Zara's POV

The footsteps seemed so close, and my heart began to sound loudly. I was pretty sure that whoever was coming towards the garden could hear it.

The footsteps outside the garden were quick, steady, deliberate, echoing alongside the night side owls like a countdown waiting to get hold of us doing a bad thing.

I suddenly remembered Kai's presence when his hand brushed against mine. That contact was one thing I hated and, at the same time, seemed to like.

He whispered gently, "We have to move."

I nodded in affirmation as we both slipped behind a flowering tree just as two figures emerged from the dark. Their academy uniforms are now replaced by black long coats that stopped at their knees. I could recognize one of the men who seemed to act like patrol members, Mr Lorn, Dr. Voss's assistant. His voice was quite low, but Kai seemed to pick up a few things as he repeated his words judiciously.

"Voss wants Subject N-13 relocated by morning,"

I froze at that information.

Subject N-13.

The name seemed to have an impact on me as cold tremors built inside me.

"Who was that?" I thought.

The second man spoke.

"After what happened at the ceremony, the board's nervous, the containment readings went off the charts."

Lorn gave a very short and humourless laugh.

"Let them be nervous. She's the only one who survived phase one. They'll do whatever Voss says."

Lorn and the other guy moved over to the east wing, their boots crunching over gravel until their sounds faded into silence.

I didn't realize that I had been holding my breath for a long while until I felt that sizzling connection again. Kai had touched my shoulder.

"We need to go, now." He said quietly.

So we slipped back through a side entrance, keeping it low as we passed the dimly lit corridors. Somewhere in the upper floors, a bell chimed softly in the background, a suggestion that it was time for midnight curfew.

A shiver ran through my bones as we walked. It felt like the darkness overshadowing the academy at night had a life for themselves, like the walls could listen to conversations said in the dark.

At the hallway fork, Kai turned to me.

"Go back to your room. Pretend you don't know anything. I'll find out what they meant by that code name."

"And what about you?" I whispered, still trembling with an inner fear for him.

"I'll be fine." He hesitated, his silver eyes flickering in the dim light.

"Zara... don't trust anyone. Not even me."

Before I could respond, he was gone, swallowed by the dark corridor.

Why couldn't I trust him? The first person to ever show me a bit of kindness and affection.

I stood there for a long time before slowly turning towards the basement wing or what I thought was the basement. Even after 5 years of staying here, I still got missing sometimes due to the layout of the academy.

It seemed like I was in the wrong place, but I couldn't stop my legs from moving. The air was colder and filled with the scent of metal and ozone.

At the end of the hall was a door, sleek, metallic, and covered in faintly glowing symbols.

My heart skipped.

I had seen those symbols before.

On the screens in Dr. Voss's medical lab.

And where else?

The computer with the strange blue light!

I approached slowly. The closer I got, the more the symbols seemed to pulse in rhythm with my heartbeat. When I reached out to touch one, a faint hum shivered through my fingertips.

At that point, the door slid open as if to welcome me.

Inside, the room was dimly lit by a single blue, white glow from a console at the far end. Dust coated the shelves, but the air wasn't stale, it felt... alive. Machines hummed quietly, some flickering to life as I stepped inside.

"Hello?" I whispered.

No answer.

My eyes adjusted, revealing what looked like storage pods, old monitors, and a long wall filled with data drives. Most were dead, but one in the center blinked faintly.

Drawn to it, I reached out to touch it. Just then, it flickered to life, projecting a holographic display in front of me. Strange symbols cascaded down the screen, rearranging themselves into words I could read:

PROJECT LUNARIS

STATUS: INCOMPLETE

SUBJECT NIGHT, AWAITING ACTIVATION

My breath caught.

Subject Night.

That was my last name. This couldn't be a coincidence.

I stepped closer, staring at the words as if they might rearrange themselves into something that made sense.

"What does all this mean?" I whispered.

The screen responded to my voice, lines of data scrolling rapidly.

ZARA NIGHT, GENETIC VARIANT CLASS UNKNOWN

CONTAINMENT PRIORITY: LEVEL OMEGA

My pulse thundered in my ears. Omega. The same label everyone at the academy used to mock as my weakness. But here, it felt... different. A classification. A warning.

