Chapter 11 (continued – Part 2)

  “Her Name”

  Five minutes later, he began screaming in pain. Still alive. His brain exposed to the air, burned by oxygen contact, he grabbed the weapon again, slipped it into his mouth, and pulled the trigger once more.

  Ten minutes later, he regained consciousness. Unable to think, his skull completely shattered. In pure, slow—terribly slow—agony, he was reconstructing himself. He felt everything: his brain slowly reattaching, flesh closing, blood coagulating in reverse. The pain made him pass out in loops, then wake up again.

  It was worse than any torture. It lasted six long hours.

  Later, a scientist entered his room and was horrified by the blood splatters on the floor: an immense pool, and in its center, William, lying down, vacant stare fixed on the ceiling from which his own blood was still dripping.

  Then he spoke, in a resigned voice:

  “The subjects?”

  The scientist, terrified and uneasy, stammered:

  “Uh… they have… uh… been placed in isolation… uh… Are you okay?”

  “The Japanese woman?”

  “Uh… she survived the massacre thanks to her intelligence. She is deeply traumatized by what happened, sir. She… appears to be the last known living carrier. Among the remaining one hundred and fifty, it’s impossible to know who is exposed and who is a carrier.”

  “Good. I’m going to take a shower. Prepare her. I have a plan.”

  “A plan? For what? The higher-ups are really not going to like this massacre. We’re going to have to answer for it.”

  William let out a short laugh.

  “The higher-ups…? What does it matter. I’m going to… defy God himself.”

  William Campbell did not die that day. Perhaps he had believed that the regeneration, a consequence of exposure to the God Stone, would stop if he blew his own head off. But no. He was immortal. Every attempt to embrace death only dragged him into more intense suffering. It was pointless.

  Under the shower, he thought: “It’s not my fault. If I did all this, it’s because destiny chose me. God took everything from me… and forces me to live. He punishes me for desiring death. It’s all His fault. But you’ll see: human science will defeat you. I will destroy everything you have built, then rebuild it. No matter what I do, I will be able to repair everything. I will bring you down from your throne and get my family back. Yes… Agathe, I will resurrect you. Isaac, I will find you. As for the others, I will subjugate them.”

  Was it despair or denial? Perhaps a mixture of both. But that day, if William did not die from a bullet, something died inside him.

  The Area 51 higher-ups demanded answers.

  “More than two thousand five hundred dead! Do you realize, Mr. Campbell?”

  He remained silent.

  “We are terminating your program. This cannot continue!”

  “Hm… Are you sure?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “How can you terminate a program that never officially existed?”

  “State funding will no longer be granted to you.”

  William cast a cold glance at the assembly, then turned his eyes toward the door. Soldiers in black entered.

  “What does this mean?”

  In reality, William didn’t care about their remarks. He had surrounded himself with extremely wealthy and powerful investors. He hadn’t convinced them with flattery, but with the promise of supernatural powers that defied comprehension. There were forty fragments of the God Stone, and he held total exclusivity over them. What was the real price of objects capable of granting true powers? The powerful desire nothing more than more power, and nothing was more coveted than raw power. He had no trouble obtaining insane financial and political weight.

  If his plan worked so well, it was because it had been designed by the most intelligent person humanity had ever known:

  Miyuki Sakura, a Japanese woman with azure blue eyes and silver hair.

  The assembly was arrested for corruption, and William obtained a high-ranking position within Area 51. It was the beginning of his ascent.

  In reality, Miyuki had not acted willingly, but under threat of being sent back to NoWhere City—that city where more than three thousand inhabitants had slaughtered each other. William had never intended to send her back; she was far too valuable to him. But keeping such a genius in captivity was impossible. Nothing is more dangerous than our own mental prisons.

  “Let me go… I made your plan. Let me go, I beg you…”

  William stepped forward into the white room.

  “If I let you go, who else but you could devise plans so sophisticated?”

  “Let me go… Please…”

  “Hmm… I understand. For you to leave, there is only one way.”

  “Which is?”

  He stroked his beard.

  “Well… you need a replacement.”

  “Huh?”

  “It so happens that I made a rather interesting recent discovery. It seems that after releasing a few survivors from NoWhere City, some of them had children. Even more disturbing: these children possess abilities far surpassing those of their parents. We’re talking near-divine powers for some, with no time limit or undesirable side effects. They almost seem like young gods… Some inherit powers from both parents, giving birth to entirely new abilities. It’s fascinating.”

