Chapter 10: The ReGenesis Program

The Sanctuary was alive.

Dozens of men and women worked there in the shadows. Some meditated, others carved symbols, and still others isolated themselves in anchoring cells — sealed rooms meant to contain inner nightmares.

Every corner of the place seemed to breathe pain… but also resistance.

Orane led Kelvin to a particular room: a repurposed laboratory, its walls covered in old schematics, mind maps, and confidential reports stolen from Klinik-13.

She handed him a dusty folder.

— Here's what we have on the ReGenesis Program.

Kelvin sat down. He read.

Subject: Creation of mentally enhanced individuals capable of interacting with collective subconscious layers.

Objective: Militarization of the psyche.

He turned the pages, hands trembling.

Subject 17-B: Raised in isolation from age 4.

Extreme sensitivity to cognitive stimuli.

Violent reactions to mnemonic implant treatments.

Complete erasure recommended. Dangerous emotional failure.

He saw his own face. Young. Crying. Restrained. Watched.

— They took your memory to turn you into a vector, Orane explained. A neutral channel. No past, no pain. Just a shell they thought they could control.

Kelvin stood up abruptly, throwing the folder against the wall.

— Is that why I see those things?! Why I… sense the shadows before they even show up?!

Orane nodded.

— You're a beacon. The entities latch onto you. But they can't dominate you. Not entirely. That's what makes you dangerous — to them, and to those who created them.

— Created? You mean these horrors aren't just from us… but from them?

— The primal shadows are born from the subconscious. But the more complex ones… they're manufactured. Injected. Programmed like mental viruses. And Klinik-13 was their lab.

Kelvin felt his throat tighten. He looked at Echo, sitting in a corner, drawing the same shape over and over.

An eye.

Open. Infinite.

— He won't stop, said Lila, approaching. Since we got here, he's been drawing that. And… he talks in his sleep. Sentences I can't remember. They slip through my fingers, like sand.

Orane stared at Echo, solemn.

— He's synchronizing.

— With what? Kelvin asked.

— With the Source.

Kelvin froze.

— The what?

Orane knelt in front of Echo.

— He's a Portal. When the Archivist spoke to him, it activated something. An ancient collective memory. The one Klinik-13 was trying to reach. Echo isn't just a test subject. He's a fragment of a greater mind. Something dormant… beneath our world.

Suddenly, Echo opened his eyes. White. Empty.

And spoke in a voice that wasn't his own.

"There is another Klinik. Older. Buried in the ice.

Where the first screams never ceased.

Where the Father of the Void still sleeps.

They want to wake him. But he still dreams.

And in his dream… we all fall."

Silence fell over the room. Everyone stared at him, frozen.

Lila stepped back, her forehead sweating.

— I… I've heard that before. In my nightmares. That exact poem. Word for word.

Kelvin stared at her.

— Lila, you…

But he stopped. Because his eyes saw what they had never seen before.

His shadow — the one that had always followed him — was no longer behind him.

It was behind Lila. And it was clinging to her.

But Lila didn't seem to notice.

Orane understood before he did.

— It's binding. An entity is anchoring itself in her.

— No, Lila whispered. I don't feel anything. It's just…

She collapsed to the floor, convulsing. Words poured from her mouth in ancient Latin. In a forgotten tongue.

Kelvin rushed to her side.

— LILA!

Echo calmly approached and placed a hand on her forehead.

A black light flared.

And the seizure stopped.

Lila opened her eyes. In tears.

— She… she's watching me. She's been there since the beginning. I… I'm not alone in my head.

Orane stood up.

— Then it's true. You're the Host. The one.

Kelvin stared at her.

— What does that mean?

— That she's the only direct link to the Ancient Entity. Not a shadow. Not a monster. Something far older. Something that… watches. Since the dawn.

Kelvin finally understood.

They weren't alone.

They weren't insane.

And the nightmare was only a prelude.