Suddenly, the console beeped sharply, and new text appeared:

ADMINISTRATIVE ACCESS DETECTED

REPLAYING MEMORY FILE: ARCHIVE07

Before I could take a step back, the air shimmered, goosebumps rose onto my skin, and then I began to look at a moving image.

A younger version of myself, maybe twelve, maybe thirteen, stood in a bright white room. I was smiling, my eyes wide with innocence.

Standing beside me was Dr. Voss, wearing the same cold expression she always did.

But her voice this time was softer when she spoke:

"Begin phase two."

The hologram flickered, glitching, before the image distorted now replaced by flashing red warnings and an eerie mechanical hum that made the room vibrate.

I stumbled back, my mind spinning.

"No," I whispered. "That can't be me. That's not possible."

The lights overhead began to flicker, dimming one by one until only the blue glow of the console remained. The humming grew louder, deeper, as if something beneath the floor had awakened.

Then I heard it.

Footsteps.

Slow. Deliberate.

I should run. This smelt like danger.

I should have listened to Kai.

My pulse raced. I turned toward the doorway, but the moment I moved, the holographic display changed again, unprompted.

My own face reappeared, this time older, my current self. But my expression wasn't confused or afraid. I was calm. Almost... expectant.

And in a distorted, almost mechanical version of my voice, the hologram spoke:

"You shouldn't have come here, Zara."

The door slammed shut behind me.

The hum turned into a roar.

And then, in that split moment, everything went dark.

Zara's POV

I could still feel the hum of the hidden room vibrating in my bones even after the screen had gone black. I still remember how my reflection had started at me and my own response to that, wide-eyed and trembling as sweat beaded down my temple.

The room was still dark, and for a few seconds, I couldn't move. I squinted my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

"If only you had returned to your room." I heard my inner voice say to me.

But this wasn't the time to be throwing around what's ifs or what I should have done blames. I could still recall the holographic image of my younger self.

"Why couldn't I remember that aspect of my childhood?" I asked myself silently.

I was still afraid that maybe someone or something could be in laying in waiting for me in the dark.

"Trust no one, not even me." I remembered Kai's words to me as he told me to return to my room.

"Begin phase two." Dr. Voss had said.

What phase?

And why had I been there? Much younger, like a child who belonged in that lab?

I heard a soft click echo behind me with a few rattles as if whoever was behind that door wanted to knock it open. I quickly spun around, looking for anything to hold as a weapon, but there was nothing.

The rattling stopped, and I moved towards the door. Surprisingly, the door that was once opened for me was now sealed shut. No handle. No lock. Just a smooth small where an exit used to be.

"Surely this must be a game." I told myself as I refused to panic.

"It's all good." I whispered, pulse racing.

I began to look through the darkness to see if I could locate a switch or a symbol or even a light. Anything that could lead me out of this nightmare.

But yet, I couldn't find anything. The walls were still warm, alive somehow. I could feel a faint heartbeat each time my fingers came across the walls.

I instinctively placed a hand on my chest to feel my heartbeat and trembled in fear when I realized that the walls heartbeat was actually mine.

My heartbeat.

"How... How can this be possible?" I thought.

Just then, a faint whisper brushed through the edge of my thoughts. It didn't sound like a voice I knew but somehow it sounded familiar and my body seemed to have a connection with it as I no longer trembled in fear.

"Subject Night has awakened." It said.

I stumbled back, eyes darting around the room.

"Who said that?"

No answer. Just the low hum of the machines coming alive again. The blue lights brightened, forming symbols midair, shifting, glowing. They looked like words, but not in any language she knew. Yet, somehow, I could read them fluently.

BIO-SIGNATURE CONFIRMED

PROJECT LUNARIS: REACTIVATION SEQUENCE INITIATED

The air grew heavy. Electricity crackled through the room, lifting my hair.

I backed away, shielding my face as energy flared from the consoles.

Then the whispers started again, overlapping this time, like multiple people speaking in my mind.

"Containment breach."

"Protocol override."

"She shouldn't be awake."

I screamed. The lights exploded in a flash, plunging the room into darkness.

Once again, I was in the dark. And the voices seemed to have become quiet, more like I had silenced them.

"That's a good thing right?" I asked no one in particular.

When my vision cleared, the holographic screen flickered one last time.

This time, there was no image of myself. Only text.

RUN.

