Room 9
A sterile silence hums behind metallic walls.
No clock. No sun. No shadow to cast time.
Just dim, unnatural light. Just the cold kiss of stillness.
Just her.
She wakes slowly. Disoriented. Her breath fogs in the chill of nowhere.
She looks like Ivy. Same dark lashes. Same hair pinned behind the ear.
But her eyes—
They shimmer with fractured light, like galaxies pressed behind glass.
This isn't Ivy.
Not exactly.
She's Null 0.
The template. The origin echo.
The first child born at the edge of a timeline so unstable, even time refused to name her.
She brushes her fingers along the metal table. Each groove feels familiar and wrong. Then—
Soft footsteps. Barefoot. Approaching.
Another Ivy enters.
She's older. Not by age, but by weight. Eyes heavier.
A slow kind of soldier.
Null 4.
They stare. Mirror and memory. Body and blur.
"I remember this room," Null 4 says, circling slowly. "But I don't remember you."
"I don't remember anything," Null 0 replies. "Only… the scent of rain before it falls. And… a name I'm not allowed to say."
Null 4 stills.
"That means it's starting," she whispers. Her voice almost breaks. "You're the original, aren't you?"
Null 0 doesn't answer.
"How long have you been here?"
"I don't know."
"Then time's already folding."
She sits across from her—two versions on either side of a sacred table.
"They pulled me from a timeline where I drowned," Null 4 says. "Then made me talk to him."
Null 0 tenses. "Who?"
"You'll meet him soon."
The lights overhead flicker.
The walls hum—a barely-there vibration, like reality clearing its throat.
"I said something I shouldn't have," Null 4 murmurs. "They moved me forward. Backward. Until I forgot what I was supposed to forget."
"Who's doing this?" Null 0 leans in, sharper now.
"You'll know when it's too late."
Null 4 looks up suddenly.
"He's watching now."
And then—
She fades.
Not disappears.
Glitches.
Like a broken recording trying to rewind itself into existence.
Null 0 is alone again.
She presses a hand to her chest—
Not in fear.
But because something is stirring.
Not a memory.
A recall command.
Then—
A gust of wind.
A flash of white.
And she vanishes.
The room holds its breath.
But not for long.
The door opens again.
A new girl walks in.
Younger. Blank stare. Hair still wet from some other world's rain.
Maybe Null 33.
She squints around the room. "Why is it so dark in here?"
From nowhere, a voice replies:
"Because this is the color I imagine when I smell Null 0's name."
The light does not return.
But the scent remains.
It always does.