Chapter Fifteen
The Needle
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
The hum of repulsor engines thrummed beneath the floor. Dim red hazard lights blinked in the corners of the ceiling. Thin frost clung to the windows, the failing heater struggling against the freezing air outside.
Two figures sat opposite to each other in the cramped medical bay of the armored transport. Between them, Abo lay still on a bolted cot, wrapped in heavy emergency fabric. His skin was pale, his body unmoving, eyes wide open and unblinking. He looked more statue than child, clean in a way that unsettled.
The male officer braced against the seat rail, his reinforced armor creaking as he leaned in. He stared at the infant for several seconds, like he was waiting for it to move or react first. "You ever seen eyes like that?" he muttered. "I've pulled kids outta rift zones with their guts hanging out, but this one…" He trailed off,
Across from him, the woman didn't glance up from her tablet. A tag that read SERA officer was stitched to the chest of her snow-covered jacket, the fabric around it starting to fray.
"Yeah," she drawled. "Red as fresh kill."
"Feels like he's drafting a complaint for God," the male officer muttered.
Abo blinked, then his lip trembled. The sound started small. It was a short, uneven breath barely audible under the engine's hum. It wasn't a cry, more like something caught between a sob and a snarl.
The man jerked back in his seat. "The hell—"
Even the female officer looked up, her brows lifting as she lowered the tablet slightly.
"He hasn't made a sound this whole ride," the man muttered. "Not even a breath."
The woman gave a short, noncommittal hum.
"Creepy quiet," the man added. "Like a prop from a horror sim. But now he's snarling 'cause I mentioned God?"
He hesitated. Then, quieter: "What is this kid?"
She finally glanced at the infant. "Just a baby."
"Right." He leaned back, uneasy. "A baby who stares like he's got a kill count."
The woman looked again, she didn't disagree. The cot creaked softly as the child shifted slightly, he wasn't crying anymore. The vehicle jolted as it hit a rut in the ice. Snow hit the windows in steady bursts. In the distance, the city came into view, its buildings coated in cold white dust.
"We'll drop him off at Sector Nine's pediatric trauma unit," she said. "Then probably relocation to a state shelter. Assuming they're not full again."
"Doctors'll love this one," he muttered.
His gaze shifted to a bundled cloth on the bench beside the cot. It was stiff, bloodstained, and clearly not regulation gear. He picked it up with two fingers. The shawl was nearly black with dried blood. He turned it over, revealing loose stitching partly hidden beneath the crusted gore.
"Found him in this, right?" he asked.
She glanced over. "Yeah. That's what he was wrapped in when evac pulled him."
He ran his thumb along the inside seam and felt letters. Small, hand-stitched, barely readable beneath the dried blood.
"'Grey,'" he read aloud.
He exhaled. "Stitched in. Like the mother named him that."
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Sector Nine Trauma: NICU Intake, Rift Casualties Unit
The sliding doors opened to cold light and colder stares. The air inside was sterile and metallic, filled with the low hum of machines. Monitors blinked, and automated medical equipment worked quietly in the background. Somewhere deeper inside, a child cried out, short, sharp, then quickly silenced by sedation.
Abo was swaddled in emergency cloth, cradled in a padded carrier strapped to the responder's chest. Just stared at the man holding him with a look that promised slow violence. He could move, but the weight of whatever had broken inside him kept him down. He was too numb to lash out.
"We've got a Rift orphan. Infant male. No visible injuries. Found wrapped in bloodied cloth right at a Rift boundary in a dead sector. No mana signature." The officer handed off a datapad with the scan logs.
The nurse met them at the intake bay.
"Rift orphan, male, no visible injuries," the officer said, handing over a field tablet. "Found wrapped in bloodied cloth near a Rift boundary, no mana signature."
She nodded, already scanning the report. "Let's move him to isolette."
With practiced ease, the nurse and intern lifted the infant into a mobile isolation bassinet. The lining adjusted to his weight, sensors flickered to life. The officer stepped back, but didn't leave. One of the NICU staff had flagged him for follow-up, timeline, retrieval notes, and rift zone classification.
The nurse didn't flinch. She'd seen worse on her shifts. Toddlers pulled from collapsed evac zones. Infants beside half-eaten parents. One kid had been fused into a wall mid-scream, still blinking. But this one… She stared down at the infant in the isolette. He was motionless, and pale. His skin caught somewhere between life and death. His eyes were wide, red, and fixed on her, as if he were quietly planning something unpleasant.
The vitals scanner chirped sharply, making her flinch.
"Why is the baby staring at me like that?" she asked, uneasy.
"He's been doing that since pickup," the officer replied.
The nurse leaned in, scanning the vitals. "Looks like a few weeks old. Maybe less." She frowned. "Newborns this young don't usually track with eye contact like that, and they definitely don't stare like that."
