(Trama Log_000007 – Subject anomaly stabilizing. Monitoring changes...)

  3:48 AM – The Woman in Red, the Whisper Between Worlds

  Fuchur was already moving before the door opened.

  A shift in posture, a ripple through her body—the transformation began before Lorenz could register it.

  By the time he stepped inside, she was nothing more than a Sharbat Gula servant, her white hair concealed beneath a deep red veil, except for a single, deliberate streak.

  But before she left, she leaned in close, her lips barely parting, the words a whisper in the air itself.

  — "Your new limb will be ready soon—a proof of my loyalty. And by the way, you have good taste... but I know I'm not the one you desire."

  The words slipped into his mind like silk, bypassing sound, bypassing distance.

  Tariq stiffened.

  He knew what this was. The kiss had been more than a collection of DNA.

  She had placed something inside him.

  (Trama Log_000007 – Quantum integration confirmed. Subject Tariq Nasser linked to anomaly Fuchur.)

  Lorenz stepped forward, eyes scanning the room with casual disinterest.

  — "Routine check."

  His voice was cool, controlled. A lie.

  Fuchur lowered her head in a perfectly rehearsed gesture of obedience.

  Lorenz placed a hand lightly on her back as he escorted her out, his gaze flickering over his shoulder to Tariq.

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  A glance that meant many things at once.

  Then, Fuchur stepped past the threshold—and in a breath, she was gone.

  Her entire genetic structure recalibrated in an instant, skin shifting, bones realigning.

  By the time she disappeared into the corridors of Vessel, she was no longer an anomaly.

  She was nothing more than another worker among the endless Sharbat Gula.

  (Trama Log_000007 – Entity fully camouflaged. Anomaly undetectable.)

  4:12 AM – The Dream in the Desert of Stars

  Tariq was sinking.

  Dark water curled around his skin, pulling him deeper into a black lake without a surface, without an end.

  He did not struggle.

  The weight of his body felt natural in the void, as if he belonged here.

  And then—he fell.

  The descent shattered into a different reality, a vast desert where the sand gleamed like crushed diamonds.

  Above him, there was no sky, only a canvas of shifting constellations.

  He walked forward, barefoot, feeling the cool sand beneath him, feeling the stars beneath him.

  And then, they appeared.

  Two sphinxes, statuesque and eternal, their feline bodies stretched in perfect symmetry.

  They did not speak at first.

  They did not need to.

  Their golden eyes burned into his soul, and the question was already there, waiting to be answered.

  — "What is the purest form of love?"

  Tariq hesitated.

  His mind flickered through possibilities, through words spoken in different lifetimes.

  But before he could respond, the sphinxes moved.

  They opened their mouths, and from them, blinding silver light erupted, striking his leg.

  Pain and rebirth.

  Fire and creation.

  And when he gasped awake—he was whole.

  (Trama Log_000007 – Biological reconstruction complete.)

  Lorenz never knocked.

  It wasn't his style.

  He came to offer something. That's what he always did.

  Gifts in exchange for devotion. Upgrades in exchange for love.

  He had already prepared his words. A prototype. The best prosthetic. A rare opportunity.

  And then, he saw.

  Tariq stood in front of the mirror, completely nude.

  His reflection was not the boy Lorenz had known before.

  It was a man who had been made whole.

  The missing leg—it was there, seamlessly a part of him, the muscles sculpted, the skin new yet familiar.

  Lorenz's breath hitched.

  A thousand thoughts warred inside his mind, but none of them formed into words.

  Tariq ran a hand over his thigh, testing, flexing, admiring his own body, as if he, too, had just woken into something unreal.

  The room was heavy with something indescribable.

  Not just sexuality. Not just desire.

  Something dangerous.

  Something that changed things.

  Lorenz did not speak.

  He just closed the door behind him, pressing his palm flat against the cold surface as if grounding himself, as if trying to silence the chaos unraveling inside him.

  (Trama Log_000007 – Subject Hartmann's neurochemical activity has spiked. Reassessing stability...)