#The First Seed
#008
The warehouse in the Fringe District wasn't on any map. No digital markers, no security cameras. Just static and silence.
Asher stood at the rusted entrance, the cracked soul capsule in his left pocket, the pulsing one still warm against his palm. Eden stood beside him, her eyes scanning the shadows like she expected the walls to move.
"This still feels like suicide," she muttered.
"You brought the Deeptrace gear," he said. "You knew we'd come."
She sighed. "Curiosity's a curse."
Inside, the warehouse stretched wide and hollow. Dust floated in the air, caught in slivers of light from broken ceiling panels. At the center sat an old chair, surrounded by tangled cables and shattered holo-nodes.
"The original Bliss seed labs," Asher murmured. "Where it began."
"No," Eden said, clutching her datapad tighter. "Where it ended. This place was shut down two weeks before the riots. Wiped clean."
Asher approached the chair. Each step felt heavier than the last, burdened with something deeper than memory. Recognition.
His fingers traced the frame. Cold, but not dead.
"I've seen this before," he whispered.
"You didn't just see it," Eden said. "You sat in it. This is where the first Soul Auctioneer prototype was tested. And guess what?" She turned the datapad toward him. "Your biosync is in the original logs. You were Patient Zero."
His breath caught.
That couldn't be true.
Could it?
A low hum filled the room. They both turned.
The capsule in Asher's hand floated, just an inch.
Then it began to glow.
And then it spoke.
One word. Dozens of voices, fractured and layered:
"Remember."
The floor shimmered beneath them. Reality rippled. The capsule released a pulse of invisible energy—and suddenly, Asher wasn't standing anymore.
He was falling—
Into a memory that wasn't his.
---
He was a child. Younger than he remembered ever being. Hands strapped to the chair. Scientists in white coats moving around him. A girl—Saya—screaming behind glass.
"She's not ready!" someone shouted.
"She's the tether!" another insisted.
The machine's hum grew louder. Early Bliss capsules spun slowly, ominously.
"Begin the transfer."
Pain hit every nerve at once. But it wasn't just pain.
Memories.
Not his own.
Dozens. Hundreds.
Flooding in like raw data through an open port.
And then—
Darkness.
---
Asher jolted awake, gasping. Back in the warehouse. Eden had caught him, hands steady on his shoulders.
"You were out for six seconds," she said, breath quick. "But the capsule—Asher, it burned you."
He looked down. A faint spiral glowed on his palm, slowly fading. A brand.
The same symbol seen during the Bliss riots.
Eden's face had gone pale. "You weren't just a test subject," she said. "You were the template. The first person to hold synthetic memory. That's why the capsules react to you."
Asher looked at the chair again. This time, his stare burned—not with fear, but rage.
"They built Bliss from us," he said. "They used children. Turned us into fuel for an empire built on emotion."
Eden nodded. "And now we have proof."
Asher stood, jaw tight. "Then let's burn it down."
She blinked. "That's new. Optimism?"
He gave a grim smile. "Not optimism. Clarity. They made me forget. But I remember now."
He turned to the shadowy exit of the warehouse, where a new path waited.
"And I'm going to make the world remember too."