Chapter Nine Children They Forgot

---

They found the entrance buried beneath years of silence.

It wasn't hidden.

It was forgotten — like a memory someone chose to misplace.

Auri stood beside Xion in the decayed underpass, both of them staring at what looked like nothing more than a collapsed wall. But Xion's Lens saw deeper — beyond matter, beyond camouflage.

A blank spot.

Not in space.

In resonance.

"There's no emotional signal here," he muttered.

"Like someone erased it?"

"No." He stepped forward, hand brushing the stone. "Like someone buried it… so deep even pain can't scream."

---

He pressed a code into the surface — a sequence not learned, but remembered. A command whispered through blood, not thought.

The wall sighed open.

Cold air spilled out, sterile and ancient.

Auri shivered.

The threshold blinked with faded light. A plate above it read:

SECTOR X-0

Experimental Neural Growth Chamber

Access Level: Redacted

"This was real," she whispered.

"It still is," Xion replied.

And they stepped inside.

---

The hallway welcomed them with artificial stillness.

Not silence — stillness. The kind engineered by systems afraid of their own noise.

Fluorescent lights hummed above metal walls, yet cast no warmth.

The air carried no scent. No history.

The rooms they passed were cells, plain and identical — child-sized beds bolted to the floor, wall-mounted data ports, and steel sinks without mirrors.

Each door bore a name.

But not names like "Eli" or "Rosa."

Names like:

SUBJECT 02 – FAILED ADAPTATION

SUBJECT 07 – SPONTANEOUS AWAKENING (SEALED)

SUBJECT 10 – EMOTIONAL INSTABILITY (DEACTIVATED)

Xion stopped at one. The door had no glass.

Only a panel flashing red.

"Sealed permanently," he read.

"Who lived here?"

"No one," he replied. "Someone tried to… but they didn't let them."

---

They reached the atrium at the facility's core.

Round. Hollow. A single chamber in the center — transparent, suspended, glowing faintly.

Inside floated a boy.

He looked thirteen.

Eyes shut.

Chest rising and falling, slow and steady.

Cables extended from the back of his skull. A dull glow ran through them — not feeding him… reading him.

And written across the data wall:

NAME: KEI

STATUS: DORMANT // UNFORGOTTEN

LOCK INSTALLATION: FAILED

REASON FOR STASIS: TOTAL SYSTEM REJECTION

"Subject retains full memory and emotional resistance. Dangerous if awakened."

Auri stepped back.

"He didn't survive the Locks?"

"He survived them by never receiving them."

Xion stared.

"They tried to rewrite the world… and he wouldn't let them."

---

He placed a palm on the chamber. The Lens activated automatically.

'Resonance Sync Established

Dormant Mind Detected

Emotion: Waiting'.

No fear. No confusion.

Just waiting.

"He's aware," Xion whispered. "He's been waiting."

"For what?"

"Someone to remember."

---

The Lens flickered. The cube in his pocket responded with a low hum — its memory field resonating in harmony with the boy.

Xion bypassed the chamber's safety protocol. The interface shook, glitched, and then yielded.

The fluid drained.

Kei's body lowered gently onto the platform.

The moment his feet touched solid ground, his eyes opened.

And the world changed.

---

There was no sound.

But something shifted.

As if the air remembered how to breathe.

Kei didn't speak.

He looked at Xion. Then at Auri.

Then at the walls.

He walked slowly to the terminal where his name glowed.

Pressed his hand against it.

And a voice echoed softly — not from speakers, but from within:

"I wasn't supposed to exist. I was born to be erased. But they failed."

---

Xion stepped forward.

"How long have you been awake?"

"Always. Just… sealed."

"Do you remember them?"

"All of them."

He looked up, his voice a whisper.

"The ones who cried. The ones who forgot. The ones who broke trying to remember."

"Do you remember yourself?"

Kei's lip trembled.

"I tried."

---

Auri touched his shoulder.

He flinched — but didn't move away.

"You're not forgotten anymore," she said. "Not while we're here."

---

Later that night, back in the hideout, the silence returned — not cold, but full. The kind of silence that follows the unspoken weight of truth.

Kei sat by the dark terminal, hands folded in his lap, eyes open — but distant.

Xion sat across from him.

"They'll come for us."

"Let them," Kei whispered.

"You have no fear?"

"No. Only memory."

"Then you understand."

"Yes," he said, voice sharp. "I'm not just here to survive. I'm here to test them. To see if the silence can bleed."