Erza stood before the door of Lab 3. It was sealed like the others, cold and unyielding, its surface streaked with frost that had formed on the inside. She did not hesitate. She stepped through.
The room was frozen.
Not cold in the way that winter was cold—Erza could not feel temperature in a memory. But she could see the cold. She could see it in the thick sheets of ice that coated the walls, in the frost that crawled across the floor like the veins of some frozen creature, in the way the air itself seemed to shimmer with a chill that had nothing to do with temperature. This room had been cold for a very long time. It had been cold when the child inside was alive. It had been cold when he died. It would be cold forever.
The child in this room was older than the others—ten, maybe eleven. His hair was white, pale as fresh snow, and his eyes—what remained of them—were red. Crimson. The same red as Yuuta's. The same red that had looked at her with hope and fear and love.
He was dead.
The cruelty here was not quick. It was not merciful. It was the slow, deliberate dismantling of a living being, piece by piece, while he was kept conscious through every moment of it.
They had started with his fingers. Each one had been broken at every joint, then peeled open, the skin stripped back to reveal the raw tissue beneath. The nails had been pulled out slowly, one by one, with pliers that left the roots still attached, still bleeding. Then they had driven metal spikes into the open wounds—not to kill him, but to keep him awake, to keep the nerves firing, to make sure he felt everything.
His hands had been left like that, nailed open, fingers splayed, the metal spikes glinting in the dim light.
Then they had moved to his arms. The skin had been flayed from his forearms in long, continuous strips, rolled up like parchment and discarded on the floor. The muscles beneath had been exposed, glistening, still moving as he tried to curl away from the pain. They had cut through them, one by one, severing tendons and ligaments, until his arms hung useless at his sides.
His legs had been next. The same process. Flaying. Cutting. Severing. But they had left his spine intact—not out of mercy, but because they needed him to feel.
They had extracted his teeth one by one, pulling them from his gums with a forceps that cracked the roots. They had cut out his tongue, leaving a dark hole in his mouth that still leaked blood. They had removed his hair, strand by strand, pulling it from his scalp until it was bare and raw and weeping.
His spine had been taken last. They had opened his back from the base of his skull to the base of his tailbone, spread the flesh apart like the pages of a book, and reached inside. They had pulled out his vertebrae one by one, stacking them on a tray beside him, while his body convulsed and his mouth opened in a scream that had no sound.
He had been conscious through all of it. Every cut. Every tear. Every spike. He had endured it all alone, in this frozen room, with no one to hear his screams, no one to hold his hand, no one to tell him that it would end.
His fingers were black. Burned. Crushed. The spikes had been driven in so deep that they had come out the other side, piercing through his palms and into the metal table beneath. He was nailed in place, unable to move, unable to escape, unable to do anything except endure.
And when they were finished—when there was nothing left to take—they had left him here. In the cold. In the dark. In the silence.
His eyes were still open. Still red. Still staring at something that Erza could not see.
She felt something strange. A connection. A pull. As if this child—this broken, shattered child—was somehow connected to her. As if his pain was her pain. As if his suffering was her suffering.
She did not understand it. She did not want to understand it.
She left the room.
Lab 2.
This room was worse.
Not because of the machines. Not because of the tubes or the wires or the strange, pulsing lights that flickered like dying hearts. Worse because of what was written on the walls.
Blood.
The boy in this room had tried to write something before he died. He had used his own blood—the only ink he had left—and dragged his fingers across the cold metal floor, leaving a message that had been waiting for someone to find for a very long time.
The symbols were twisted, unnatural, as if his hands could no longer control themselves. The letters slanted and shook, trailing off into meaningless scratches where his strength had finally given out. But the words—the words were clear.
"Vraek thyr… na'elis… khar'ven… sev'ra… nox… nox…"
Erza read them.
She understood them.
She understood every word, every syllable, every desperate plea written in the boy's own lifeblood.
But she did not speak them aloud. She could not. The words were too heavy, too painful, too filled with a grief that was not her own.
She read them in silence, and the silence swallowed them, and the meaning of the words became hers alone to carry.
The cruelty in this room had been different. They had not taken him apart piece by piece. They had burned him. Slowly. Deliberately. They had started with his feet, holding them over an open flame until the skin blistered and split and the fat beneath began to melt. Then they had moved upward—his calves, his knees, his thighs—cooking him from the outside in.
They had stopped before he died. They had healed him—just enough to keep him alive—and then they had started again. Again and again and again, until his skin was a patchwork of burns and scars and grafted flesh that did not belong to him.
They had kept him conscious through all of it. They had used drugs to keep him awake, to keep his nerves firing, to make sure he felt every moment of his own destruction.
And when they were finished—when there was nothing left to burn—they had left him here. In the heat. In the darkness. In the silence.
He had written his message on the wall with the last of his strength, using blood that had been boiled inside his own veins. He had been asking a question—a question that no one had answered.
