of vibrant, glowing colors. Directly in the center of the helipad was a mark. It wasn't a crater. It wasn't a chemical spill. It was a perfectly straight, razor-thin line, about four feet wide. It looked as if a two-dimensional blade made of pure, white-hot energy had been pressed into the building and then retracted.

The screen displaying SUBJECT ZERO-C had disappeared, leaving only a black wall. My brother stood beside the projector, staring at the place where the image had been. “What does Zero-C mean?” I asked. “I don’t know.” “You’re lying.” His eyes met mine. “I wish I were.” Victor stepped forward. “Then let’s start with what we know.” I looked at him. He pointed toward the empty fourth crib in the photograph. “There were four children connected to the original program.” “Noah and I were Zero-A and Zero-B.” “Yes.” I looked at my brother.

The roar of the wind faded behind them, replaced by a deeper, more terrifying sound: the house itself groaning, a giant beast winding up to die. 00:38… The tunnel sloped down, steep and tight. They stumbled, hands scraping on rough concrete. The thrumming grew louder, a mechanical heart about to explode. They burst into a sub-basement, a place of raw concrete and humming steel doors. A heavy door bore a strange symbol a zero inside a helix. “Project Zero.” “It’s bio-locked,” Lucas gasped, shoving his hands against the cold metal. “Needs a Vance signature. If Marcus was the true ‘First Cain’… my blood should still open it.”

“We…don’t…speak…it.” Coward, the Zenaida-voice inside me hissed. “Then draw it,” I said. “In the blood you were so eager to spill.” I lifted my boot, just enough for him to move his arm. He hesitated, then dragged his fingers through the puddle of red by his leg. His hand shook as he traced on the concrete, rain already working to blur the lines. The symbol that emerged was ugly in its simplicity: a circle with a line through the center, and four smaller cuts radiating outward like claw marks.

A good arc. On the inner staircase—where the chalk had rolled down yesterday—there was ash on the step’s edge. After the first circuit—nothing. After the second—nothing. On the third, a faint, barely visible V-shaped scratch, ash smudged. Not “5+2,” just direction. I looked up. On the corner, above the inscription—Nothing happens. Move on.—a tiny mark: two short lines. Nothing more. As if someone wanted to play along, then grew tired.

He brought the nib down. The moment the gold metal touched the paper a loud sound exploded in Elara's head. A wave of static erupted from the ledger. It rippled outward across the mud on the highway shoulder. Where the wave touched the raindrops, they didn't break. They turned into strings of letters and numbers that quickly disappeared. ERASE: VANCE_E_0529.

During the escape, she unknowingly grabbed a single loose page from the fallen Subject Zero file. Across the top, in faded typewriter text, are six chilling words: IDENTITY OF SUBJECT ZERO: CLASSIFIED Beneath them… Someone has handwritten a single name. The ink has been smeared by rain. Only the first letter remains visible. E…