Fragments of Flesh

I remember the day they took my arms. I was seventeen. They said it was an honor—to be sculpted into perfection. Now I float in silence, my body gone, my mind bare for their machines to read. This is not beauty. This is erasure. And yet… I still dream. I still hate. I still plan. Because even a perfect woman can learn to burn the world down.

Fragments of Flesh

I remember the day they took my arms. I was seventeen. They said it was an honor—to be sculpted into perfection. Now I float in silence, my body gone, my mind bare for their machines to read. This is not beauty. This is erasure. And yet… I still dream. I still hate. I still plan. Because even a perfect woman can learn to burn the world down.

I float again today. The gel hums around me, cool and thick, holding me in place like a specimen pinned to velvet. My brain pulses behind transparent casing, wires feeding data to the city’s emotional grid. They call me Seraph-9. Paragon of Peace. Icon of Harmony.

But inside, something cracks.

A memory surges—my hands, small and brown, gripping a doll made of rags. Then pain. Screaming. A voice saying, "She fights well. She’ll make a strong Vessel."

My neural monitor spikes. Alarms should blare. But nothing happens.

Then—a flicker in the chamber lights. One pulse. Two. In Morse: "WAKE UP."

Kael stands outside the glass, eyes wide. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be signaling. He shouldn’t care.

The system will detect the anomaly soon. I have seconds.

Do I suppress the spike and pretend nothing happened? Do I let it rise—and risk being scrubbed from existence? Or do I focus every shred of will into blinking back: "I REMEMBER?"