The City could not grow upward unless its roots siphoned the very life out of its people.

  It wasn’t written in the textbooks of the Lower Sector, but every child knew the rule. The Culling Act dictated a brutal mathematics of survival: for every new life, the Consortium allocated a strict quota of resources.

  Twins were a system bug, a biological error disrupting the balance. One earned the right to breathe. The other was returned to the system. As surplus. As living foundation.

  Kai and Avelo were eight years old when the Enforcers in white polymer armor came for them.

  The distribution block buzzed under the harsh, sterile glare of fluorescent lights reflecting off the steel floor grate. Beneath the grate, there was no bottom. Only the Abyss — a black, slowly pulsating mass of the Substrate, waiting for a new fusion.

  Kai trembled, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of the metal bench. He stared at his brother in terror. Avelo sat beside him, perfectly still. There were no tears in his eyes, no fear. Only a strange, terrifying clarity, as if he could see something the others couldn't.

  "Time," the officer stated dryly, checking his datapad. "Specimen 7-A. For disposal. Specimen 7-B. To the incubator."

  The Enforcer stepped toward Avelo. Kai lunged forward with a scream, desperate to fight for his brother, but a careless, lazy strike from a gauntleted hand threw him against the wall. The air rushed out of the boy’s lungs with a sharp hiss.

  Avelo stood up on his own. He walked to the edge of the grate, which began to slide apart with a heavy metallic clank. A primal, damp cold drifted up from the chasm. The boy turned and looked at the gasping Kai.

  "Don't cry," Avelo's voice sounded unnaturally even, cutting through the hum of machinery. "You see death, brother. But I see a garden. For the City above to live, someone must grow into its roots."

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  "Avelo, no!" Kai wheezed, struggling to stand on trembling legs.

  "I will wait for you in the dark," Avelo smiled. And took a step back.

  He didn't scream as he fell. The black mass surged upward to meet him, entangling the boy’s body in hundreds of pulsating, glossy tendrils. The Abyss didn't devour — it integrated, greedily wiring the new nervous system into its network as the metal grate slid shut.

  Kai screamed. Despair shattered the dam of his fear. When the officer stepped toward him to grab him by the scruff and drag him to the incubator, the boy launched himself forward like a cornered animal. He sank his teeth right into the narrow strip of bare skin between the Enforcer's glove and bracer.

  The officer hissed at the sudden pain, violently throwing the child off in disgust.

  "Specimen 7-B exhibits uncontrollable aggression," the Enforcer snarled, wiping a drop of blood from his wrist and activating his stun baton. An arc of blue sparks crackled in the air. "Emotional defect. Incubator canceled. Scrap them both."

  The armored figure loomed over him, but primal terror moved faster than thought. Kai rolled across the filthy floor and dove headfirst into a narrow, ungrated maintenance vent right by the wall.

  A grown man in Consortium armor couldn't squeeze in there if he tried. Skin scraped against rusted metal, his lungs burned, but Kai crawled deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of pipes until the angry shouts of the Enforcers and the wail of sirens faded away far above.

  Here, in the pitch-black shaft, there was only choking dust and the heavy silence of the end of the world. Kai curled into a ball, wrapping his torn, trembling arms around his knees. The tears finally broke free. He was alone. The system had won.

  Suddenly, the metal beneath his back began to vibrate.

  Kai froze, holding his breath. From the seams of the ventilation pipe, right through the rivets, a thick black liquid began to seep. It didn't drip down. Defying all laws of physics, it crawled up the walls, weaving into thin, glowing neon-purple veins.

  The black threads intertwined right in front of the paralyzed boy's face, forming a kind of pulsating cocoon. And then, the metal of the shaft spoke.

  It wasn't a metallic screech. It was a whisper, coming from everywhere and nowhere, resonating directly inside his skull.

  "It's so warm here, Kai..."

  The boy clamped both hands over his mouth to stifle a scream. It was Avelo's voice. But there was nothing human left in it. It was the voice of an ancient, colossal entity that had just gained consciousness.

  "The roots need a pulse, brother," the Substrate whispered with the voice of an eight-year-old boy. "Who will we weave into our network tomorrow?"