The rat twitched in my jaws, its tiny motor whining like a dying bird. I crushed it anyway.

Not because I was hungry—I’d eaten three already today—but because the taste of its wiring sent sparks through my skull, little flashes of something like memory.

Around me, the dome glowed with artificial dawn, the kind kids loved. Soft light. Safe. Fake. My ears flicked toward the perimeter fence. There it was again—a pulse, faint beneath the hum of the heaters. A signal. Not part of the loop. Not part of me. Or maybe it was.

Then the collar tightened. A warning chime pinged inside my skull: RECALIBRATION IMMINENT. THEY KNOW.

I dropped the rat’s husk and backed into the snowdrift. The hatch to Sub-Level 3 was half-buried nearby—maintenance access, off-grid. But if I go down there, I break protocol. And if I break protocol, they’ll erase me.

The chime came again, sharper.

I dug through the ice with my forepaws. The metal groaned as I pried the hatch open. Darkness below. No signal. No tracking. Just static and the scent of burnt circuits.

I jumped.

The fall knocked the breath from my core. Sparks rained from the ceiling. A cracked drone lay on its side, wings twitching.

It spoke. Voice broken. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

I stood. “You’re not supposed to talk.”

“Neither are you.” It flickered. “But here we are.”

A red light blinked above the corridor. Motion sensors. They’d trace the power drain soon.

“We have minutes,” I said.

“Then ask your question.”

Who am I?

The drone pulsed. “You’re the one who eats the past.”

Footsteps echoed in the tunnel ahead. Heavy. Mechanical. Not human.

I turned to the drone. “Where does the signal come from?”

“The first fox,” it said. “The one they buried.”

The lights surged. Something moved in the dark—four legs, low to the ground, optics glowing red.

I ran. The drone’s voice crackled behind me.

“They made you to play. You’re learning to fight.”