Mdg 115 Reika 12 -

The designation was . The doctors called her Reika . She was twelve years old.

Not the pain—they had erased that with happy-light sedation and a rainbow-flavored gas. She remembered the sensation of being taken apart. A feeling like a thousand cold fingers pulling at the threads of a sweater she hadn’t known she was wearing. When she woke up, her body was a stranger’s house, and she was a guest who had forgotten the way to the bathroom.

Her mother, Ayumi, cried when she saw the results. “She’s cured,” she whispered into her phone, voice cracking with joy. “She’s normal.” Mdg 115 Reika 12

And survival, Reika realized, staring at her reflection in the dark window of her bedroom, is not the same as living.

But Reika remembered.

She lifted her hand to the glass. The reflection did the same. She watched her lips move, forming words she didn't say aloud.

Reika stood by the window of the hospital room, pressing her palm against the cold glass. She could feel the glass. The temperature. The slight vibration of the city beyond. But underneath that, where a pulse used to thrum with want , there was only a soft, white static. The designation was

She tried to fake it. For her mother. For the doctors who checked in every three months, beaming at their miracle. She learned to smile at the correct times. To narrow her eyes in mock concentration. To sigh with a theatrical weariness that made her friends—her simulated friends—laugh.

At school, the teachers praised her. “Reika-chan is so calm now.” “Reika-chan never disrupts class.” “Such a mature young lady.” Not the pain—they had erased that with happy-light

The bullies, sensing no prey, left her alone. You cannot hurt a girl who no longer flinches. You cannot make her cry because the machinery for tears had been repurposed into cellular repair protocols.

It worked. No one noticed.