That single word pulsed once... then vanished.

The door behind me hissed and slid open.

As much as I would have loved to, I didn't wait to question why. I ran for my dearest life.

"That was one hell of a tough night."

The corridor outside was dim, lit only by emergency strips along the floor. Every shadow seemed to move. The air smelled of ozone and iron.

I could still feel static under my skin, like the machine had left something inside me.

The alarm rang. It was a new day, and surprisingly, I'm sitting on the basement floor my bed.

"Hey. Are you awake?" I hear someone whisper.

I look up to see a fellow Omega with worry lines on her face.

"Yes, why wouldn't I be?" I ask.

"You almost killed someone in your sleep." She said.

At that point my face washed with horror. I couldn't remember anything asides from my meeting with Kai. The events of the meeting seemed patched in my memory like it had happened but something was incorrect.

"Are you okay?" The Omega asked once again.

"I'm good." I responded shortly.

"Zara Night! Report to Dr. Voss's office now." I heard Lorn, her assistant say through the speakers.

I quickly freshened up and put on new clothes before heading over to her office.

I heard whispers on my way there. People seemed to clear the road for me to pass as if I frightened them. I guess I did, especially after turning into that creature the previous night.

"You begin your real lessons now."

Lorn will escort you to the class you're placed in. Dr. Voss said before dismissing me.

I nodded silently as I turned to leave her office.

"Give her the academy uniform. Behave Zara!" She adds sending a shiver up my spine.

I walk into my new class after changing into my first ever academy uniform.

"Omega what are you doing here?" A tall weird guy asks disgustingly.

I don't know what prompted the next thing that happened.

Maybe it was the title he still attached to me or the licking of his lips like he wanted to put me in my place or the word that appeared in my mind when I kept looking at him.

"Kill!" That was the word.

"You could follow me to know the reason." I respond as I leave the class.

He actually follows like a puppy. I sense eyes on me, Kai's eyes to be precise but I ignore it.

Out of eyesight, I lunge at the tall weird guy and he slumps at my feet with blood dripping from his neck. I touch his pulse and it feels faint. In that moment, I feel an unusual energy coming into my body.

The guy stops breathing and I stand up leaving him there as a penance. I begin to walk and my steps are quicker, faster than before.

"You absorbed his strength and speed." Kai says bringing me out of reverie.

"Now, we need to hide this from Dr. Voss." He adds.

"Shit!!! How's that even possible?" I ask.

"We'll just have to figure out." He snickers.

"Kai...." I pause unsure of how to throw the question.

"Yes Zara." He replies.

"What happened after I left you last night?" I asked.

You've been wiped clean." He replies before getting out of my sight.

Wiped? Clean? Who did that?

Kai's POV

The stench of blood still flowed in the hallway.

Not the usual scent of wild hunt but something sharp, metallic and so wrong. It clung deep into the walls even long after Zara had left.

I should have followed her. Watched where she was going or heck! even stopped her and just hugged her tightly.

I should have said something to ease that look in her face when she asked that question.

"What happened after I left you last night?"

I shouldn't have just said that she had been wiped. I should have given her a good enough reason but no. I let the silence hang in the air. Tension building up within my core.

Now I stood alone in the dim lit corridor. My pulse wasn't racing, it was too steady for someone who had just witnessed a werewolf being killed and sucked off all his powers. This calmness only happened when the other side of me took control.

I turned around the corner and found him. He smelt like her first kill. They always had a scent. His body was still warm. His eyes were open, glassy and hollow. It seemed that there was something almost peaceful about the way he just lay there except for the blood that divided his head. It seemed the hit had cracked his head way deeper than I had thought..

"She's stronger than I thought," I whispered to myself.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The device under my sweater sleeve began to make that annoying voice once again. Dr. Voss would be expecting a report before the end of the day.

Not yet!

She could wait all she wanted but I didn't think I was ready to give her what she sp desperately wanted. I knelt beside the body, brushing my fingers over the blood-spattered floor. The metallic scent stirred something primal inside me, something this academy taught each person to suppress. A growl threatened to rise, but I forced it down.

"Control," I muttered.

Control was everything.

Control had to be everything.

Without it, Zara would end up like the other lab subjects instead of survivors.

Or she would bring destruction to whatever she came across.

