“Prototype or Person"

Three years later...

The steady beeping of monitors filled the sterile white room like a mechanical lullaby. Dozens of machines surrounded the hospital bed, their screens painting shifting patterns of green and blue light across the walls. Tubes and wires snaked from the small figure lying motionless beneath crisp white sheets, each one monitoring a different aspect of his miraculous survival.

The boy's eyes fluttered open for the first time in three years.

At seven years old now, he looked smaller than he should have—pale and thin from the long sleep, his dark hair grown long and unkempt. His eyes moved slowly, unfocused, taking in the strange ceiling above him with the confused wonder of someone seeing the world for the first time.

Where... where was he?

The memories came in fragments, like pieces of a shattered mirror that cut when he tried to grasp them. There had been light—terrible, brilliant light that swallowed everything. And warmth, the kind of warmth that came from being held, from feeling safe. But beyond that, everything was blur and shadow.

He tried to sit up, but his muscles were weak, atrophied from years of stillness. The movement sent a cascade of alarms through the monitoring equipment, their urgent beeping filling the room with electronic panic.

The boy's head turned slowly toward the sounds, his expression one of pure curiosity rather than fear. What were those noises? The blinking lights fascinated him—red, green, yellow—like some kind of complex display he couldn't comprehend. He reached out toward one of the machines with trembling fingers, as if trying to touch the colored lights.

Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside. Rapid, urgent footsteps.

But the boy paid them no attention. He was too busy staring at his own hand, holding it up to the fluorescent light and watching the way his fingers cast shadows on the wall. This simple act seemed to amaze him, as if he were discovering that he had hands at all.

The door burst open, and Dr. Yamamoto rushed in with three nurses, their faces masks of professional concern mixed with barely contained excitement.

"He's awake," one of the nurses whispered, as if speaking too loudly might break the spell.

The boy turned his head toward them with the slow, deliberate movement of someone who had forgotten how necks worked. His dark eyes fixed on the doctor's face with an expression of complete innocence—no recognition, no fear, no understanding of where he was or why these strangers were staring at him.

"Hello," Dr. Yamamoto said softly, his voice carefully controlled.

The boy's lips moved silently, his mouth forming the shape of the word he'd just heard. His vocal cords, unused for three years, struggled to remember their function. After several attempts, a weak, broken sound emerged:

"H... hel... hello."

It was barely recognizable as speech—more like an echo than actual communication. He was simply repeating the sound pattern he'd heard, like a damaged recording trying to play back. His eyes remained fixed on the doctor's face, waiting to see what sound would come next.

Dr. Yamamoto leaned closer, speaking slowly and clearly. "Can you hear me?"

"Can... can you... hear... me?" the boy repeated, his voice slightly stronger now but still hollow, devoid of any understanding of what the words meant. He was a perfect mirror, reflecting back the sounds without comprehension.

The doctor's excitement was barely contained. Three years of coma had erased more than just his memories—it had reset his entire cognitive development. This wasn't just amnesia; this was a complete linguistic and conceptual reboot.

"Do you remember your name?" Dr. Yamamoto asked.

"Do... you... remem... remember... your... name?" The boy struggled with the longer words, his tongue moving awkwardly as if he were learning how to form sounds for the first time.

One of the nurses stepped forward with a cup of water, but the boy simply stared at it without any recognition. The concept of drinking, of thirst, of what water even was—all of it had been erased. He pointed at the cup with a trembling finger and made a questioning sound, something between a hum and a whimper.

"Water," Dr. Yamamoto said clearly.

"Wa... water," the boy repeated, but his eyes showed no understanding. It was just another sound to mimic.

The doctor realized the full scope of what they were dealing with. This child had been linguistically and cognitively reset to an infant state, trapped in a seven-year-old's body. He would have to relearn everything—language, concepts, social interaction, even basic human needs like hunger and thirst.

But unlike a normal infant, this boy had already survived the impossible. His body had endured three years in a coma, sustained by machines in a sterile environment. Whatever had allowed him to survive the blast had also preserved him through this long sleep.

Dr. Yamamoto smiled as he realized the opportunity that lay before them. They had a completely blank slate—a child with no past, no language, no preconceptions about anything.

A child they could teach to see the world exactly as they wanted him to see it.

"We're going to take very good care of you," the doctor said gently.

"We're... going... to... take... very... good... care... of... you," the boy echoed, his dark eyes trusting and empty of everything except the desire to learn these new sounds.

The sterile corridor of Sublevel 6 stretched endlessly before them, lit by flickering fluorescent panels that cast long, uneasy shadows on the gleaming floor. Dr. Yamamoto walked in tense silence, flanked by three nurses, their footsteps the only sound in the otherwise lifeless underground facility.

Officially, Shinjuku Medical Research Center was a state-of-the-art public hospital known for its advanced trauma care and cancer research. Unofficially, it housed some of the most controversial experiments ever sanctioned by Japan's covert military division.

