PROJECT PM-0
The hospital had no clocks.
The doctors said clocks made children anxious. Time created expectation, and expectation created deterioration. So the walls remained bare except for observation notes, emergency procedures, and the phrase painted above the dining hall in thick black letters:
STRONG CHILDREN ADAPT.
Every child memorized it eventually.
Some because they believed it.
Most because the doctors punished hesitation.
Still, even without clocks, every child knew when it became 3:17 a.m.
The pipes inside the walls always shook first.
Once.
Just enough for the bedframes to tremble softly against the floor.
After that came the sound of wheels somewhere beneath the building. Slow metal wheels rolling through darkness.
Then silence.
Then disappearance.
At 3:17 a.m., someone always vanished.
Sometimes a child. Sometimes a doctor. Once an entire row of beds disappeared before morning inspection and nobody spoke about it afterward.
The doctors said noticing unnecessary things caused instability.
I learned quickly not to notice things.
That was why the doctors liked me.
My number was MF-4.
The metal tag around my wrist had rusted underneath the strap. Sometimes I scratched at the skin until it bled because I wanted to know whether the metal had started growing into me while I slept. The doctors punished children who removed their tags. One boy tried peeling his off with his teeth during Playtime.
They found pieces of his gums beneath the sink afterward.
He entered deep sleep before dinner.
The hospital smelled different depending on the hallway.
The upper floors smelled like medicine and wet sheets. The lower floors smelled like burned hair. The Bright Room smelled like antiseptic poured over rotten meat.
The smell used to make MF-5 gag.
Eventually she stopped reacting.
That was how you knew someone was adapting.
Every morning began the same way.
The bell rang once.
We stood beside our beds.
We thanked the doctors for protecting us. We thanked the doctors for correcting us. We thanked the doctors for helping us become strong.
Then we ate in silence.
The food was always warm.
That bothered me more than the screaming.
Everything else inside the hospital was cold. The walls. The spoons. The water. The doctors’ hands.
Only the food stayed warm.
Once MF-8 asked where the food came from.
The doctor smiled at him all through breakfast.
After the meal ended, the doctor removed MF-8’s lower jaw using a surgical saw while the rest of us cleaned our trays.
MF-8 stayed alive for almost two days afterward.
The sounds he made no longer sounded human. Wet choking noises leaked constantly from the hole beneath his face. Strings of saliva and blood soaked the front of his gown while he stared at us with huge terrified eyes that never seemed to blink.
The doctors kept him inside the dining hall so we could continue observing him while we ate.
“Questions create instability,” one doctor explained calmly while adjusting MF-8’s feeding tube.
MF-8 entered deep sleep during the night.
The next morning his teeth appeared inside the soup.
Nobody reacted.
The doctors wrote something beside our numbers after that.
MF-5 used to whisper during lights-out.
Not loudly.
Just enough for me to hear her from the bed beside mine.
Most children eventually stopped speaking unless the doctors asked direct questions, but MF-5 still asked things nobody should ask.
One night she asked whether I remembered my mother.
I told her no.
That was mostly true.
Sometimes I remembered warmth. A woman humming softly. A hand touching my forehead.
But the memories always ended the same way.
A baby crying.
Constant. Wet. Unstopping.
Then silence.
I never told MF-5 about that part.
“I think I remember hair,” she whispered one night. “Someone touching my hair.”
She laughed quietly afterward.
“Maybe I made it up.”
I asked her why she still talked so much.
“Because silence means they’re winning.”
I did not understand what she meant.
The doctors called the black rooms Playtime.
Every child had their own room.
No windows. No corners. No light.
The walls were padded because children used to break their fingers trying to escape. Sometimes the doctors forgot to clean the blood properly. You could feel dried patches beneath the padding if you pressed hard enough.
Inside the black room, time stopped behaving correctly.
You heard things.
Scratching inside walls. Breathing through vents. Children whispering beside your ears even when nobody else was inside.
The worst part was the crying.
Sometimes during Playtime I heard a baby crying somewhere above the ceiling vent.
Not loudly.
Just constantly.
Hours passed without the sound changing.
The crying crawled into your head slowly. After enough time it stopped sounding like noise and started sounding like pressure.
The first time it happened I covered my ears until my nails tore skin.
The crying continued.
I slammed my forehead against the padded wall hard enough to taste blood.
The crying continued.
Then suddenly:
Silence.
Complete silence.
My entire body relaxed immediately.
Not happiness.
Relief.
Warm relief spreading through my chest.
I smiled before realizing I was smiling.
That frightened me more than the crying itself.
When the doctors opened the room again, one of them wrote something beside my number.
He looked pleased.
The Bright Room came after winter.
The doctors stopped taking children individually into Playtime and started bringing groups downstairs instead.
The Bright Room was worse because it allowed you to see everything.
Metal restraints bolted into tables. Silver tools soaking inside cloudy liquid. Drain holes in the floor darkened by old blood.
The lights buzzed constantly overhead.
MF-2 started screaming the first time he entered.