"Vraek thyr… na'elis… khar'ven… sev'ra… nox… nox…"
He had died writing those words.
His body had collapsed against the wall, his blood pooling around him, his fingers still outstretched toward the symbols he would never finish. And the question had been forgotten here, in this cold, dark room, waiting for someone to find it.
Erza trembled. Fear took hold of her—not fear of death, not fear of battle, but fear of something she did not understand. Something that was reaching out to her from the past, pulling at her heart, demanding to be seen.
She left the room.
Lab 1.
The final room.
Erza hesitated at the door. She knew what she would find inside. She had known since she saw the white hair and red eyes of the child in Lab 3. She had known since she read the blood-written words in Lab 2. She had known since she first stepped into this memory, since she felt the weight of this place pressing down on her soul.
This was Yuuta's room.
She stepped inside.
The child in this room was older—twelve, maybe thirteen. His face was shattered. His skull had been broken, caved in by something heavy and brutal, the bone splintered and crushed and pushed inward. Parts of his brain were escaping from the cracks, bulging out like something trying to be born, something that had been trapped inside for too long.
He had been hit with a hammer. Not once. Not twice. Over and over again, while he was still alive, while he was still conscious, while he was still begging for it to stop.
His body was broken in ways that should have been impossible. His ribs had been cracked open, pulled apart like the wings of a bird, exposing the cavity beneath. His organs had been removed—one by one, examined, weighed, and then stuffed back inside. His heart had been stopped and restarted multiple times, each time leaving a little more damage, a little more scar tissue, a little less of what made him human.
He was tied to a chair in the center of the room, chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles, holding him in place. His nails had been removed, just like the others. His teeth had been pulled, scattered across the floor like broken pearls.
His tongue had been cut out, lying in a pool of dried blood beside the chair. His blood had been drained, siphoned into machines that hummed and clicked, extracting something from him that Erza could not see.
But the worst part—the part that made Erza's stomach turn—was the hammering. They had not just broken his bones. They had methodically, systematically, struck every part of his body with the same force, the same rhythm, the same cruel precision. His arms. His legs. His fingers. His toes. His shoulders. His hips. His spine. Each strike was measured, calculated, designed to cause maximum pain without killing him.
1708 times. The number was written on the chart on the wall, recorded with the same cold detachment as a scientist recording the results of an experiment. 1708 times. He had been hit 1708 times. And the force was not human. It was something else. Something stronger. Something that had enjoyed the work.
An ogre. Or a vampire. Some inhuman creature that had taken pleasure in destroying a child.
Erza's eyes filled with tears. Not because she was weak. Not because she was soft. Because she could not understand. Why would anyone do this? Why would anyone create children only to destroy them? Why would anyone build a place like this? Why would they fill it with pain? Why would they fill it with children who looked like him, who suffered like him, who died like him?
And why did all the children look like Yuuta?
She looked at the broken body in the chair. The white hair. The red eyes. The face that was so familiar, so close, so nearly his.
What was this place? Why was Yuuta here? And why did it feel like she had lost something she never knew she had?
Erza stood motionless in the corridor, her mind reeling from what she had witnessed. She had entered Lab 1 expecting to find Yuuta—expecting to see his broken body, his shattered face, his empty eyes. But he was not there. The child in that room had been someone else. Another victim. Another experiment. Another life destroyed by hands that did not know mercy.
She had searched through five rooms. Five laboratories. Five nightmares. Each one had held a child—different ages, different features, but all of them sharing something she could not name. Something that pulled at her heart, that made her chest ache, that made her want to tear this place apart with her bare hands.
But she had not found him. She had not found Yuuta.
And then she understood.
The scars on his back. The wounds that had never fully healed. The way he flinched sometimes when she touched him unexpectedly. The nightmares that haunted his sleep, the ones he wrote about in that little notebook he kept hidden by his bed.
She had seen those scars. She had asked him about them, once, and he had changed the subject. She had let it go, assuming they were from his time in the orphanage, from the children who had called him demon, from the sisters who had looked at him with disgust.
But now she knew. Now she knew why he did not remember his past. Now she knew why his memories had been sealed. Because his past was not a childhood. It was a nightmare. A horror so deep, so dark, so unspeakable that the only way to survive was to forget.
She began to search for him.
The corridor stretched ahead of her, longer than before, lined with doors that she had not noticed on her first pass. Most were sealed, locked, their surfaces dark and cold. But at the very end of the hall, she saw light. Faint, flickering, spilling out from beneath a door that was not fully closed.
This room was still in use.
She could hear sounds—muffled voices, the clink of metal instruments, the low hum of machines. She could smell blood—fresh blood, coppery and warm, so thick that it coated the back of her throat. She could feel something else, something that made her heart beat faster and her hands tremble at her sides, something that whispered to her in a language she did not understand but somehow knew.
