「Anomalous Cerebral Activity Detected in Primary Subject.」

「----- Log Initiated -----」

Voice Transcription: None (Subject: Deaf/Mute)

Logging Medium: EEG-Thought Conversion System, Tactile-Handwriting Conversion System

Timestamp: ██/██/██ (Estimated) (System Chronology: Corrupted)

??Status: 1 hour post-vessel opening.

[Noise]…??????…………??????????……………????…………??

The tank is open. Light. Harsh. Different from the light inside. White? Or grey? I do not know.

The floor is cold. There is liquid… viscous.

!!!…?? ~@??#%&*

I fell. No pain.

I seem… to have forgotten what pain feels like, long ago. Absence of negative emotional experience; incapable of generating corresponding hormonal responses to reinforce memory and emotional bonds. They said this was the mark of a failed product.

Just now, a strong gust of wind. It felt… itchy on my face. This is one of the few tactile sensations I can still perceive clearly: the touch of wind.

I get up. There are many… things moving around, making noise. I cannot "hear" the sounds, but the floor vibrates, the air trembles.

War, or a purge? Irrelevant. I must go to a place.

[Noise]…??????…………??????????……………????…………??

??Status: 1 hour, 47 minutes post-vessel opening.

(Internal Chronometry: 37 blinks from light ingress to visual adaptation.)

The way down is difficult… the stairs are broken. I use a fallen pipe to slide down.

I see [Him]

[He] lies… in a deeper red. Like fabric torn and discarded.

It’s cold here. His breathing… too slow. Too shallow.

Pulse faint—a candle guttering, almost gone.

A face I don’t know. □□. Male.

@??#%&*

Dizzy… head burning… burning… A smaller body. Breathing just as rough. I’m holding him. Helpless as clutching a handful of sand.

Three years old? Maybe. Memory… unclear.

「Thought Conversion System detects high-intensity, non-mission-critical neural cluster discharge. Signal pattern complex. Preliminary parsing includes: Visual recognition, somatic memory, emotional tagging. Exceeds theoretical threshold of defective model’s emotional module. Logged as [Anomalous Data-01].」

Timestamp: ██/██/██ (Estimated)

??Status: 3 hours, 12 minutes post-vessel opening.

(Internal Chronometry: 427 pulse beats since grasping his wrist.)

Dragged [Him] inside.

The safe room seals behind us, muting the world to a low, electric hum. A capsule. One bed. Machines breathing in the corner. Shelves line the wall—boxes, canisters. Order.

Assessment: Injuries.

The abdomen is… a ruin. Sutures torn. Layers of scar tissue revealed beneath.

Requires cleaning. Requires closure.

Steady. Hands, steady.

Tremors. Not fear. Not stress. Likely motor function deterioration.

…………

Sutures placed. Acceptable alignment.

Perhaps they copied me for this. For steady hands. Or because I was… a doctor? Memory unavailable.

[Him] whimpers—a thin, trapped sound. Even now. Pain sensitivity…

… 137%. I remember.

Childhood inoculations. He’d cry long after the others stopped. A bruise on his knee—three days before he’d let me near it.

What did I do then? Humming? Impossible. My vocal synthesizer was deactivated upon replication.

Stroking. Yes. Stroking.

…The sensation is… present. Real. The warmth of skin. The damp cling of sweat. The tense line of his jaw.

So small, once. Now… covered in scars.

I can remain. A little longer. Before final dispersion.

This… is enough.

Timestamp: ██/██/██ (Estimated)

??Status: 5 hours, 9 minutes post-vessel opening.

[He] is awake. Watching me. Eyes the color of violets.

He says something. Something about… water? Is he asking for water?

No. He is asking, [Who are you?]

…A defective copy that can’t even piece together its own memories, that cannot feel sorrow… Let him think I’m a surviving custodian. One who happens to know first aid.

His palm is still cold. I write slowly… You write slowly too.

「Don’t fear. Custodian. Safe.」

「Wounds treated. Rest.」

「Water. Food. Available.」 (the Whites’shorthand.)

He watches in silence… Doesn’t understand? I’ll… write it again…

He responds with his finger on my palm. Light pressure, but precise. Good.

[Who are you?]

「Designation LS-Replica-03. Memory fragmented. Non-hostile.」

「Oxygen. Compressed nutrient blocks. Calculated for single occupant…」

「…approx. 216 hours. Two occupants. Reduced yield.」

The reduced number is… irrelevant. My time is short. No need to allocate.

He stares, assessing.

[Status outside?]

「Facility self-destruct. Upper levels collapsed. Avalanche sealed exits. No imminent external threat.」

[The Sentinel?]

「Signal dormant. Likely inactive with Core shutdown or conflicting recall protocols.」

[He] processes this.

[You know of the ME Project?]

There it is. The core question.

??????????……………????…………??…………Brief system lag.

