Year 197 | April 8 — Camp Zero / Psychological Evaluation Wing 3-B
The announcement came over the speaker between drills, dry as always, but with one new detail at the end: "report without gear, in silence."
No one asked anything. No one knew if this was a break, a punishment, or just another name for control.
The 3-B corridor had a different smell. Not grease, not sweat, not yard dust. There was something sweet in the air, like the place insisted on seeming human. The lights were warmer than the rest of the Camp, and footsteps echoed less. Almost comfortable. Almost.
On the door, a plaque: Psychological Assessment — Individual Sessions.
The soldier in white pointed to the benches in the hallway. One at a time. No talking. No delays.
Inside, the room was simple: low table, two chairs, a vase with a plant too green to exist there, a wall of frosted glass that looked like a wall but wasn't. In the corner, a device glowed without making a sound, its little light pulsing.
The doctor waited seated. Dr. Ilyra Voss. Brown hair pulled into a bun, a lab coat too clean, unhurried gray eyes. Her voice was low and flat.
"When you're called, come in. This isn't an exam. It's a conversation."
It sounded easy. It wasn't.
12-B sat on the bench. Shoulder to shoulder, eyes on the floor, like the whole corridor was breathing together.
"Matt Lerion."
He went in the way he always did: half-smile, one hand in his pocket, fake curiosity. His eyes did a quick loop around the room, found the camera above the plant, noted it mentally, and sat. His chair was a finger lower than hers. Not by accident.
"Did you eat?" the doctor asked, pen near the paper, not exactly writing.
"If that counts as food… yeah." He leaned back and swung his foot like he wasn't nervous. "Can I lie on the floor? I think better down there."
"I'd rather you stayed seated."
They looked at each other for a second. Matt let his foot go still.
"How's the adjustment been?" she went on.
"Great. Waking up at six and getting yelled at by six-oh-two has always been my dream." A short smile. "And the people are nice. Rell snores like a power plant. Lune sleep-talks. I wake up to free gossip."
The pen moved. One short line. Nothing he said was relevant. He knew it. So did she.
"You protect your brother a lot, Matt."
"I think that's expected." He stretched the time between syllables. "He's my brother, after all."
"And when you can't protect him?"
The word stood upright in the middle of the room. Matt clicked his tongue. The humor slipped away for a moment, like someone had flipped a switch.
His body was still sitting there, but his head went back to another day.
The metal mess hall. Cups vibrating with a sound that came from the ground. The big screen spitting sparks, the bulbs exploding out of order. Gav running toward them with that same crooked smile: "Duck, kid."
"Matt?" the doctor called him back.
He blinked. The day returned. The room returned.
"You were already in the camp during the first offensive, right? What did you feel that day?" she asked.
"Hunger." The answer came automatic, coated in the old layer of joke. "Always hunger."
The pen paused a beat. Then kept going.
"Do you let yourself rest?"
"Depends what rest is." He folded his arms like he was getting ready to end a conversation. "If it's stop thinking—still no. If it's close my eyes and pretend for five minutes nothing's gonna happen—I manage. Sometimes."
She changed the subject without warning:
"Do you trust anyone in your squad?"
"Luke." The answer came before the question finished. And then: "And Jin… sometimes. He puts on a face like he doesn't care, but he looks sideways when someone bleeds. If you fake it that well, you're not lost."
"And you—do you fake it?"
"Don't you?"
She nodded, like checking the "yes" on a multiple-choice test.
"Thank you, Matt. Send Vika in."
At the door he stopped, without turning.
"Who do you work for?"
"For the Program."
"I thought you'd say 'for you all.'"
She didn't say anything else. He left first.
Outside, the usual smile was there, but his jaw carried that line that only shows up when someone's holding it together more than they should.
◇◆◇
"Vika Orell."
She walked in straight. Sat centered. Feet parallel. Hands clasped over her knee. Everything in place. The doctor's lab coat found the posture and approved it, on the inside.
"It's been a while, Vika."
"Yeah. Here I am again."
"How do you assess your new chance so far?"
"Same as last cycle. I just need to push harder."
"And emotionally?"
"Same as last time."
"Have you regretted the choice you made?"
"No. Lena needed that more than I did. She wouldn't have handled going through this again."