  “Where are you going with this?”

  “Well… let’s have a child.”

  She looked at him, horrified.

  “That’s out of the question!” she shouted.

  “I knew you would say that… But I’m afraid I have no other solution to set you free.”

  Her face twisted. She sent the chair flying, placing her hands in front of her, ready to defend herself.

  “Are you going to rape me?” she yelled, tears in her eyes.

  William grimaced.

  “Come on, no… Argh, I’m not an animal.”

  He carefully put the chair back in place, then prepared to leave. Just before crossing the threshold, he threw out:

  “Inseminate her.”

  Miyuki’s gaze went dark. She began to scream, sobbing:

  “No… Nooo! I said no!”

  They administered a tranquilizer. An ovum was harvested from her and used for in vitro fertilization. She never carried the child.

  Nine months later, twin girls were born, without a mother’s warmth, only cold science. One had azure blue eyes and silver hair; the other, red eyes and jet-black hair. Their mother refused to give them names. As for William, he assigned them numbers: Subject No. 000 and Subject No. 001.

  The twins were extremely close, but their personalities were distinct. 001, the one with jet-black hair and red eyes, was very protective of her sister. 000, with silver hair and azure eyes, was very fearful. From the cradle, when 000 cried, 001 would stroke her to comfort her—far too young to behave that way.

  They underwent daily tests: intelligence, speed, strength. 000 was certainly intelligent, but she disappointed the scientists. 001, on the other hand, excelled. She had inherited her father’s regeneration, mutated into super-strength and superhuman agility.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  At one year old, she was already praised for her feats. Her sister, though intelligent, struggled physically.

  Both learned to speak very early. By age two, they sometimes crossed paths with their mother: vacant gaze, dressed in a traditional kimono, escorted by soldiers. She never gave them a glance. But they watched her through the tinted glass while she trained with a katana, swinging it through the air with infinite grace.

  “Woooow! Did you see how beautiful that is!”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see? She’s smiling.”

  “Yes.”

  “Those are the only times we see Mom smile.”

  “Hmm… Why do you want to keep watching her?”

  “Well… I like watching Mom smile. Maybe one day she’ll look at us with the same smile.”

  “Mom doesn’t love us. You know that…”

  000 began to sob.

  “It’s not true… sniff… I’m sure… sniff… that one day she’ll give us a name.”

  With a sad look, 001 took her sister in her arms.

  “You’re right… Don’t worry, she’ll give us a name.”

  She didn’t believe it herself, but for her sister’s happiness, she decided to keep the dream alive.

  This daily routine continued until 2017.

  They were then six years old. An alarm rang out. 001 didn’t understand, but she told her sister it was time to escape. The soldiers were talking about an intrusion by an unidentified man.

  001 neutralized the distracted guards, took her sister’s hand. She was agile, fast; escaping was no problem for her. But her sister, more fragile, couldn’t keep up.

  000 spoke:

  “Wait. Trust me on this one. I have a plan.”

  “Okay!”

  She had memorized the entire building. She guided 001 masterfully. With her agility and super-strength, 001 eliminated the soldiers blocking the way.

  As the exit drew near, 000 saw her: their mother, covered in blood, lying on the ground. She ran to her. 001 said they had to leave, but 000 wanted to take their mother with them. She was mortally wounded.

  Miyuki murmured:

  “Go, children… I… I’m sorry…”

  001 frowned.

  “What do you mean, ‘sorry’? How can you say that after everything? After hating us all these years?”

  Miyuki looked at the two twins, eyes misty, and placed a hand on their cheeks.

  “I… I never hated you… It was the only way to protect you…”

  In reality, Miyuki had always loved her children, even if she hadn’t wanted them. She didn’t want William to use them against her—or to use them at all. She constantly worried about their health but had to hide it. It was torture, but the only solution. She knew she was being watched by her daughters when she danced with her katana. She thought: “Watch, my girls. Record my movements. Don’t miss a single detail.” She didn’t smile because of the dance, but because it was the only moment she could transmit something to them. They weren’t random movements: defense, attack, horizontal slashes, vertical… Precise combat techniques. Thanks to her knowledge-related power, she learned everything faster. She had mastered all martial arts at their highest level. In each session, the girls absorbed thousands of years of condensed combat.

  As long as she was there, as long as William needed her services, she would protect her daughters.