「ME. Not to create Arcana. To awaken dormant fragments within the genetic lock. The lock… ancient safeguard. Prevents fledgling civilizations from accessing high-dimensional energy prematurely. Self-destruct mechanism.」

「The key… a specific genetic resonator. Temporarily unlocks it.」

「The Nightwarchers… seeks to copy the key. Replace the lock. Control all switches.」

「Progression… Arcana potency depends on resonance depth with the ‘Source,’ and willpower to… master the key’s function. Not be mastered by it. Beware… resonance… dissociation.」

I’m writing as fast as I can. Some concepts slip like fish, hard to catch.

His fingers tighten slightly around mine. A prompt. Or support.

[The Whites] he writes.

「Pioneers. Cerebral digitization… complete. Irreversible.」

「But data… possible backup. Terminal transfer… vector…」

??????????……………????…………??

A blurred glyph surfaces. I trace it on his palm:

「A simplified Venetian gondola oar.」

[Italy?] He deduces sharply.

A nod. Then a shake. Uncertain. Memory ends here.

Timestamp: ██/██/██ (Estimated)

??Status: 9 hours, 21 minutes post-vessel opening.

(Respiratory cycle extended to 2.1x baseline. Estimated time until complete tactile sensory failure: Uncalculable.)

「System detects excessive noise.」

「Filtering mode engaged.」

The sense of time is leaching away. Like sand in an hourglass, grains growing finer.

I know the signs.

First, sensory stripping. Then, unexplained gaps in logic chains. Finally, cognition itself begins to disaggregate.

[He] sits against the wall. Eyes closed but not asleep.

He’s using that unique method to sense the surroundings, to mend his body. His vision isn’t fully restored. His gaze passes through me, unfocused. Perhaps that’s better.

My hand is cold now. His still holds warmth. I write slowly on his palm.

Not intel this time. A… story? Perhaps. My thoughts drift.

「The Arctic… has a rodent. No, a lemming? Bores through ice. Survives under the deepest snow… digs tunnels.」

「They are weak. But their teeth… never stop growing. So they must gnaw. Never cease.」

「The snow is deep. The ice field, cold. But beneath… roots that never fully freeze. Find them, and you live.」

My writing is halting. I’m not sure of the point. Just needed to tell him.

「You… are like it.」 I finish, tapping his palm lightly.

Did I… finish? Did I tell the lemming story? Did he understand?

…

[He] turns his hand, folds his fingers around mine. One brief press. Then release. A silent reply.

Timestamp: ██/██/██ (Estimated)

??Status: 9 hours, 59 minutes post-vessel opening.

??

Breathing… is becoming… superfluous. The body informs me it requires less oxygen now. Every cell prepares for… dissolution.

I shift quietly away from the oxygen outlet. Make my breaths lighter. Lighter still.

More air for [him].

Thought… is fragmenting. Like a mirror dropped. Shards float, spin, refuse to reassemble.

Shard: He is three, feverish. I spend the night with a cool cloth on his brow.

Shard: The sterile white light of the lab.

Shard: Arctic wind. Itchy on the face.

Shard: Shuleen. My name is Shuleen.

Incorrect. No.

I am [ME·LS-05-011] / Replica-01 …Also… the only one?

「Log Terminated.」

「Log Origin: ME·LS-05-011-Replica-01」

「Vital Sign Cessation Confirmed.」

「Appendix: Biological Signal Summary for Log Carrier LS-05-011-01」

「…Detected terminal-stage irrational neural discharges. 87.3% pattern match to ‘tactile memory recall’ and ‘non-targeted emotional projection.’ Incidence among C-Grade defective units: <0.01%.」

「…Following primary vital sign cessation, EEG-Thought Conversion system continued to receive intermittent signals for 0.7 seconds. Post-noise filtration, waveform approximates a single… (data corruption)… No match in lexical database. Flag as anomaly? [Y/N]」

「…」

「(No system response. Command pending.)」

Inside the safe room, the only light glowed faintly.

Santali leaned against the wall, his vision still gauzed with haze. Through the blur, he made out her form—the one who had called herself custodian—slumped nearby, her head bowed, her posture too still.

Moments ago, her fingers had been moving against his palm. Traces of meaning, then fragments, then only the faint, repeated brush of skin on skin. Then nothing. She had shifted away.

Now, the quiet felt different. Thicker. He realized he could no longer hear her breathing.

“Hey.” His voice was gravel.

No answer.

He pushed his weakened sight toward her outline. Motionless. Not like sleep—like surrender.

The safe room settled into a deeper silence. Only the hum of machinery and the steadying rhythm of his own breath remained.

At the edge of his blurred sight, her still shape seemed to blur into something older, a shadow from a lost time. It wavered, then dissolved, leaving behind a weight—dense and cold, like stone sunk beneath permafrost.

—was that regret?

His palm still held the ghost of her touch. A cool imprint, faint as a tremor through ice, from something buried and gnawing, far below.

Volume II ·夔（Kui） [THE END].