Coffee sloshed in the tray as my hands shook. I barely noticed—I was too focused on the plaque mounted at eye level on the door ahead. C-27. The white letters stood stark against the coal-colored surface.
I let out a breath and reached for the handle, but a quick glance at my watch made my stomach clench. 9:39.
Late.
The reminder hit me like a second wave of nerves. I'd already messed up by forgetting to bring coffee earlier—showing up empty-handed would have been worse. Better late with an excuse than late with nothing at all.
I lingered just a second too long.
Realizing I was hesitating, I forced my feet forward and eased the door open. Keeping my head low, I slipped inside, hoping to avoid locking eyes with anyone.
The floor beneath me shifted to polished metal, cool and reflective. The overhead lights bounced off its surface, casting back my own distorted reflection. I shut the door behind me, instinctively tilting my head forward against the sudden chill in the air.
Something felt…off.
It took me another second to realize I was in the wrong room.
Rows of computers stretched out in front of me, their dark screens casting faint glows from power indicators. Wires coiled across the floor, tangled and twisting toward a massive hub of plug-ins. The walls—just like the floor—were covered in a seamless grid of metallic squares.
And then I saw her.
A glass enclosure sat just meters away. Inside, a girl sat motionless. Her clothes were unfamiliar, strange—alien. Her expression was unreadable, her eyes fixed downward as her fingers moved with absent precision.
She was playing with a Rubik's Cube.
"...!"
I froze, ideas rushing through my head as I tried to process what I was seeing. She hadn't noticed me yet, so I quickly ducked behind one of the machines, waiting for the perfect chance to slip out unnoticed.
Peering over, I observed her more closely.
Her dark hair was cut into a neat bob, sharp and straight. The suit she wore clung snugly to her frame—a single, seamless piece of white fabric, almost like a second skin. There was no zipper, no seams, only a strange lizard-like texture that stopped at her neck, hands, and feet.
"Who is she?"
She suddenly shifted, her brows furrowing. A faint sigh left her lips, irritated. I flinched back. My mind darted to the clerk from earlier—her panicked expression, the way she ran toward me just as the elevator doors closed.
Had she been trying to warn me?
Am I not supposed to be here?
I didn't wait to find out. Carefully, I moved toward the door, using the rows of machines as cover. Just a few steps more and I'd be free.
Then—crap.
I'd left the coffee tray behind.
I turned. She was still fixated on the cube, twisting it absentmindedly, fingers moving fast but seemingly at random. If I was careful, I could grab the tray and be out before she noticed.
Step by step, I shuffled backward, reaching blindly—
My elbow nudged a cable.
The tray slid from my grasp.
BANG!
Coffee splashed across the floor, seeping into the wires. The sharp scent of burning circuits filled the air. Screens flickered.
Then, a red warning flashed onto one of the monitors.
ALERT.
I'm so screwed.
I spun for the door, heart pounding—
"Who's there?" A voice, soft and monotone, cut through the silence.
I froze.
"I can see you," she said, her tone unreadable. "Come out."
Slowly, I rose, keeping my gaze fixed on the floor, my back still to her. A silence hung between us—tense, expectant.
Then, behind me, a faint rustling. The shuffle of fabric. The scrape of something shifting against a surface.
'Is she moving closer?'
"Turn around." The sudden command sent a jolt through me. I stiffened, fingers twitching at my sides. A quiet snicker followed, barely audible.
Reluctantly, I turned. My eyes stayed low, avoiding hers, landing instead on the object she held.
A canvas. The colors bleed into one another in rich, textured strokes. It took me a moment to realize what I was looking at—actual oil paint. The medium was practically extinct, something I'd only seen archived in old museum files or antique AI catalogs.
The painting depicted a beach scene, rendered in soft strokes of watercolor. Hues of purple and orange bled into each other, blending like the last moments of twilight. It was mesmerizing—almost ethereal. However, my gaze caught on something else.
She stood at the shoreline, facing the horizon. The waves lapped at her feet, but her expression was unreadable.
She looked exactly like the girl standing before me.
My breath hitched. Confusion twisted in my chest, an unspoken question forming on my lips. But before I could voice it, I saw the small smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth. She'd noticed my reaction.
"Why are you hiding?"
"Excuse me." My voice came out higher than I intended.
"Why are you hiding? Is that not straightforward?"
I opened my mouth, then shut it again. Think.
"Um—" My mind raced back to how I got into this mess. Maybe I could just talk my way out of it. Though for all I knew, there were guards waiting outside, ready to arrest me… or worse.
I swallowed hard, pushing my hands forward as if to prove I wasn't a threat. "Look, I—I didn't mean to come in here. It was an accident. I'll leave right now, and you can just pretend this never happened, okay?"
She studied me for a long moment, then turned the canvas in her hands slightly. "You're scared."
"Yeah, well, people tend to freak out when they think they're about to be arrested."
"No security personnel have been alerted."
I hesitated. "...They haven't?"
"Correct."
That should have been a relief. It wasn't. I still couldn't just leave.
She was still watching me, head tilted slightly, as if calculating something. Her gaze was unsettling—it was too steady, too unblinking, like she didn't need to breathe. I shifted back, suddenly reminded of the mess behind me. "I mean… I did spill coffee on some important-looking wires."
Her gaze flickered to the flashing ALERT sign, then back to me. "That was unwise."
I let out a chuckle. "Yeah, that's my luck today."
She didn't respond right away, her gaze lingering on the mess as if assessing the damage. Then, just as I was about to inch toward the door, she spoke again.
"What is your designation?"
I blinked. "...My what?"
"Your name," she clarified, the slightest pause in her words—as if she had chosen them deliberately.
"Oh. Uh, Michihiro. Michihiro Kokuu."
She repeated it, almost testing how it sounded.
"Michihiro Kokuu."
The way she said it sent a small chill down my spine. There was something unsettling about hearing my name spoken so precisely, like it was being cataloged.
"That's interesting…"
"What,"
"Your name commonly means wisdom or enlightenment." Her delivery seemed more sarcastic.
"So..?"
"That name doesn't make sense."
"Gee, thanks." I roll my eyes—looking over at the door, "What's your name?"
She hesitated, her gaze flickering to the floor. For a moment, I thought she wasn't going to answer at all. Then, slowly, she whispered, almost too quietly for me to hear, "I don't… I don't know."
The words hung in the air, heavy with something I couldn't quite place. I turned to face her fully, my chest tightening. Her eyes, distant and unfocused, stared at the floor, blinking rapidly as tears began to gather at the corners of her eyes.
Her breath hitched, and the silence that followed felt suffocating, crushing. I didn't know what to do.
What had I said?
What had I triggered?
Before I could get closer, the room seemed to distort around me. A violent pulse of red light flooded the space, and a mechanical whirring sliced through the air.
My heart raced as the floor beneath me trembled, wires sparking around my feet.
Instinctively, I reached for the door. But as I swung open the door, a sudden, powerful force gripped me from the room. Hands, cold and unyielding, wrapped around my limbs, pulling me back with terrifying strength. I was slammed against the wall with a bone-jarring impact, the wind knocked out of me.
The world blurred as the brightness of the hallway filled my vision. I heard voices, but they were muffled—distant.
The only thing I could focus on was the presence of two guard robots, standing perfectly still in front of me, their calm, unblinking eyes fixed on me like judgment.
"You will be sent for evaluation. Father's orders,"