I slide down under the covers, prop the pillows up around me, then reach for the journal. I flip it open and start reading. Considering they came from a scientist, you’d think these notes would be well-thought out and neatly written, but instead, they’re sloppy entries with scattered thoughts. Squinting to read the handwriting does nothing for my headache, but I need to learn more.
I skim the first couple of pages.
Subject acquired under emergency medical protocols following the regional crisis. No surviving family members to provide consent. Standard treatments had failed completely. The experimental vaccine represented the only viable option available to us. The ethics board approved the procedure unanimously. We believed we were preventing a tragedy while potentially developing something that could benefit countless others. How naive we were. Some doors, once opened, can never be closed again.
No family members to provide consent? The girl didn’t look that young in the visions I’ve seen. God, how long was she kept in that lab, or whatever it was? Since when were doctors abducting patients for experiments? I was naive to believe things weren’t always this corrupt. This poor girl. Did they really believe they were preventing a tragedy? I don’t trust that for a second.
I idly pet Mish and continue reading entry after entry,getting a glimpse into the mind of this scientist and how the first Avid possibly came to be. He seems to be following orders, but I can tell he struggles with his moral compass. Whoever’s writing this knows what they’re doing is wrong, but I don’t think that makes it any better since he’s still doing it.
Remarkable physical changes continue to manifest. The subject unintentionally bent steel restraints during today’s examination. We’ve had to reinforce her medical bed with industrial-grade materials. More concerning, her dream episodes have become incredibly detailed and predictive. Dr. Harrison has approved construction of the new neural interface machine. If we can record and analyze these visions properly, the applications could be revolutionary. I pray we’re not overstepping our bounds.
A neural interface machine to record her dreams? Her predictive visions? Was her gift seeing the future?
It sounds like she had many gifts. She clearly had enhanced strength, and then possibly some kind of future cognition. Maybe she even saw me coming. Maybe she knows what’s going to happen with the mission, with Sunderlands, with all of it? I wish she wasn’t so difficult to communicate with. I need to try to reach her again. If she can offer us any guidance and possibly warn us, she could save lives.
It’s so odd reaching out to her though. I haven’t been able to bring her to me yet. I always get sucked into some kind of past recollection of where she was kept. Maybe her spirit is more comfortable bringing me to a place she spent so much of her time in, rather than appearing in my reality.
I glance back down at the journal.
Subject has requested we call her by her name, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Guilt for what we’ve done to her and for how we are using her becomes too real if I put a name on it. For now, “Subject” is how I will refer to her. The others have takento calling her Viridian after the project name. Dr. Harrison named the project Viridian because she was the first and only one to survive the process. “A green sprout in the ashes of failure,” he once said.
Hmm, so that explains the name stamped across her folder, but that’s not her true name. I continue reading through several more pages, even though my eyes are getting sleepy.
We removed her restraints this week. She walks freely now, even dines with the others. Some say she has accepted the cause. I suspect the opposite. She is cleverer than us all, that she endures until the moment she no longer has to. There is something in her eyes I cannot explain. It unsettles me, and I cannot be the only one who feels it.
The neural interface machine is complete. Yesterday, we ran our first successful test. Sedation was required to extract enough data, yet still she complied… or seemed to. It is difficult to know whether she obeys us or allows us to think she does. Regardless, the results are remarkable. For the first time, I witnessed the future unfold, not through prediction but through her dreams. This morning’s debrief will be the first true measure of how her recollection compares to the visions we recorded. If the data holds, the next phase will begin.
I need to know what happened in the debrief before I can put this down for the night. My fingers skim the page, turning it quickly.
The subject remained mostly stoic during debrief. The amount of freedom we continue to grant her unsettles me, though Dr. Harrison insists it is necessary. He believes she must choose to help us if this project is to succeed. I do not share his optimism. What troubles me most is her lack of anger. No rage, no bitterness, no sign of hatred toward those who confined her. That, I suspect, is the greatest danger of all. If she can hide that, she can hide anything.
Meanwhile, the virus consumes more lives by the day. Our vaccine trials crawl forward, but the numbers fall against us. After watching her vision of the future this morning, I am certain we are running out of time. Perhaps the world itself is doomed. And yet she smiles when she speaks of saving it. Enthusiasm, they call it. But I wonder if it is only another mask she wears, waiting for the moment to discard it.
A chill lingers over me as I close the journal and set it on the table.
Clearly, they never succeeded. If they had, half the population wouldn’t have died, the government wouldn’t have collapsed into ruin, and the climate wouldn’t have spiraled so far out of control.
If she really was the first Avid, then how were more of us created? Maybe she had children, and whatever they did to her bled into her genes. But that wouldn’t explain the sheer number of Avids who exist now. Her bloodline alone couldn’t have seeded us all.
Maybe she was contagious. Or maybe that vaccine they kept testing didn’t cure anyone at all, changing them instead. Maybe it twisted something in their bodies, rewrote something in their blood, and that mutation became us.
If I want to reach her, it has to be now, before exhaustion drags me under. I push the covers back and stand. Mish snores softly, unmoving even as the floor creaks beneath my feet.
I pace a bit, my breathing erratic. Anxiety hits fast. Maybe standing was a bad idea. I drop onto the edge of the bed, press my palms to my knees, and close my eyes. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. I force my heart to slow, count each beat until it steadies, and then I imagine her.
Those piercing icy-blue eyes. The sterile room. The thin gown. I picture the woman on the other side of the two-way mirror and reach for her, willing her to appear. But she doesn’tcome, not at first. She’s too strong or is resisting. My chest tightens. Then the air chills, that same unnatural cold creeping into my skin, and when I open my eyes, I’m not in my bedroom anymore.
I’m in hers.
“Viridian,” I say, since she hasn’t given me another name.
The room isn’t quite the same as before. Time feels different here, stretched or warped. She sits on the edge of a narrow bed, not a gurney this time, her dark hair pulled back, her posture weary. Medical equipment glows softly around her, and she looks worn thin, like she’s been carrying the weight of something far heavier than her frame should bear.
She pats the bed beside her, an invitation. My instincts scream not to trust it, but I step forward anyway. The walls ripple faintly, like water disturbed.
No. Hold steady. You’ve got this, Kat.
I sit beside her, not too close, my body taut as a bowstring. Her eyes shift toward me, tired but sharp, the kind of gaze that strips you bare.