  Back to the present.

  Miyuki coughed blood, then continued:

  “I have to tell you… You have names.”

  She looked at 000.

  “I named you Yuki. Our hair is silver like snow, and you have the same eyes as me. I gave you part of my name.”

  She smiled weakly, then turned her eyes to 001.

  “As for you… You have those beautiful red eyes and jet-black hair. You are magnificent. I named you…”

  Bang.

  A gunshot rang out. Miyuki’s gaze went dark almost instantly.

  The two twins turned around.

  William was there, holding his bloodied side.

  “Fuck… You didn’t miss me…”

  “It was your plan from the beginning, wasn’t it, you bastard!”

  A heart-wrenching scream.

  “NOOOOO!”

  A young brown-haired man rushed at William, disarming him.

  “You’re a monster! Why are you doing this? Why their mother?”

  Tears of rage in his eyes. William shot him in the shoulder. In his momentum, the young man unleashed blue lightning. It exploded William’s arm.

  “AAARRRRRGHHH! Fuck, you arrogant little shit!”

  This “arrogant little shit” was a young Noah, thirteen years old, with a desperate gaze.

  He looked at the twins.

  “Run!!!”

  But the two girls were paralyzed. He narrowed his eyes and tried to keep William as far away as possible. William shouted:

  “No quarter! Kill all remaining subjects—we must leave no trace!”

  A deluge of fire rained down.

  On Miyuki’s corpse shone a stone engraved with Hebrew symbols meaning “knowledge.” 001 grabbed it and seized her mother’s katana. A flash. Her jet-black hair turned silver, her red eyes turned azure blue. She now looked exactly like her sister.

  She didn’t have time to understand. She ran, holding 000’s hand.

  They managed to escape.

  But William appeared, half his face torn off, barely human.

  “I… only need the smarter one of you… the other would get in the way…”

  000 stepped forward confidently, imitating her sister’s assurance.

  “Don’t touch my sister!”

  001 had always protected her more fragile sister since the cradle. Why were they so different? Why was one so strong, the other so fragile?

  For the first time, 000 protected 001.

  In a fraction of a second, a bullet passed through her. She died instantly.

  In blind rage, 001 threw herself at William. She had earlier taken the katana from her mother’s corpse to defend herself.

  She thought of her mother. Of her sister pointing at her, eyes full of admiration.

  She reproduced her mother’s movements: blade delicately upward, downward, horizontal, vertical, again, again. She saw her mother dancing in her mind. She saw her sister, eyes full of stars. Seconds became a condensed eternity: dance, smile, dance, gaze, dance, hope… then nothing. Just a sea of blood. Almost nothing remained of William.

  She carried her sister’s body for a long time, until she could no longer feel her feet. She dug the earth, buried Yuki, lifted an enormous rock with her superhuman strength and placed it as a stele.

  She closed her eyes. She thought of her sister who had revealed their mother’s name: Miyuki Sakura.

  She struck the stone with furious fists. She screamed so loudly she lost her voice.

  When she finished, she fell to her knees, hands bleeding. On the stone, hand-carved, was engraved:

  “Here lie Miyuki Sakura and Yuki Sakura.”

  Those were their names; she had none.

  Now she had the same face as her sister: azure blue eyes, silver hair. She was no longer different. But no one was left to notice.

  Thus was born the first known case of a child of fragment carriers of the God Stone: genetic inheritance from an exposed and a carrier, plus the direct power of the Stone of Knowledge. A unique case.

  But no one ever knew, except the young Noah, 13 years old, who witnessed the scene from afar, crying silently in guilt for not having saved anyone. Beside him, a man… who had no name, in his twenties, stood straight, arms crossed, watching the scene, but discreet tears ran down his cheeks.

  When she returned to the program, she no longer spoke. Because of her appearance, the scientists noted in their reports: “000 survived. 001 deceased.”

  No one ever knew who she really was. No one knew that 001 had taken her sister’s place… for the sole purpose of revenge.

  Miyuki was no longer there to prevent her daughter from participating in the experiments. The survivor was integrated into the last secret branch of Project Zero. Her file was classified at the highest level. To hide that she was the biological daughter of the program’s director, the parents’ names were replaced with simple numbers, erasing all family ties. Only her abilities were recorded.

  Officially, Miyuki was declared dead by madness, following a childbirth that had never taken place.

