THE ANATOMY OF SILENCE

Location: Southern France – Lavender Farm

The sun bled across the horizon as Elise traced the ridges of a bird's wing in her sketchpad. Her fingers moved with instinct, but her mind… it wavered.

Something had changed since they destroyed Erebus.

She could feel it like a cold breath behind her thoughts.

Max entered quietly, carrying two mugs of tea. He placed one beside her.

"You slept?"

Elise shook her head. "Not really. Too many ghosts."

Max sat beside her on the bench. "Ghosts can't hurt us anymore."

She glanced at him.

"What if one of them was never a ghost to begin with?"

Location: Rothwood Satellite Archives – Istanbul, Turkey

Lena had gone solo.

Encrypted intel from a dead agent—Dr. Madeline Kray's last upload—had hinted at something overlooked: a seventh Lazarus prototype, one that never made it into the cryo-chambers.

Project name: HYMNOS.

Kray's note was brief:

"Subject not listed. Not scanned. Because he never entered the experiment.Because he was the one running it."

Lena stared at the data core in disbelief.

No photograph. No biological data. Just a codename.

Subject H-0: The Conductor

Location: Lavender Farm – That Night

Elise jolted awake, gasping, skin clammy. The sketchpad had fallen from her lap. Her drawing had changed.

She didn't remember sketching it.

A figure cloaked in black feathers, standing over a field of corpses, holding a music conductor's baton made of bone.

Eyes hollow.

Face blurred.

She tore the page out, but her hand was already shaking.

"Max…" she called, rising unsteadily.

The farmhouse was dark.

No answer.

Just a single note on the kitchen table.

"We were never alone in the program. – L"

Suddenly, every shadow in the house looked alive.

FLASHBACK – Lazarus Observation Chamber, 2010

Elise had been strapped into the synaptic chair, sweat beading down her neck.

Across the chamber, behind bulletproof glass, a man watched her.

He wasn't listed in any files. Didn't wear Rothwood insignia.

He never spoke. Just observed. Sometimes with curiosity, sometimes with eerie calm.

Edward Hamilton called him "The Listener."

Others whispered a different name:

"Subject Zero."

Present – Paris Metro Tunnels

Lena moved swiftly through the abandoned subway access points, following the GPS ping from Kray's data shard. The network ended beneath an unused vault labeled "HYMNOS – Sector X."

She unsealed the hatch.

Dust and stale air.

A long corridor lit by flickering sodium lights.

And then… a room full of mirrors.

Each mirror reflected not her — but faces of the Lazarus subjects. Frozen mid-expression. Horror. Ecstasy. Madness.

All except the final mirror.

Which showed Lena herself, as a child.

Sitting in a chair.

Screaming.

Back at the Farm

Max returned near midnight, tension in his jaw.

"Elise?"

She was staring at the torn sketch.

"I drew him again," she murmured.

Max frowned. "Who?"

Elise held up the image.

"He's leaking in through the cracks. I can feel him."

Max touched her hand. "There's no one left. Lazarus is dead."

Elise slowly turned to him.

Then whispered, barely audible:

"Then why is someone writing in my dreams?"

Zurich – Recovered Rothwood Footage

Lena watched grainy black-and-white video from a corrupted drive.

Date stamp: March 5th, 2007.

Inside a windowless room, Edward Hamilton stood beside a chair. In the chair: a child — seven, maybe eight — hooked to a memory grid.

Edward spoke.

"The subject's brain isn't reacting to trauma. It's emitting… harmony."

The boy opened his eyes.

And smiled.

Then the lights exploded.

End of footage.

Lena stepped back from the screen, stunned.

That boy wasn't Elise. Or Max. Or anyone they knew.

He was the core.

The conductor.

Subject H-0.

Back at the Farm – 3:14 AM

Elise stood barefoot in the field, her nightgown soaked with dew.

Max found her there, unmoving.

"Elise?"

She didn't turn.

"I can hear him," she said.

"Who?"

She finally faced him.

And her eyes…

were bleeding.

Not blood.

Ink.

Thick black liquid trailing down her cheeks like tears.

"His voice is in my sleep," she said. "He's playing us. We were never free."

Then she collapsed.

FLASHBACK – Elise's Last Session

As the synaptic wave pulsed through her, Elise saw not memory… but a song.

Not music.

A frequency.

Perfect. Sinister. Recursive.

The Conductor's gift.

The real Lazarus seed.

Present – French Clinic

Max paced outside the hospital room as Lena arrived.

"She's stable," he muttered. "But whatever's inside her… it's not damage. It's a code."

Lena pulled out the hard drive from Istanbul.

She connected it to her tablet, opened the last file.

The screen flickered.

Then a single line of text:

"THE SONG WAKES THE DEAD."

Max froze.

"That's what she said in her sleep."

Then a file auto-played.

Audio: a distorted lullaby. Off-key. Backward. The same tune Elise used to hum at Rothwood when she was afraid.

Max whispered:

"This was implanted in all of us."

Lena nodded grimly.

"Whoever Subject Zero is… he's not finished."

Scene Shift – Unknown Underground Chamber

A piano echoes through an abandoned hall.

A single figure stands by a desk, watching multiple monitors.

On each screen: Max. Elise. Lena.

The figure hums the lullaby, slowly, precisely.

Then speaks — voice calm, elegant:

"It's time for the final composition."

He lifts a conductor's baton.

Turns to a wall of dormant clones in cryo-caskets.

And whispers:

"Begin the overture."

End of Chapter 15