The room was white.
Not sterile. Not lit.
Just… White.
No doors. No shadows. No ceiling.
Rama stood alone, barefoot on a floor that felt like nothing. No walls, no sound. Just the slow, rhythmic thump-thump of something inside him.
Until it wasn't just one heartbeat.
Until it became a choir.
*Thump-thump*
*Thump-thump*
*Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump…*
He clutched his chest.
Then... Voices.
Velvet, smooth as sin. Sharp as broken glass.
"You've been so quiet, Rama"
"So obedient"
"So… Human"
He spun.
Nothing.
Then... Figures.
Emerging from the white-like stains on a canvas.
Four. Each elegant, monstrous, regal in the way only nightmares could be.
One sat on a throne made of ribs and black glass, draped in violet cloth that whispered against the floor. Her eyes were molten gold. Her smile was too wide.
"I was your heart" She purred. "Beating in empires before your kind even learned to bleed" ( #A/N- "This is actually just to sound cool" )
Another leaned against the wall, or rather, the idea of one. His arms were folded. Shirtless. His skin was stitched together with veins like vines.
"I was your skin," he said. "I wore kings as clothing"
A third floated, limbs too long, dripping dark mist, their voice layered, broken, and divine.
"I was your marrow. Your blood. Your inheritance. I remember your ancestors… They tasted like regret"
And the last... Silent. A shadow. A mirror of Rama himself. Pale. Red-eyed. Calm.
It smiled.
Rama's legs gave out. He collapsed to his knees.
"What is this?" He rasped.
The woman stepped forward. Touched his chin.
"This is truth. You carry us. Pieces of what was never meant to be tamed. And we… Are so tired of your cowardice"
"Always waiting... Always letting others choose... Always surviving... But never living"
The one of the shadows walked forward and knelt in front of Rama.
"We gave you power. But you... You hid from it"
Rama trembled. "I never asked for this"
The woman laughed. Loud. Mocking. Beautiful.
"And yet you have it. What a waste"
"We were gods once," whispered the stitched man. "Tyrants. Monsters. Legends. And now we rot inside a child too afraid to bite"
The misty one slithered close.
"Let us show you how to stop enduring… And start devouring"
Rama tried to crawl backward, but the white swallowed movement. He was frozen. Trapped.
The mirror-Rama leaned close.
"... Let us in"
"You'll still be you," The woman coaxed. "Just... Better. Sharper. True."
"No more questions. No more fear. Only will"
Rama clenched his fists.
He remembered the pain. The surgeries. The silence. The screaming when no one listened. The way he obeyed to survive.
The way they called him Specimen Nine.
The mirror touched his forehead.
"Say it"
The voice whispered inside him.
"Say it... 'I am not yours.'"
"Say it... 'I choose what I become.'"
"Say it... 'I will not bow.'"
And for once, Rama didn't whisper.
He screamed.
"I AM NOT YOUR HOST!"
The white cracked.
"I AM NOT YOUR EXPERIMENT!"
The figures began to dissolve, laughing, hissing, welcoming.
"I… AM NOT AFRAID!"
And then...
Stillness.
Rama stood alone again.
But something had changed.
He exhaled.
And when he opened his eyes...
… They burned red.
Not pulsing. Not glowing.
Blazing.
He smiled. Not kind.
Not human.
The voices weren't gone.
They were quiet.
Because now... They listened to him.
--------
Silence.
The kind that presses against the skin like static. The kind that knows something is about to snap.
Sorell stumbled back, breath shallow, eyes wide.
Rama sat up.
No restraints were cut. No dramatic break.
The straps are simply unlatched.
As if the table itself had decided he didn't belong there anymore.
She reached for her comm-
But he was already in front of her.
No blur. No rush.
Just movement. Instantaneous.
His hand gripped her wrist with terrifying precision, cold fingers pulsing with unnatural strength. Not crushing. Not yet.
He didn't blink.
"…Why me?" Rama asked, voice smooth like silk dragged over razors. "Why this?"
Sorell couldn't answer. Not because she didn't know.
But because looking into his eyes felt like staring into the void after something woke inside it.
"I-I told you… You're the next step..." She whispered.
Rama tilted his head slightly.
"I didn't ask what I am," he said. "I asked why me?"
And for a moment, her composure cracked.
"…Because you were available"
There it was.
The truth.
"... I see"
Sorell's breath hitched.
She didn't move. Couldn't.
Rama stared at her like a sculptor judging the worth of a slab of stone.
"Available"
Rama repeated. The word tasted like ash in his mouth.
"You talk like you picked me off a shelf"
Sorell swallowed.
"Rama… We gave you purpose"
"No..." He whispered, "You gave me pain. You carved your name into my bones and called it science"
He released her wrist.
She staggered back, almost hopeful... Until she saw his hand hadn't moved far.
Just far enough to rest against her chest.
Fingers splayed. Palm flat.
For a moment, there was silence again.
Then a pulse.
A soundless shockwave. A heartbeat of raw intent.
And Sorell folded inward like paper touched by flame, no scream, no drama. Her body imploded, crushed from within, collapsing into herself like a dying star.
When the remains hit the floor, they didn't bounce.
They simply stopped being anything.
Rama looked at his hand. He didn't feel guilt.
He felt clarity.
--------
Alarms screamed.
Red lights flared in pulses, echoing the heartbeat that still throbbed inside him. Inside the walls. Inside the very bones of this place.
"Facility Sigma-9 breached!"
"Containment failure. Specimen Nine is loose!"
Doors hissed open. Boots pounded on metal floors.
He heard them.
Security.
Technicians.
Weapons primed, safety switches flicked off.
He exhaled once, slowly. His breath misted white like winter.
"Let's see what you built to cage me," Rama murmured. "And let's see how easily I break it"
--------
The first guard turned the corner.
Rama didn't flinch. He stood still, eyes calm and unblinking, as if daring the world to move first.
The guard raised his hand, summoning a sphere of flame that roared to life in his palm. Heat shimmered in the air. With a sharp thrust, he hurled the fireball straight at Rama.
Rama didn't block. He didn't dodge.
He walked straight into it.
The flames engulfed him like a lover's embrace... Wild, hungry, desperate to consume.
It burned. Skin sizzled. Flesh cracked.
But his healing was faster than the fire's fury.
Pain?
Yes, it was there. But Rama didn't blink.
Not when he'd already endured worse when the researchers had peeled back his body layer by layer, searching for what made him different. That pain had taught him something deeper than fear.
Rama tilted his head, voice calm, almost disappointed.
"You call this power?"
....
...
..
.