The mansion seemed to hold its breath. Shadows stretched across the polished floors, long, twisting ribbons that clung to corners and crevices like dark memories.
The chandeliers above—grand, opulent, gilded in gold—flickered with a faint uncertainty, their light hesitant, wary, as though even crystal and flame could sense the storm coiling within the hall.
Every footstep echoed unnaturally, bouncing against the walls lined with centuries of portraits whose eyes seemed suddenly to follow every movement.
Each sigh, each rustle of silk or whisper of velvet, carried a weight far greater than its volume, a prelude to the revelation that was about to shatter the meticulously curated calm.
The chandeliers burned steadily above, but no warmth came from them. Light fell across tense faces, rigid shoulders, unmoving hands. No one touched their drinks anymore. No one pretended.
Fahad broke first.
His voice was low, but it carried across the room like restrained thunder.
"This ends tonight."
Fahan turned sharply. "Ends? You think this ends with answers?"
"It starts with them," Fahad snapped. "We've been blind long enough."
Fahim, quieter, colder, adjusted his glasses slightly. "We weren't blind," he said. "We were… kept blind."
Farhan let out a hollow breath. "No. We chose not to see."
They were waiting.
They were waiting for her. Every figure, from the oldest aunt to the youngest servant, all the family, guards, and lingering servant who had survived the shock of the previous display, held themselves in rigid anticipation.
Even the walls seemed watchful, breathing quietly with the collective pulse of the room, as if centuries of secrets had suddenly awoken and were pressing in on the present.
Conversation, once polite and cautious, now existed only as fragile fragments—murmurs too timid to rise above the oppressive quiet. Laughter had evaporated, leaving only the memory of joy, suspended in the heavy air like a candle flame threatening to die.
"We need to know the past of Maya."
Another added, sharper, almost mocking, "Numbers instead of names? 'Subject'? What is this—some kind of experiment?"
Nahi's voice trembled, but she didn't stay silent.
"She's family."
"Is she?" the cousin shot back. "Or is she something we don't understand yet?"
Mahim finally spoke.Slow. Dangerous.
"We will not raise our voices like this."
Fahad turned to him immediately. "Then give us something else, Baba. Because right now, all we have is silence—and that silence is worse than anything she could say."
A pause.Then, quieter—
"What happened to her?"
Fahan ran a hand through his hair, pacing once. "We saw the video. We saw Rahi. We heard what he said." His voice tightened. "You don't get like that from nothing."
Fahim nodded slightly. "That level of response… that's conditioning. Long-term trauma." He looked toward the doorway Maya had disappeared through earlier. "Whatever she went through—it wasn't short. It wasn't simple."
One of the aunts whispered, shaken, "Why didn't she tell us?"
Fahad answered before anyone else could.
"Because she doesn't trust us."
Anik, who had remained silent until now, finally spoke.His voice was calm.
"She doesn't trust anyone."
All eyes turned to him.
He continued, "And yet—she stays. She eats at the same table."
A faint pause.
"That means something."
Fahan narrowed his eyes. "Say it clearly."
Anik's gaze didn't waver.
"It means at lest she's not afraid of us ."
Mahim's expression hardened slightly. "Enough speculation."
But even he couldn't fully stop it now.
Because the room had already crossed that line—
from curiosity…into need.
Fahad's voice came again, quieter this time, but more dangerous.
"No."
He looked around the room—at his brothers, his parents.
"At this point, it's not curiosity anymore."
Fahan nodded slowly. "And she won't give it willingly.She won't tell the truth."
Farhan looked down at his hands. "Then maybe we shouldn't take it."
Silence.
Then Fahad replied—
"We already did the moment we watched that video."
A cousin spoke again, more quietly now, but with a sharp edge of resolve.
"If she won't speak…"
Another finished it,"…we make her."
Mahi shook her head immediately. "No. Absolutely not."
But her voice trembled.Because even she—
wanted to know.
Then she appeared.
Maya. Black silk cascading over her small frame, gloves brushing delicately against her wrists, braid swinging like a pendulum of shadow. She paused at the threshold, one slender foot crossing lightly over the marble.
Her gaze fathomless, captured everything: every polished surface, every weaponized glance of fear or curiosity. The room held itself in tense equilibrium, unwilling to act yet unable to look away.