Not because anybody touched him.
Because he recognized the room.
“I know this place,” he kept repeating. “I know this place.”
The doctors restrained him gently while he screamed.
One doctor stroked his hair almost affectionately while another inserted a tube through his throat.
MF-2 convulsed until one of the vertebrae in his neck cracked loudly enough for all of us to hear.
Three days later one of his fingernails appeared beneath my bread during breakfast.
MF-5 stopped eating after that.
The doctor sat beside her calmly while she stared at the tray.
“You are associating incorrectly,” he explained softly. “Emotion and matter are separate things.”
MF-5 vomited across the table.
The doctor smiled sadly and wrote something beside her number.
One night MF-5 woke me by shaking my shoulder.
“The doctor called MF-2,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes again.
“So?”
“Let’s follow him.”
I told her no.
She asked again.
I still followed her.
I do not know why.
The hallway lights were dim during night rounds. We watched from behind the medicine cabinet while MF-2 stood inside the doctor’s office.
A doctor kneeled in front of him holding chocolate.
Real chocolate.
I had forgotten the smell.
Sweet. Warm. Almost painful.
MF-2 grabbed it immediately and started eating.
MF-5 smiled softly beside me.
“He’s lucky,” she whispered.
While she said that, I looked at her instead.
For some reason my chest started beating very fast.
Before MF-2 could leave the office, MF-5 grabbed my wrist and pulled me back toward the dormitory.
She laughed quietly while we ran.
That was the happiest sound I remember hearing inside the hospital.
The next morning MF-2 did not wake up.
A doctor checked his pulse and smiled gently.
“He entered deep sleep peacefully.”
MF-5 stood up immediately.
“He gave him chocolate,” she shouted. “He called him during the night.”
The dining hall became completely silent.
The doctor slowly turned toward her.
His smile never disappeared.
That was the last normal day.
After that the lessons became harsher.
The doctors taught us there were only two kinds of people.
Strong. Weak.
Strong children adapted. Weak children resisted correction.
Strong children survived. Weak children entered deep sleep.
At first the lessons sounded stupid.
Then enough children disappeared that the lessons stopped sounding stupid.
MF-13 cried during inspection once because she missed her brother.
The doctor nodded sympathetically.
Then he removed both of her thumbnails using surgical pliers while the rest of us continued eating.
MF-13 screamed until she fainted.
The doctor placed her fingernails beside our trays afterward.
“Attachment spreads deterioration,” he explained.
That night MF-13 cried quietly into her pillow.
MF-1 stared at her for a very long time before whispering:
“Weak.”
Eventually only four children remained.
MF-1. MF-5. MF-13. Me.
One morning the doctors gathered us beside the observation glass overlooking the lower floors.
“The sleeping children can still awaken,” one doctor explained.
MF-13 immediately looked up hopefully.
“How?”
“We require PM-0.”
MF-13 frowned.
“What is PM-0?”
The doctor pointed toward us.
“You will become PM.”
MF-13 smiled.
“So we can save them?”
The doctor nodded slowly.
“If you become strong enough.”
MF-13 believed him.
After the doctors left, MF-1 stared at her for a very long time.
“You still believe them,” he whispered.
MF-13 looked confused.
“They said we can wake everyone.”
MF-1 suddenly grabbed her throat.
Not angrily.
Calmly.
MF-13 clawed at his arms while choking. Her nails tore strips of skin from his wrists. Blood ran across both of them while her face slowly darkened beneath his hands.
Tears rolled down MF-1’s face the entire time.
Not sadness.
Relief.
When she finally stopped moving, her bladder released across the floor beneath her legs.
MF-1 looked directly into my eyes.
“She was weak,” he whispered.
I looked at MF-13’s body.
“I don’t care,” I answered.
The next morning her bed was empty.
The pipes shook harder that night.
After that the doctors stopped treating us like children entirely.
Instead they spoke around us.
“Attachment instability persists.” “Possible inherited aggression confirmed.” “Subject MF-4 demonstrates promising stabilization responses.”
I did not understand the words completely.
But afterward I started dreaming more often.
A man standing in darkness listening to breathing through a door. A woman holding something silently against her chest. Warm hands. Humming. Crying.
Then silence.
Always silence.
The doctors tested us differently after that.
One night they told us our parents had come.
MF-1 immediately started crying.
Real crying.
Not silent tears.
Hope.
The doctors watched him carefully while writing notes.
“You miss them?” one doctor asked softly.
MF-1 nodded immediately.
“Yes.”
The doctor smiled sadly.
“I lied.”
MF-1 froze.
“You failed the test.”
I already knew what deep sleep meant by then.
The doctors carried MF-1 into the Bright Room.
Before they closed the doors, I spoke.
“Don’t let him sleep peacefully.”
One of the doctors looked surprised.
“Why?”
“He was weak,” I answered. “I thought he was different.”
The doctor smiled proudly at me after that.
For the first time, he touched my shoulder warmly.
Inside the Bright Room they poured antiseptic across MF-1’s body.
