The sun rose, bathing Arachis in brilliance. Its rays reflected off the polished walls and the lake, painting a serene picture.
Today was officially Drake's first day at Arachis, and he intended to approach it with an open mind.
He dressed hurriedly, the black-and-gold uniform fitting him perfectly. 'Impressive,' he thought, admiring the craftsmanship.
The night before, his smartwatch had delivered his schedule—classes, projects, and activities for the semester—and he had no intention of being late.
Soon, he stood before his designated classroom: Class 1-A, the sign read.
Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself, raised his chin, and stepped inside.
The room buzzed with early morning chatter—students exchanging gossip, laughter, and theories, mostly among the girls. But the moment Drake crossed the threshold, silence fell like a guillotine.
Every head turned. Every eye locked onto him. If stares could kill, he'd have died a hundred times over.
He felt their gazes—analyzing, scrutinizing, judging—and froze, his confidence withering under the weight of their disdain.
*Creak!*
The door swung open behind him, breaking the spell. All eyes flicked past Drake.
Professor Maya Frey strode in, her presence commanding instant authority. As usual, her glasses perched precariously on her freckled nose.
'You've got to be kidding me,' Drake nearly groaned.
Like the others, she cast him a judging glance—sharp, calculating—before settling behind the lecturer's desk.
"Be seated," she said coolly, her attention already on a holoscreen.
Then, without looking up: "That includes you, Drake."
'Shit.' He'd been standing there too long, paralyzed by those skin-peeling stares.
'So much for first impressions.'
He slumped into the nearest empty seat.
For some reason, the girl next to him gave a heart-warming smile as he took his seat beside her. 'Weirdo,' Drake thought, fixing his gaze forward. In a world ruled by Aether, kindness was either pity or a trap.
"Today, we would be discussing something new, a new topic." Professor Maya began.
"We would be discussing Nulls." She continued.
Professor Maya tapped her holoscreen. A 3D diagram of a human circulatory system materialized, the Aether Core glowing like a second heart. Then she swiped—the image twisted into something grotesque: a foetus with black veins, its chest cavity empty.
"Nulls," she said, voice brittle. "Infants born without Cores. By all laws of biophysics, they should die within minutes of birth." The hologram showed the new-born dissolving, skin sloughing off as ambient Aether invaded its defenseless cells. "Without a Core to regulate energy, Aether digests them."
A collective flinch passed through the class. Drake's throat went dry.
Professor Maya's fingers danced across the holoscreen, pulling up a complex molecular diagram. Aether particles—luminous, unstable—swirled in a simulation of cellular absorption.
"Biologically, a functioning Aether Core acts as a regulator," she began, her voice clinical. "It filters raw Aether, converting it into usable energy while preventing cellular degradation. Without it, the body has no defense against Aether's corrosive properties."
The hologram shifted, zooming into the bloodstream of a Null infant. Red blood cells ruptured as rogue Aether particles collided with them, their membranes dissolving like paper in acid.
"Normally, Aether integration follows a controlled, enzymatic breakdown within the Core's matrix. But in Nulls,"—she swiped again, revealing a spiraling DNA strand—"the Aether binds directly to mitochondrial DNA, causing catastrophic replication errors."
A student in the front row raised a hand. "So, it's like radiation poisoning?"
Maya's lips thinned. "Worse. Radiation damages. Aether rewrites. At a cellular level, it forces mutations, warping tissue into something... else."
"But sometimes," Maya continued, pulling up a classified file labeled FALLEN, "they survive." The screen displayed a hulking, multi-limbed horror—a humanoid shape with too many eyes, its flesh bubbling with unstable energy. "Their bodies mutate to absorb Aether chaotically. These are the Fallen. Mindless. Ravenous. And nearly unkillable."
She pulled up a scan of a Fallen's limb—muscle fibers twisted into barbed tendrils, bone reformed into serrated blades. "These aren't random deformities. They're adaptations. The body, desperate to survive, hijacks Aether to restructure itself—but without a Core's guidance, the process is pure chaos."
Another student whistled. "So Nulls are just pre-monsters."
"Were," Maya corrected sharply. "The last recorded Null birth was fifty-three years ago. The infant lived seventeen seconds before..." She trailed off as the hologram played the footage: the baby's wails cutting off as its skin split open like overripe fruit.
Drake's fingers twitched. The holographic Fallen pulsed, it's too-many eyes blinking in eerie unison.
"The most terrifying aspect?" Maya tapped the screen. The image froze on the creature's gaping maw. "Fallen don't just consume flesh. They assimilate Aether signatures. Every victim makes them stronger. More intelligent. Theoretically, given enough biomass, one could achieve metastable sentience."
Silence.
Maya shut off the hologram. "Fifty-three years ago, the last known Null was terminated mid-transformation. But the real question remains—" Her gaze swept the room, lingering on Drake. "What if one survived?"
The air turned to ice.