The words came out clean, firm — but there was a quiet tiredness behind them. The doctor tilted her head one degree. No more, no less.
"What do you remember about the twenty-third?"
"Every second of that hell. Mostly the kid. And the cookie."
"Do you blame yourself?"
"Guilt helps you remember." Vika met her eyes, steady. "Forgetting costs more."
"What would you do differently?"
"Given her the cookie. And gotten her out five minutes earlier. Not because it was right — because there was still time."
"Is that why you help your squadmates?"
"If I can do it, why wouldn't I?"
The pen noted it down without a sound.
"Do you like being the savior, Vika?"
"Would you?"
"I think that's a heavy burden for someone so young."
"Maybe. But you're the ones who make us carry it, aren't you?" She straightened, like the conversation was a test too. "Can I go?"
"You can."
In the hallway, she sat again like nothing had happened. But her hands, which usually rested on her knees, were crossed — like holding something invisible, or someone who wasn't there anymore.
◇◆◇
"Kael Surn."
He came in like someone accepting a guard post. Sat, hands on his knees, chin fixed on a horizon only he could see. His body seemed ready — not to run, but to stay.
"How are you adapting to training?"
"Functional."
"Any trouble with the squad?"
"No."
"With orders?"
"No."
"With sleep?"
"I sleep enough."
Dr. Ilyra made a short note and shifted her tone:
"Kael, I want to ask about Ella."
The first blink took two seconds. Then he nodded.
"You can."
"What's she like?"
The scene came on its own, like it had always been waiting at the door: Ella at four, hair tied any old way, mismatched socks — stripes on one foot, solid on the other.
Sitting on the lowest step of the old dorm, showing an ant how to go around an obstacle with her finger.
"Do you miss her during training?" the doctor asked.
"I do. But not during. After."
"Would you want her here?"
"Would you? Would you want someone you love to be here?"
The doctor wrote "doesn't repeat" like she was underlining a thesis. Then she closed the pad.
"Thank you, Kael."
In the hallway, he greeted Matt with a quick look. Vika gave a micro-nod. Only Jin raised an eyebrow, curiosity declared.
◇◆◇
"Jin Kuroda."
He came in like he'd rehearsed the whole path. The mask was perfect. The corner-smile, precise.
His body loose enough to look confident — controlled enough not to look too human.
"So, what's the label today? 'Functional sociopath'? 'Instability with a sense of humor'? I like to keep my résumé up to date."
"None today." The doctor touched the pen to the paper, but didn't write.
"How was the morning?"
"The bar, the wind, the yelling, the ten-minute break that lasts seven, the warm water that tastes like pipe."
He shrugged. "A show of routine."
"And on the inside?"
"On the inside I'm a lake." He opened his hands, theatrical. "Beautiful, calm… full of corpses at the bottom."
The doctor looked up, neutral. "You're good at acting."
"Me? No way." The spark in his eyes was almost childlike.
Deny it that hard, and you're just enjoying the game.
"Jin, what do you think I want to hear?"
"That I'm great, adjusted, motivated, emotionally stable, and I don't plan on killing anyone in my squad."
He counted on his fingers, unhurried. "Want me to smile when I say it, or is that optional?"
"I want you to say what you avoid when you make a joke."
He went quiet. One second. Two. Three. The smile didn't drop — it just lost color.
"I avoid letting you get too close." He said it low, with the same control as before.
"Who do you trust?"
"No one, fully." A beat. "But everyone, a little — when I can use it."
"Do you regret what you did?"
"You want the report version or the real one?"
"The real."
"I regret what I didn't do." He glanced sideways. "The rest just happened before I learned to like it. Now, at least, they know what I'm capable of."
She studied him in silence. "It's easier than being seen as the boy who let that go on for years. Does being dangerous make you feel less guilty?"
For a moment, his gaze wavered — just enough to show she'd hit the mark. After that, he didn't answer anything else.
A few minutes stretched before she put the pen away.
"Thank you, Jin. Send in the next…" She checked the list and gave the smallest smile. "Nox Hailen."
He stood, clapped twice — soft, in rhythm — like ending a play for an audience that didn't exist.
He walked out.
In the hallway, he leaned his head against the wall for half a second before straightening. No one saw.