The smell filled the room immediately.
Sharp. Cold. Familiar.
MF-1 looked at me while they tied him down.
Not angry.
Just tired.
“She still talks to you,” he whispered weakly. “She still thinks you’re different.”
Then the doctors lit the fire.
Not violently.
Carefully.
Clinically.
The flames spread slowly across his chest first. Skin tightened, blackened, then split open beneath the heat. Fat bubbled through the cracks while smoke crawled upward toward the buzzing lights above us.
MF-1 screamed hard enough to cough blood across the restraints.
The doctors adjusted the flames repeatedly to prolong consciousness.
One monitored his pulse. One recorded breathing patterns. One calmly ate from a tray near the observation glass while MF-1 burned.
But eventually even the screaming weakened.
That was when the doctors became happy.
Not relieved.
Happy.
They smiled at each other. Talked softly. Almost excited.
I stared at them through the smell of burned flesh and wondered:
If emotion was weakness…
Why were they smiling?
Why were they laughing quietly together?
Why did they still sound human while we no longer did?
That thought stayed inside me longer than the screaming.
Eventually only MF-5 and I remained.
The baby appeared in the Bright Room three days later.
Inside a metal crib.
Too small. Too quiet.
The crying started almost immediately.
Not desperate.
Just constant.
Persistent enough to crawl beneath the skin.
Hours passed.
The crying never changed.
MF-5 covered her ears.
I stared at the baby.
Something inside my head felt familiar.
Not memory.
Recognition.
The crying continued.
My teeth started hurting first. Then my jaw. Then my thoughts.
The doctors observed us silently from behind the glass.
One finally asked:
“How long can instability continue before correction becomes mercy?”
Nobody answered.
Then the pipes shook.
The lights dimmed once.
The crying stopped.
The silence that followed felt warm.
Relieving.
Perfect.
I looked down.
My hands were wrapped around the baby’s throat.
I did not remember crossing the room.
Its eyes remained open. Its mouth moved once soundlessly.
MF-5 stared at me in horror.
Behind the observation glass, the doctors applauded softly.
One whispered:
“PM-0.”
For the first time in my life, the room felt calm.
MF-5 stopped speaking emotionally after that.
She still answered questions. Still walked. Still ate.
But something behind her eyes had already started dying.
One night during lights-out she whispered:
“If we leave here, do you think we stay like this?”
I asked what she meant.
She looked at me for a very long time.
“Empty.”
I wanted to answer.
Instead I asked whether she still heard the crying.
She froze.
Then nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
That was the last real conversation we ever had.
The doctors brought MF-5 into the Bright Room during night rounds.
They did not restrain her.
That frightened me more than restraints would have.
One doctor asked calmly:
“Do you still experience attachment?”
MF-5 looked at me instead of answering.
The silence lasted too long.
The doctors considered silence dishonesty.
They poured antiseptic across her body first.
Then they burned her.
Not violently.
Carefully.
Clinically.
The smell of burned skin mixed with antiseptic until breathing became difficult.
MF-5 screamed at first.
Then begged.
Then apologized.
“I’m sorry,” she kept crying. “I’m sorry.” “I’m sorry.”
The doctors observed me more closely than they observed her.
One leaned beside me and whispered:
“How do you feel?”
I looked at MF-5.
Or what remained of her.
My chest hurt again.
But weaker this time.
Like something inside me was finally dying correctly.
“She was weak,” I answered.
The doctors smiled proudly.
One whispered softly:
“Continuation confirmed.”
After that they stopped speaking to me like I was human.
Sometimes I woke during night rounds pretending to sleep while doctors stood beside my bed writing notes.
“Identity erosion complete.” “Empathy response nearly removed.” “PM-0 stabilization successful.”
The soldiers arrived during morning inspection.
Gunfire exploded through the hallways. Doctors shouted. Children screamed somewhere below us.
For the first time, the hospital sounded afraid.
A soldier kicked open the dormitory doors.
He froze immediately.
At first I did not understand why.
Then I looked at the walls.
The padded surfaces were covered in writing scratched by children’s fingernails.
MAKE IT STOP.
HE IS STILL CRYING.
MOTHER SAID I WAS SAFE.
IT ONLY STOPS WHEN YOU HOLD IT HARD ENOUGH.
A soldier entered the Bright Room.
He vomited instantly.
Another shouted for body bags.
Someone else started praying.
The soldiers kept asking where the doctors went.
I looked toward the lower hallway where the pipes disappeared into darkness.
“The crying stopped,” I answered.
Nobody understood.
One soldier kneeled carefully in front of me.
“You’re safe now,” he whispered.
Safe.
The word felt warm.
Familiar.
Rotten.
Something almost returned to me then.
A woman humming softly. A man listening to breathing through darkness. A baby crying endlessly somewhere nearby.
Then silence.
Always silence.
I looked at the soldier.
“Do babies stop crying when they die?” I asked.
The room became completely silent.
Nobody answered.
The pipes inside the walls shook once more before sunrise.
Then stopped permanently.