  The report on William was accurate: he was found reduced to a shapeless pulp. Astonishingly, he had survived. It took him several months to regain human form, in atrocious suffering.

  Upon her integration, she remained silent. Deeply marked by what had happened, she no longer spoke. Perhaps because her own voice reminded her too much of her sister’s.

  That day, she was introduced to forty-nine orphans—all children of exposed or carrier subjects. Among them was me.

  I greeted her by complimenting her beauty in a very explicit, almost embarrassing way. She didn’t react.

  Later, when I told her my past and the story of my lost little sister, she didn’t cry for me. No… she cried because she herself had lost a sister. She understood my pain better than anyone.

  She, who thought only of revenge, had just found her first friend.

  It was a tragedy… But if you’ll allow me, let’s go back just a little.

  A few minutes after the twins’ escape, the alarm was still blaring in the corridors.

  Miyuki lay on the ground, mortally wounded twice over. She opened her eyes with difficulty and murmured barely audible words.

  In front of her stood a man in his twenties, dressed in an impeccable suit, without a single crease. This man had no name. He looked at the dying woman with a melancholic gaze. He knelt, dirtying his suit, and gently placed his hand on her.

  “You are going to die. I can do nothing more than eliminate the pain, so you may leave without suffering.”

  She stared at him with eyes that had returned to brown, continuing to murmur.

  The nameless man brought his ear closer. He heard:

  “You… are called… Iris”

  A moment of lucidity crossed Miyuki’s gaze.

  “Pro…tect… them… I beg you…”

  She exhaled her last breath, departing without pain thanks to the nameless man.

  He murmured:

  “I promise you.”

  Then young Noah appeared, wounded, in front of the nameless man, who gave him a grave look.

  “I didn’t think it would end like this…”

  “You thought you could rewrite history, didn’t you?”

  The man grabbed his arm. In an instant, both were teleported and witnessed the scene: 001 (Iris) burying her sister. The sight deeply shook them.

  The thirteen-year-old Noah left, forever marked. The nameless man remained motionless for a long time before speaking into the void:

  “That’s what your father is. Do you still have doubts, Isaac?

  A sixteen-year-old young man deactivated his invisibility ability. He remained silent for a long time in the face of the horrifying scene he had just witnessed.

  The nameless man slid down the sand dune to the huge hand-carved stele: “Here lie Miyuki Sakura and Yuki Sakura.”

  “Did you bring what I asked for?”

  Young Isaac set down the large bag he was carrying, opened it, and took out large shovels. The two began to dig.

  They soon reached the body of little 000—Yuki.

  The nameless man spoke:

  “Scientists can be negligent in their tests, especially when it comes to phenomena they deem inexplicable. They all admired 001—Iris—for her exceptional physical abilities, due to a mutation of her father’s regenerative power. They neglected little Yuki because they had detected the power of Knowledge in her. But they ignored the flip side: she too had inherited her father’s regeneration. It was simply so slow that they mistook it for normal healing.”

  He turned to Isaac.

  “You possess two abilities: invisibility inherited from your mother, and the capacity boost from your exposure to the Stone. If we combine our respective powers, we can bring your half-sister back without her suffering.”

  Isaac nodded.

  They both placed a hand on the little girl’s corpse.

  The regeneration was boosted, the process accelerated.

  Then…

  “Cough… cough… Who… who are you?”

  “Welcome back, little sister,” Isaac murmured.

  He held out his hand.

  She took it.

  Despite the combined efforts of the nameless man and Isaac, Yuki had remained clinically dead too long. Upon waking, a deep amnesia had erased almost all her memories.

  The nameless man disappeared into nature without the slightest explanation, just as he had appeared.

  Isaac, for his part, took charge of his amnesiac little half-sister. He raised her far from the laboratories, in a remote corner of the world, under a false identity. Sometimes he hesitated to tell her the truth. How do you explain such a heavy past to a child? How do you tell her she grew up in glass cages, that her mother only spoke to her in her final moments, that her father killed that same mother… and herself? How do you confess that her twin, Iris, is still prisoner in a secret military program, subjected to daily tests and evaluations?

  No. The burden was too great.

  Apart from her superhuman intelligence—which Isaac taught her to camouflage—Yuki was no longer very different from an ordinary little girl. Her regeneration, so slow it went unnoticed, gave her a unique chance: to rebuild a normal life, a normal childhood, far from the horrors of the past.

  She grew up that way, ignorant of everything.

  For a time.