The infant looked away with the kind of dismissive glance you'd expect from a snob, and started kicking his feet. He wasn't crying, just moving like he was throwing a tantrum. The gurney shook, far more than it should have from a baby that small.
"And week-old babies don't have the muscle strength to shake a gurney like that," the nurse said.
The attending physician entered mid-sentence, pulling on gloves. "Let me see him." She approached, watching the infant thrash. "Hold him steady."
The officer stepped in. The nurse tried too. Before they could secure him, the infant slapped them both in a single sweeping motion. The officer froze, and the nurse pressed a hand to her reddening cheek, staring in disbelief. The baby stopped kicking. Like he just needed to hit someone, or two.
"Are we really sure this isn't a monster?" the nurse asked, glancing at the officer for reassurance. "I've seen clips of those humanoid ones, different hair, strange eyes. This baby looks just like them."
She was hoping he understood.
"If he was one," the officer said, "I don't see why he hasn't attacked yet. He's been with us for hours in the transport. Real monsters don't wait. The ones I've seen go straight for the kill."
The doctor checked the infant's jawline, then his hands, both unnaturally still, no rooting reflex. The baby didn't even try to move his head. If anything, he just looked flat, emotionally shut down. She clicked on a penlight and shined it into his eyes, then leaned in closer.
"His eyes are shaking," she said. "Could be albinism. That would explain the lack of pigmentation in the skin and eyes. Iris pigmentation is nearly nonexistent. Blood vessels are fully visible."
She paused.
"But even with albinism, this level of redness isn't typical. I'll flag him for ophthalmology."
She picked up the intake log. "Name?"
"Grey," the officer said. "It was stitched into the shawl he was found in."
"Alright. Grey it is." She straightened. "Let's place him in Isolette Four. NICU isolation. Monitor vitals every three hours. I'll schedule the ophthalmology consult once he's stable. And if he stays this unresponsive overnight, we'll run a neuro screen and EEG."
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
NICU – 03:47 Standard Time
The ward hummed with low static, a gentle white noise designed to soothe restless infants. Three of the isolettes were empty. One held a fragile newborn swaddled tight in quarantine foam, a sluggish heartbeat flickering on the monitor. Another contained a Rift-burn victim, mostly immobile, wrapped in gel pads and medical gauze.
And then there was Abo, still awake, staring at the ceiling, his eyes fixed in the same hollow stare he'd worn since clearing the dungeon, since the System told him the truth: the gods would drag him back again and again, even if he tore his own throat out. His tiny lips hadn't moved in hours, and his muscles hadn't twitched. He looked like a bundled infant doll someone had forgotten to animate.
System: For someone like you, this level of silence is concerning.
No response.
System: I know you're upset. But you should consider pretending to be a functional infant. You have to cry tomorrow, Host.
Still nothing.
System: If you don't, they'll probe your brain.
Abo blinked once. Then, finally, his voice, dry and bitter as ash:
"Wait, what did you just say?"
System: They'll probe your brain. For neurological anomalies. Electrical stimulus. Possibly needles. Definitely suction.
"…What's a needle?"
System: A needle is a small metal spear, sharpened to a molecular edge, used to pierce flesh and draw fluids. In this context, they'd be stabbing it into your brain to measure neuro-response.
"…The hell kind of monster would stab a baby in the skull?"
System: Doctors. Pediatric neurologists, to be exact.
Abo went quiet again. Not out of horror, but suspicion. He could feel it, the System was pushing him, and spinning up the dramatics. Abo doesn't know much about the future's medical nonsense, but he knew manipulation when he smelled it. And yet… The idea of some soulless bastard poking his corpse-head with sharp metal, just because he wouldn't cry, did make his cold spine twitch. So he stared at the ceiling again.
System: They'll strap you down, Abo. Shave your head. Jab their little metal spears in. Then go fishing for ghosts. You know how humans get when they don't understand something, they dissect it.
System: You don't need to mean the cry. Just fake it. Babies are allowed to cry. You'll be less suspicious that way.
Abo wasn't stupid. He knew this was a scare tactic. A mechanical boogeyman tale, wired with cold logic and just enough truth to get him to play along. Still… the System wasn't entirely wrong. There was always someone, a healer, they used to call them, not doctors, eager to cut open what they couldn't name. Curiosity wrapped in linen and prayer, or in this case, sterile gloves and institutional lighting. And Abo, undead, red-eyed, unblinking Abo, fit neatly into that category.
But he didn't cry, not because he couldn't. He could, but because he was too shattered, too numb to summon tears. His body didn't ache like the living did. No hunger, no fatigue, no matter how long he waited. His corpse simply ignored that kind of command.
Sleep didn't come either, so he just lay there. All night, pretending, waiting, wondering what kind of sound he'd make in the morning, and whether it would sound enough to fool the people with the spears.
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End of Chapter