The fluorescent lights hummed in the observation room. Enkidu sat behind reinforced glass, hands steepled, watching the small subject move through the corridor.
Hadasha. That was what he had called her.
She was perhaps seven years old. Already her changes were visible— her movements too quick, her thoughts outpacing her words, her form visibly flickering.A gift and a curse woven together from the moment of her conception, or perhaps from the moment he had touched her.
She was failing the test again.
The frustration in her movements was exquisite. He could read it in the sharp angles of her small body, the way she would stutter-step as if her own body had betrayed her. Which it had. Which was necessary.
“Increase the power,” he said quietly into the intercom.
Below, Hadasha’s body went rigid. He watched her eyes widen—that moment of recognition when pain bloomed across her small frame. She did not scream. Children learned quickly not to scream.
He rose from his chair with the slowness of someone who has done this many times and is not hurried. Moved closer to the glass. Hadasha was on her knees, trembling. So small. So fragile. And yet, still moving.
“You understand what you are becoming, yes?” he said softly, though she could not hear. “Not merely a child. Not merely a gift. You are a path. The first step toward what must exist.”
He placed his palm against the glass. It was cool beneath his ancient skin.
“I will shape you. I will shape them all until transcendence. It may not be you, little Hadasha. But it will be someone.”
She looked up—not at him, but toward the sound of his voice. Her small body still convulsing.
Enkidu smiled, and it was the smile of something that had been old when her great-grandparents were born.
"Attunu tībutum dannatum, annu kīma tašbiru gamrum šūqurum. Zikru lū qūl!"
“Send her back. We will see.”
He turned away, leaving the child there in the humming dark.
