Darkness. Cold. Screams.
Ellee gasped, her small body shivering as metal cuffs clamped around her wrists. White lights burned her eyes. She squinted, trying to see—trying to remember.
"Bubba…?" she whispered, her voice trembling.
She couldn't see their faces. Only shadows. Blurred, distorted shapes of her brothers—three tall figures, calling her name through a wall of fire. Elliot. Ellioz. Ellias. Her Bubbas.
And then the other voices. Laughs. Screams. Crying.
"Maya! Viola!"
"Ellee, run!"
Zion's voice—panicked, protective. Xion's hand reaching out before vanishing into smoke. Kael's red eyes flickered in the flames, filled with pain and fear.
Then… nothing.
Ellee bolted upright from her bed, breath ragged and forehead damp with sweat. Moonlight seeped through the window, casting silver shadows over her small dorm room. She clutched her chest, heart pounding.
The nightmare again.
It never left her—not once in the past ten years.
Ten years since the fire consumed the underground lab.
Ten years since the last time she saw her brothers, her friends.
Ten years since she watched Kael disappear beneath rubble and flame.
She had been only six. Kael, just eight.
They were just children.
And yet, they had been tortured, twisted—transformed into weapons.
Ellee let her fingers trail over the scar hidden under her uniform's sleeve. A faint glow pulsed beneath her skin—her elements stirring. Light. Fire. Frost. Life. Each one a curse as much as a gift.
Each one a memory of what she lost.
The silence in the room was suffocating. Outside the school, the world believed in peace. Laughter rang from dorm halls. Teachers taught as if the world hadn't once burned.
But Ellee knew better.
Because she was the Protector now.
Each school had one. A survivor. A warrior. A silent sentinel.
And she—the first experiment, S001—was their strongest.
"I'll keep them safe," she whispered, standing and strapping the sheath of her blade to her back. Her reflection in the window showed her ocean-like eyes, glowing faintly.
No one would suffer what she had.
Not on her watch.
Not while the scientists still breathed.
Not while monsters still lurked in the shadows of ruined labs.
Not while her heart still mourned for the ones she lost.
Even if she had to protect this world alone.
Even if she had to carry the weight of the fallen forever.