Just then the image passed through my mind.

Fire! So much fire! Burning!!

I closed my eyes for a split second and heaved a deep breath.

I wiped the floor with the cloth from my pocket, erasing the blood, the evidence, the story. The camera at the end of the hallway blinked red once, then off, overridden. She'd never know how easily I could erase her sins.

When I stood, the silence pressed in heavy and suffocating. My own reflection in the dark glass stared back at me, silver eyes glowing faintly.

What are you becoming, Kai? I asked myself.

The door creaked behind me. I did not't turn but I could feel her presence in the hall.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

A whisper answered, trembling but familiar.

"I... could not't sleep."

Zara.

She stood in the doorway, pale under the flickering light. Her uniform looked too new on her, too clean for someone who'd just taken a life. She seemed so so innocent.

Her eyes darted to the floor where the body had been.

She trembled a bit and I felt like just hugging her.

I cleared my throat in annoyance at the feelings going through my mind.

"It's gone," she said softly. "You moved him?"

I nodded once.

"No one will find him." I said.

"Why?" She questioned.

That word.

Small, trembling, powerful.

I didn't even know what to respond in that moment.

I had to take a step back to regain myself before taking a step closer towards her.

Lowering my voice until it was almost a whisper.

"Because if they find out what you are, Dr. Voss will take you apart to see how you work."

Her lips parted, but no sound came out.

For a heartbeat, we stood inches apart, the air thick with the smell of iron and something softer, her scent. Not wolf, not human, something else. Something that made my skin hum like static.

She smelt of honey and dangerous blood.

Fuck!!! I was attracted to her in ways that I couldn't explain.

"You don't trust me," I said quietly.

"I don't even trust myself," she replied.

Fair.

"Besides you did say that I shouldn't trust anyone, not even you." She threw harshly.

Fair again.

The skin underneath the device itched me. I knew what that meant. Voss was listening.

Watching. I leaned in closer, my lips barely brushing her ear.

"Meet me tonight," I whispered.

"East wing. After curfew."

She hesitated.

"What if this is another trap?"

I paused before biting her earlobe gently.

"Then I'll be the one caught in it." I said.

Her breath hitched, and for the first time, I saw it, the smallest flicker of trust. Dangerous, fragile, real.

Then she was gone, her footsteps fading down the hall.

Fuck!!! What had I just done.

Why did I want that reaction out of her again?

I waited until the sound disappeared before pressing the device on my wrist. A faint chime echoed in my ear.

"Report," came Dr. Voss's cold voice.

"Subject Night has crossed the threshold," I said softly.

"She killed without hesitation."

"Excellent." She responded.

A pause.

"And her emotional state?" She said.

"Conflicted." I responded.

"Good. Conflict breeds evolution. Continue observation." she ordered.

"Yes, ma'am." I replied.

The connection ended, but her voice lingered like a ghost.

I turned off the device and leaned against the wall, exhaling slowly. I was breaking Zara's trust, and I detested every bit of it.

This was the part they did not't program me for, the ache in my chest when she looked at me like I was something safe and reliable.

She was not supposed to matter.

None of them were.

But when she looked at me, the noise inside my head quieted. The fragmented memories, the orders, the mechanical precision, they all faded, replaced by something dangerously human.

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to push it down. Love, or whatever this was, did not't fit into the mission.

Still, I could not't stop thinking about her eyes, the way they glowed faintly when the light hit just right, like the stars had found a place to hide behind her pupils.

Maybe that's what scared Dr. Voss.

Zara was not't broken.

She was awakening.

And it could either break her or build her.

The corridor lights flickered once. Then twice.

Something moved behind the glass wall.

I froze.

What's that? I thought our loud.

The boy's reflection appeared again, the one she killed, only this time, his mouth was moving. Words formed soundlessly, but I could read his lips.

"Someone else just died in another planet."

My blood ran cold.

The light snapped off completely, plunging the hallway into darkness. I backed away slowly, every instinct on alert.

When the lights returned a second later, the reflection was gone.

The body was still on the floor but my instincts were now on high alert.

Words painted in blood were plastered close to the dead body.

"Save a planet for going into extreme extinction."

i began to shiver as a roar threatened to come out of my mouth.

I looked down at my trembling hands and realized the blood was not't his anymore.

It was mine.