Chapter 12: The Void
Rong Ye didn’t always have a dull gaze, or that way of speaking as if his words could pierce through an invisible wall. There was a time, long ago, when he was just a child like any other.
A happy child.
He lived with his mother in a small apartment on the east side. She worked as a lab technician, and although her salary wasn’t enough for luxury, they managed to survive. Their world seemed simple, but his last name carried a weight he didn’t fully understand.
His mother never spoke about his father. All Rong Ye knew was that his father had been a brilliant scientist who died under dubious circumstances. After his death, Rong Ye’s much older half-siblings—children of the same man and another woman—began to appear in his life.
At first, visits were sporadic, within the small apartment, but little by little they gained their mother’s trust and were allowed to go out with Rong Ye.
Without his mother’s knowledge, he was taken to clandestine laboratories where the tests, genetic analysis, and drugs began. Electrodes were inserted, his neurological responses to various stimuli were measured, and he was placed in sensory isolation capsules.
They explained to him that it was all for his own good, that if they wanted to protect him from the government, they had to do everything in secret. They also told him that he had the potential to become a Guide, but that that potential wasn’t enough. They had to modify his body.
Rong Ye didn’t understand what that meant.
He just knew it hurt.
A lot.
For nearly five years, his body was the testing ground for experiments his family couldn’t perform with state authorization. They altered his nervous system, modified his empathic capacity, and even attempted to induce lucid dreams connected to psychic currents.