She stepped toward the last room. Her heart pounded in her chest, each beat louder than the last, each step heavier than the one before. Her mind screamed at her to retreat, to turn back, to leave this place and never return. But her feet would not obey. They carried her forward, toward the door, toward the light, toward whatever waited inside.
She entered the room.
And her world stopped.
The laboratory was vast—larger than any of the others, its ceiling lost in shadow, its walls lined with tubes and tanks and machines that hummed with a sound that was almost music. The air was thick with the smell of chemicals and blood and something else—something sweet, something cloying, something that made her stomach turn and her skin crawl.
Bodies hung from the ceiling. Not human bodies—not entirely. They were chimeras, creatures that had been stitched together from different species, their limbs mismatched, their eyes staring at nothing. Some had been there for so long that their flesh had begun to decay, dripping onto the floor below. Others were fresh, their wounds still weeping, their mouths still open in silent screams.
Beings in white coats moved through the room, their faces hidden behind masks, their hands gloved in materials that did not exist in the human world. They were not human. Some were dark elves, their skin gray and their eyes cold, their pointed ears pierced with rings that glowed with dark magic. Some were half-beastmen, their bodies covered in fur and scales and feathers, their claws clicking against the metal floor. Some were creatures she did not recognize—twisted, wrong, born from experiments that should never have been attempted.
They were scientists. Curious and cruel. Their eyes gleamed with the same hunger she had seen in the eyes of predators, the same detachment she had seen in the eyes of butchers. They moved among the tubes and tables with the ease of long practice, their hands steady, their voices calm.
They held knives and hammers and tools that she had never seen before—tools designed not to kill, but to prolong. To extend. To make sure that every nerve, every fiber, every cell experienced the full measure of pain. There were scalpels with blades that vibrated, saws that sang as they cut, needles that injected fluids that burned and blistered and scarred.
A dwarf scientist operated a tube, his thick fingers moving over controls that glowed with dark magic. The tube contained a child—no older than five—suspended in green liquid, his eyes open, his mouth moving, his hands pressed against the glass. He was still alive. Still conscious. Still aware.
A vampire surgeon sat in the corner, a wine glass in her hand, the red liquid inside still warm from whatever being she had drained. Her lips were stained crimson, and she smiled as she watched the proceedings, her fangs glinting in the dim light.
The being beside her was not fully dragon—it was a Gloan dragon, a hybrid of dragon and goblin, its scales dull and its eyes empty. Tubes ran from its body into the machines, siphoning its life force, using it to power the equipment. It was being used as fuel, its essence drained drop by drop, and it would continue to be used until there was nothing left.
Five figures stood at the center of the room. They wore coats marked with the same logo she had seen on the door—the Eden Human Symbol—and the other beings in the room bowed to them, stepped aside for them, treated them with the deference of servants to masters.
They were the ones in charge. The ones who had created this place. The ones who had filled it with children.
One of them was human. She could see it in his greedy eyes, in the way he looked at the experiments around him not with curiosity but with hunger. He was not a scientist. He was a predator. And he was leading the experiment.
"Bring the subject we have been raising," he said.
His voice was cold, calm, utterly without emotion. He spoke of children the way a farmer might speak of livestock, the way a butcher might speak of meat.
One of the scientists stepped forward. He grabbed a small child by the hair—long, dark, matted with blood and dirt and things Erza did not want to name—and dragged him across the floor. The child's bare skin scraped against the metal, leaving trails of blood behind him. His small hands reached out for something to hold onto, but there was nothing. His feet kicked weakly, his legs too damaged to support his weight.
He was small. No older than Elena.
He had black hair and red eyes.
His face was bruised, swollen, barely recognizable. One eye was swollen shut, the other glazed with pain. His lips were cracked and bleeding, and when he opened his mouth to cry out, Erza saw that half his teeth were missing. His clothes—if they could be called clothes—were rags, stained with old blood and new, barely covering his emaciated body.
He had been here for a long time. Years, maybe. Long enough that his body had forgotten what it felt like to be without pain.
Erza's hands began to tremble. Her voice, when she tried to speak, caught in her throat. Her heart pounded so hard that she could hear it in her ears, feel it in her temples, taste it on her tongue.
The child was Yuuta.
Her husband. The father of her daughter. The man she had chosen to love.
He was crying. Begging. Pleading for mercy that would not come. His voice was hoarse, barely a whisper, cracked from screaming.
"Please," he said. "Please stop. I'll be good. I'll do whatever you want. Just please stop."
The human scientist smiled. He knelt down beside the child and stroked his hair—the same hair he had been dragged by—with a gentleness that made Erza's skin crawl.
"You are good weapon, we create," he said softly. "That is why we chose you. That is why we kept you. You are our best subject. Our finest creation."
"SUBJECT: ZERO KARMA... A living Weapon."
He stood and nodded to the other scientists.
"Begin."
To be continued...