Behind them, a thick security door hissed shut—the boy's room now sealed.Nurse Sato glanced nervously over her shoulder at the door they'd just left. "Doctor, should we tell the military? General Matsuda has been asking for daily reports. He's going to want to know immediately that the subject has awakened."

Dr. Yamamoto stopped walking abruptly, his face darkening. "No. Absolutely not."

"But sir—"

"Listen to me carefully," Dr. Yamamoto interrupted, his voice low and urgent. "That child has survived something that should have been impossible. Three years of coma, direct exposure to our enhanced radiation weapon, and somehow his body has not only endured but adapted. His cellular regeneration, his neural plasticity, his physical resilience—they've all evolved beyond normal human parameters. If we tell General Matsuda about his awakening, he'll see only one thing: a potential superhuman weapon."

Nurse Tanaka shifted uncomfortably. "But doctor, the General's original project was population control, not creating enhanced humans. The boy surviving was never part of the plan. That's exactly why Matsuda became so interested in him in the first place—because he wasn't supposed to exist."

"Exactly," Dr. Yamamoto replied, resuming his walk but at a slower pace. "The General sees him as an unexpected bonus, a happy accident that could revolutionize warfare. You know Matsuda—I've worked with him for fifteen years. The man who could order the deaths of millions of civilians won't hesitate to exploit one traumatized child. He'll see this boy's survival not as a miracle to be protected, but as a prototype to be studied, replicated, and weaponized."

"So what are you proposing?" Nurse Sato asked. "We can't hide his condition forever. The monitoring equipment alone will show increased brain activity. They'll know."

Dr. Yamamoto ran a hand through his graying hair. "We buy time. We tell them his vitals are improving but he remains unconscious. We claim we need more observation before making any definitive reports."

"That's lying to the military command," Nurse Kimura whispered. "If they find out—"

"If they find out, Matsuda will have us shot for insubordination," Dr. Yamamoto said bluntly. "But if we hand that boy over to him now, we'll be watching him turn an innocent child into a living weapon. I know the General—he'll want to understand how the boy survived so he can create more like him. He'll want to find other children, expose them to controlled doses of the weapon, see if he can replicate the process."

They paused at a junction in the corridor, the decision hanging heavy in the air between them.

"Doctor," Nurse Tanaka said carefully, "what if the boy could help people? What if his abilities could be used for good?"

Dr. Yamamoto's laugh was bitter. "Under Matsuda's command? The man who called the deaths of three million people 'acceptable population reduction'? He doesn't see that boy as anything more than a successful experiment. To him, the child isn't a victim who survived—he's proof that their weapon can create something useful from mass destruction."

"But he's just a child," Nurse Sato protested. "Surely they wouldn't—"

"He's not just a child anymore," Dr. Yamamoto cut her off. "His bone density is thirty percent higher than normal. His muscle tissue shows enhanced fiber composition. His brain scans indicate neural pathways that don't exist in baseline humans. Matsuda will see those reports and immediately start planning how to mass-produce more like him. How many more cities would he be willing to sacrifice to create an army of enhanced soldiers?"

The nurses exchanged worried glances. They all knew the General's reputation, his cold calculation when it came to human life.

"How long can we maintain the deception?" Nurse Kimura asked.

"Long enough to understand what we're dealing with. Long enough to teach him basic communication skills. Long enough to give him some semblance of humanity before Matsuda gets his hands on him and turns him into the perfect killing machine."

"And if the boy doesn't want to be their weapon?" Nurse Tanaka asked quietly.

Dr. Yamamoto's expression grew distant. "Then we'll have discovered that Matsuda's greatest creation has a conscience. And that will make him either the most dangerous person alive, or the most important. Either way, the General won't let him live as anything other than a tool."

They stood in silence for a moment, the weight of their conspiracy settling around them like a shroud.

"There's something else," Dr. Yamamoto added quietly. "I've been reviewing his cellular analysis. Whatever that weapon did to him, whatever allowed him to survive... it's still active. His body is still changing, still adapting. If Matsuda discovers this, he'll want to weaponize that process. He'll see it as the key to creating an entire generation of enhanced soldiers."

"By sacrificing more children," Nurse Sato said, understanding dawning in her voice.

"By sacrificing entire populations if necessary," Dr. Yamamoto corrected grimly. "Matsuda would justify anything in the name of military advancement. We can't let that happen. Not while we have the power to prevent it."

The decision was made in the silence that followed. Three nurses and one doctor, standing in a sterile hallway, choosing to defy their commanding officer to protect a child who didn't even know he needed protecting.

"So what do we tell them?" Nurse Kimura asked.

"We tell them he's stable but unresponsive. We tell them we need more time to assess his condition. And we pray that when Matsuda finally gets his hands on him, the boy will be strong enough to resist being turned into a monster."

As they walked away down the corridor, none of them noticed the small security camera mounted in the corner, its red recording light blinking steadily in the shadows.