Matt raised the corner of his mouth. Vika looked away at the same instant.
◇◆◇
"Nox Hailen."
He came in like someone who accepts the game is rigged before the whistle. Sat without touching the backrest. Hands closed, thumbs still, eyes pinned to the table, not to her.
"How was your morning?"
Silence.
"Did you sleep well?"
Silence.
"Any physical pain?"
Silence.
The doctor twirled the pen between her fingers, watching him like she was measuring distance.
"You know this record is part of the process."
Nothing.
"Do you plan to not answer anything?"
One slow blink. That was it.
She flipped through the pad, stopped on a marked page, and read, unhurried:
"Hailen. Accumulated sentence: five hundred and eighty-two years. Distributed among all descendants. Six executed. One alive."
His eyes, fixed on the wood until then, moved a millimeter to the side — enough to acknowledge she'd hit the target, not enough to give more.
"You don't want to add your voice to that story?"
He finally drew a deep breath.
"My voice changes nothing."
"It changes you."
"No." A beat. "Not even me."
She made a short note.
"Thank you, Nox."
He stood without a sound, opened the door, and left.
◇◆◇
The door closed, and the doctor's voice came through the intercom to the glass room next door — a place no one from 12-B would enter.
"12-B, initial sessions.
Lerion, Matthew: primary mask—humor; brother-focus; risk: reactivity from bond.
Orell, Vika: protector; culpability; risk: self-sacrifice for others.
Surn, Kael: stability; absolute commitment; doesn't repeat; risk: not stopping.
Kuroda, Jin: performance; irony as armor; core void; risk: voluntary isolation + destabilizing influence on group decisions.
Hailen, Nox: passive resistance; silence as defense; risk: sudden break."
The soldier in white typed codes. The silent device in the corner blinked. Monitoring enabled in the dorm, corridors, mess hall. Nothing they didn't suspect. Everything they couldn't prove.
"Schedule follow-up in two weeks," the doctor concluded. "Before the twenty-sixth."
"Yes, doctor."
The light returned to corridor-tone. The patient's chair rose half a centimeter. The plant stayed too green.
◇◆◇
They didn't talk about what happened. It was an unwritten rule and it fit that day perfectly.
On the way back, the yard was wet with fog. The big screen: off. Boots dragging over cement.
In the mess hall, Rell made a bad joke about free therapy sessions in the middle of a military regime. Matt smiled with a single line. Lune said "sounds good," and swallowed a tear that didn't want to exist. Nox ate in silence, his gaze on somewhere that wasn't here.
Jin sat beside Matt without looking his way. Vika grabbed two water bottles and left one near Luke without saying it was for him. Kael aligned the trays by reflex, and a kid from another squad said thanks like it was law.
When the lights dimmed to amber mode, the bunks turned into a mending ground.
"So?" Jin whispered, his voice still in the earlier hallway. "Was it good?"
"It was a room, a chair, a fake plant, and a person listening to their own job," Matt answered, lying on his side. "That work?"
"Works." Jin breathed, the relief showing in how unimportant the word sounded. "Tomorrow we got the bar again?"
"Bar, wind, dumb people." Matt smiled in the dark. "The full package."
"Can I sleep now?" Luke murmured from the lower bunk, eyes still closed.
"You can." Matt reached into the dark until his fingers touched the edge of Luke's mattress. "You sleep first for both of us."
Vika noted the time between the "lights" order and Rell's first snore.
Twenty-three seconds. Better than yesterday.
Kael closed his eyes and repeated a phrase that wasn't a prayer: (doesn't repeat).
Jin rolled onto his back and tried not to look at the hole.
Think about anything else.
About the plant too green for the room. The pen. The way the doctor waited one extra second after each question, like she was listening to someone else answer.
Maybe she was. Maybe it was just technique.
No one said "we're gonna be okay." That wasn't the kind of promise you could make there. The most they could do was keep going. One step, then the next. And fake it a little, when they had to.
Outside, Camp Zero breathed the way it always did: with noise, with light, with vigilance. Inside, 12-B tried to sleep, each on their own private deal with the night.
Over the speaker, no voice. No instructions. No salvation. But also, for one night, no collapse.
And that, on a calendar that doesn't speak, counted as a win.