A high-pitched tone echoed overhead. The floor shifted and we were herded through a narrow corridor into a second holding room. It looked almost identical to the first—smooth white panels, no corners, no shadows—except for a single sliding door on one wall stamped WASHROOM.
Seven of us stood there now. Seven bodies, seven glowing suits—each threaded with a different color. And me, in my dull, almost sickly white.
Above every head hovered a faint hologram: name and mission alignment—letters made of light.
I read them in silence.
Liora | Gluttony
A girl so thin her bones poked against the suit's fabric. The orange threads on her bodysuit pulsed like a starving heartbeat.
Elisa | Envy
White‑haired, knees tucked to her chest in the corner, green lines circling her arms. She looked withdrawn rather than frightened.
Selene | Lust
Silk‑black hair, confident posture. Red veins on her suit glowed with every breath.
Marek | Greed
Skin like coal, face half‑torn with old burns. Golden circuitry shimmered across his chest. His eyes stayed fixed on Selene.
Rex | Wrath
Bald, scar‑latticed scalp, arms folded. Black threads crawled over his shoulders like smoke.
Noah | Sloth
Dark circles under heavy lids. Blue lines pulsed sluggishly down his spine as he swayed on his feet.
Lucian | Pride
Smooth white hair, flawless skin, a faint smirk. White suit‑threads gleamed brighter than the walls.
I looked for my own tag—Solin, uncolored—but nothing hovered above me. Instead, a single word flickered there:
Kael | —
No color. No mission.
Kael.
Why his name? Why not mine?
I forced myself toward Elisa—the girl with envy‑green veins—because she seemed the least interested in the others.
"Um… excuse me," I started, voice small.
She didn't even look up. "What?"
"I, uh… I can see your name. Elisa, right? But… can you see mine?"
She finally raised her eyes—sharp, emerald, evaluating the dull suit on my body.
"Yes, Kael," she said flatly. "Nice to meet you, I suppose. Though I don't see you as a friend. No mission color means no value."
"Kael?" My stomach dropped. "But—"
"What?" she snapped, voice thin with irritation.
"Nothing," I muttered, backing away. I slumped against the opposite wall, staring at the ceiling's seamless glow.
Why do they think I'm him?
Mystery pressed in from every angle. The colorless suit. The wrong name. The dream that only I seemed to have.
All I could do was keep breathing and keep searching—for answers, for Elari, for anything that proved I still belonged to myself.
Because right now, even my identity felt stolen
What has he done? I wondered. What did Kael do?
The rain came back to me then—the night I first saw him.
I relived it frame by frame: the corridor drowned in shadows, the downpour hammering the orphanage roof, each droplet hissing as it met rusted metal. With the sky choked by smoke and pollution, no moon or stars shone that night; only the sputtering streetlamps threw thin cones of light like false moons.
That night the rain might've been acidic, but it sounded soothing—like a broken lullaby. I'd always loved that sound.
I remembered punching the unknown boy—Kael—out of panic, then hauling his limp body through the pitch‑black hallway toward the doctor's room. Every step pounded loud enough to wake the dead. Someone's footsteps followed mine—Elari's, I thought.
I shoved open the doctor's door. Green emergency lights bathed everything in a sick glow: one narrow bed, a cluttered desk, towers of dusty books. The doctor looked up from a battered novel.
"Hey, old man," I gasped, dragging Kael inside. "Found this kid collapsed in the corridor."
The doctor took him from me, eyes glinting behind thick lenses.
He was sitting and reading in a small room with a single,wodden bed with a blue cotton matress, a table with tons of book on it which he reads all night and more importantly green light shining all over
My own vision swam—those harsh lights stabbing into my skull—but I stayed upright.
I smelled blood. Kael's hands were soaked—literally dripping.
Elari appeared behind me, voice soft with worry. "Are you all right?"
"Yes, yes," the doctor interjected. "Go on, you two. I'll handle this one."
We left. Fear coiled tighter in my gut—first the general's threat, now this blood‑stained boy. Yet walking beside Elari calmed me, and somehow, I slept through the storm.
Now, in this blinding white room far from Earth, the memory felt like a warning—one I'd ignored for far too long.
I clenched my fists.
All that surrounds me is mystery, I told myself. I can't change that. But I can search for answers.