A voice, shaky and brittle with authority strained by desperation, broke the tension. "Tell us the truth! We… we need to know. What happened in the past?"
"It's been too long since we've been in the dark."
The words echoed faintly, swallowed by the cavernous hall. But Maya said nothing. Her silence was the shield she had carried all her life, forged in years of torment, of pain too immense for words.
Silence had protected her, held her together, allowed her to survive when every other resource failed.
" You want truth . But i don't want to give it. "
Ohi, stepping forward with deliberate precision, produced a small vial from beneath his coat. The liquid inside shimmered in the chandelier's light, catching and refracting it into sharp, silver streaks.
"The truth serum," he announced, voice sharp, almost accusatory, the syllables cutting through the room like a blade.
"We have the right to know. You will speak."
Maya's jaw tightened. Her voice, when it came, was a whisper, low and cutting, sharper than any sword:
"You have no right to know ."
Naya's tremulous voice followed, reaching across the distance like a fragile bridge. "Maya… we need to understand. Please. Just this once."
Maya shook her head, imperceptibly, the slightest tilt of her chin carrying volumes of defiance. Her body spoke before her words could. her feet shifting back instinctively.
every muscle taut. She radiated the quiet storm of years survived and horrors endured, a presence that threatened to unravel anyone who came too close.
Rahi stepped forward, desperation bleeding through his composure. "There's no need to force her," he implored, voice low and urgent, quivering under the weight of fear and love intertwined.
"Please… don't do this to her. You don't know what you're doing. You will regret it. Please, don't."
Before the words could settle, before the weight of their plea had fully registered, a shadow separated from the darkness. Anik. Silent, deliberate, his presence a blade of steel in calm disguise. He moved forward, stopping precisely between Maya and the assembly.
"Maya," he said quietly, voice even, but carrying an unspoken threat that coiled around the room.
"Don't make us do this the hard way."
And then something inside her snapped.
She ran.
Black silk and bare feet, fluid as smoke, streaking across the hall. Her heart pounded a frantic rhythm of fear and fury. Chairs toppled, servants shouted, gasps punctuated the chaos, everyone tryed to reach her.
"Maya!" Fahad's voice rang, but she was gone before it could reach her.
At the corridor's end, Anik intercepted her. His arms, unyielding and strong, wrapped around her waist.
"No!" Maya's voice sliced through the room, raw and shattered.
"I won't! Don't touch me!"
She twisted, kicked, struggled against the grip, but Anik's hold was absolute. His voice softened, the first hint of fracture in his otherwise steel calm.
"Why are you running?"
"Because you're going to kill me!" she spat, the words a tempest, carrying every suppressed memory, every scar etched into her soul.
" Don't do this. You will regret it. "
A servant handed him the vial. Anik's fingers tightened around it, pressing it toward her lips.
"Maya… please," Naya whispered, a quiver threading through the syllables.
The serum touched her tongue, burning, invasive, a liquid authority that sought to strip her mind bare. Maya fought, twisting and writhing, but Anik's hand covered her mouth, firm and unyielding.
"Swallow," he whispered, voice trembling now with the weight of reluctant obedience to duty.
And then—her defenses began to falter. Her knees buckled, striking the marble with a dull echo, breath ragged, pupils widening, lips trembling. The invisible fingers of the serum tugged at the corners of her mind, pulling memories, emotions, and truths into the open.
Anik knelt beside her, hands gripping her shoulders as though anchoring both of them to a fragile reality.
"Maya… why did you run? Why… what happened in the past?"
"Tell... tell us your past. "
Her voice rose, faint, hollow, fractured. "I was… one year old. Too young to remember. But I do."
A stunned silence fell across the hall, thick and suffocating. Each word carried the weight of decades of cruelty, every syllable a dagger into the fragile calm of the assembly.
Fahad's voice broke, incredulous. "One… year? How could you remember that?"
"My nanny's name was Meyl," she whispered.
Everyone was surprised. Because her nanny's name was really 'Miel'.
Mahi said, " It's unbelievable."
"She sang me lullabies, smiled when she picked me up that night.Since I learn to understand I trust sweetness.She offered me chocolate and told me to be quiet.I didn't know she was taking me away forever."
A chill ran like ice across the room.Cousin who thought themselves immune to fear shivered involuntarily.
