- Zero -
Zero wandered the warehouse.
He knew every crack in the concrete now. Every rust stain. Every patch where rainwater darkened the walls. He watched sunlight crawl across the floor and play over the window sills. He watched flies disappear into spiderwebs stretched across broken, barred, and covered windows.
He slept.
He thought.
Then he thought again.
He replayed his mission endlessly.
Kasper would never come willingly and he was already too weak to force him.
So he became weaker still. With each passing day his body quietly consumed itself. Goals dulled. Muscle wasted. Necessary systems cannibalized everything else.
Sleep came easier when death warred with life long enough to exhaust the mind.
Snow disappeared outside.
Endless rain no doubt coaxed green buds from black branches. Beyond the warehouse, that quiet, dewy, creeping life had begun returning. Spring was so gentle in the way it kept its promise that a long winter had seemingly broken. Time was passing for everyone, including him. Though slow, he could feel its steady crawl.
And then there was Kasper...
Somehow remaining outside of it.
Brothers.
Kasper insisted they were brothers.
Zero scratched absently at his arm.
Brothers...
The syllables bounced off each other and rattled around in his memory. Or what little he had of one. Not much existed in his mind. His fields weren't even tilled enough for an idea to take root. His mind was a minefield- a bitter crag jutting out past the main body of Ark's mountainous keep. Every visiting chance Kasper presented zero used to study his target a little longer.
They shared almost nothing. Not their hair, not any of their features, not even their builds were similar... but their eyes. Oh, their eyes... There lay that same spark. Where it came from, he didn't know. But it was there nonetheless.
One of them burned...
One of them drowned...
Neither would give up whatever thing they pursued...
Time no longer passed in straight lines.
It looped.
Folded.
Nothing the humans did seemed important.
Except Kasper.
Wonder tore every question apart, leaving nothing in the way of conversation.
Zero held the mouse gently in his hands, feeling its rapid heartbeat against his palm.
Sit still.
Wait.
Breaking someone, he'd learned, required far more patience than force ever did. It was a delicate thing.
Move only when it matters.
Ace was broken. That much, Zero was sure of. Maliver had finished his work there.
But somehow...
Kasper still clung to some useless form of sentimentality.
Physicality had never moved a monster.
YOU ARE READING
The Eden Projects (FINAL EDITING)
Action"This story has no hero." Set in the distant future, where the government has been overthrown, and a new world power has risen, known only by the Moniker "ARK Corporation." We follow Kasper as he fights to survive in a nightmare where wrong is made...
