Timestamp: January 26th, 20XX – 11:44 P.M.
Location: Storage Facility VEX-7, South Dakota Border
Status: Breach aftermath | Data Recovered | Casualties: 14 confirmed
⸻
The smoke hadn't cleared. Not fully.
Derik stood alone in the corridor, boots soaked in blood, the emergency lights flickering behind him like dying pulses. His jacket was torn. His knuckles swollen. His eyes? Quiet—too quiet.
On the table in front of him: an opened drive. Encased in steel, layered in encryption, and branded with a logo he hadn't seen in years:
LUCID FRAME: CANDIDATE PROGRAM
He ran his thumb across the data-stick. Still warm from the forced extraction. Around him, bodies cooled rapidly.
He plugged the drive into the portable deck.
One file.
[CANDIDATE_00]: Failed. Redacted. Human risk index: null.]
But it wasn't redacted. Not anymore. Derik had bypassed the Organization's encryption using the same code they implanted in Ash's blood—and now it opened like a confession.
⸻
REPORT:
• SUBJECT: [Redacted]
• DOB: Unknown
• Alias: "Candidate 0"
• Gender: Male
• Notes:
Subject exhibited muscle density triple the norm, regenerative markers, photophobic tendencies.
Raised in total isolation. No exposure to language, light, or sound until age 10.
Social response: unmeasured.
Emotional response: nonexistent.
Physical response: lethal on instinct.
Subject was the original prototype—the first, before even Ash.
There was a photograph embedded in the report.
A black-and-white still from a surveillance feed. Blurry. Faint.
But Derik knew those eyes.
Because they were his.
⸻
"He's my brother," Derik whispered, voice hoarse.
The corridor seemed to shrink. His breath hitched—not in fear, but in calculation. Something tectonic shifted in his posture.
There was no doubt.
He had a brother.
He had always had one.
And they'd kept him in the dark.
Literally.