"She kidnapped me. Took me to a place they called The Holo of Fair.
It did not exist on maps.It was a laboratory.A human can use 10 to 12% of their brain.
They believed that the brain was wasted on emotion .
To them, emotion was inefficiency. Fear was weakness. Love was a flaw that disrupted precision. They did not see people as individuals—but as incomplete designs.
So they asked a question no one should have asked:
What happens… when the human brain is pushed to its absolute limit?
Not eighty percent. Not ninety.
One hundred.
The Holo of Fair was built to answer that question. Children were taken young.
Young enough that their minds could still be shaped.
Young enough that identity had not fully formed.
Because it is easier to rebuild something… than to destroy it first.
They were stripped of names.
Given numbers.Reduced to functions.They pushed the mind past its limits—The goal was transformation.
To create individuals who no longer hesitated.
Who no longer questioned.
Operatives who could move through the world like shadows— Beings capable of surviving anything—capable, even, of becoming human weapons.
Machines in human form.
It was divided into 2 phases.All subjects are given names according to their phases.
★ phase one - code A ★
The first phase began the moment the children arrived.Every movement was monitored, every sound recorded, every glance cataloged.Here, the captors tested obedience and fear response. Small rewards—water, sweets, warmth—were given selectively, always followed by pain, deprivation, or public humiliation. If a child reached for comfort, it was ripped away; if they dared speak of connection, the consequences were immediate.they forced the children to recount events repeatedly, sometimes under subtle hypnosis, sometimes under pain.
★ Phase Two - code B ★
Once the children were "broken" to a degree, phase two began: the application of full cognitive testing and conditioning.
Here, the captors aimed to push the human brain to 100% capacity. Complex puzzles, mazes, simulations, and moral dilemmas were layered atop physical stress.
Children were forced to process extreme trauma, fear, and decision-making simultaneously, creating a calculated detachment.All types of training are provided, pushing the body to its limits.
Phase two also introduced emotional engineering.moments—friendship, care—were artificially allowed, then cruelly severed. This created a map of attachment and loss in the brain, forcing children to associate hope with punishment.
By the end of phase two, children were no longer wholly human in their reactions.They could calculate, adapt, survive.
And the most terrifying part?
" Some of them succeeded in first phases."
Not all broke.Some evolved.
In the last 20 years, only 17 people have passed ' Phase one '.
Those were the ones the Holo of Fair kept.
But no one could succeeded in second phase,
Except me.It is not possible for anyone else to get through this phase.Because my brain structure was different. It was amazing.My brain can handle things that no one else's brain can."
Gasps erupted, hands flew to mouths. Even those who had prepared themselves for horror were unprepared for the innocence so violently stolen.
There were no colors there—only a cold, sterile kind of brightness that made everything feel exposed. The walls were not stone, not metal, but glass—thick, unyielding, transparent enough to be seen through, yet strong enough to deny escape. A cage that allowed the world to watch, but never to reach in.
Inside it—was me.
Back then i was too small.
My feet barely steadied me on the cold floor, my fingers curled into themselves as if trying to hold onto something that was no longer there. No toys. No blanket. No voice calling her name. Because she had no name anymore.
Only a number '17B.'
They did not speak to me like a child. They did not look at me like a human being. To them, I was something to test.
The first days were silence.
A silence so deep it pressed against my ears until even my own breathing sounded foreign. I would sit in the corner, knees pulled close, eyes fixed on the glass—waiting. For someone. Anyone.No one came.
Only shadows moved beyond the walls.
And then, one day—the silence broke.
The floor beneath her shifted faintly, a mechanical sound humming through the chamber. A section opened, and something was pushed inside.
It moved.Not human. Not animal. Something in between—unnatural, restless. Its presence filled the small space too quickly, too wrong. I froze. My breath stopped before i even understood why.Fear, at that age, is instinct.
And instinct told me—run.
But there was nowhere to go.
The glass reflected me from every angle. No corner to hide in. No place to disappear. The creature moved, slow at first, then faster—closing the space between me and them.
Outside, silhouettes watched.They wrote things down.Measured reactions—my response to it.
When i stumbled, when my small body hit the floor, when my hands scraped against the cold surface trying to push myself away—no one came to help.
The first lesson was simple.
★trust nothing, obey everything.★