Work Text:
Tuesday, September 3rd, 2002
It had been business as usual at the Museum’s production facility that day. The new Gaia Memory design was coming together quite nicely, and the head of the company was in a good mood as he came by to check up on things.
Nine-and-half-year-old Raito’s sudden breakdown changed everything. The young data-human had been writing out notes on his whiteboards as per usual when the contents of his scribblings gradually changed. His handwriting became less precise as he scrawled the same phrase over and over in multiple languages at a fevered pace. The scientist who was minding him for the day grew concerned and alerted his father when he noticed the child’s demeanour changing; it wasn’t out of the ordinary for him to become super-absorbed in what he was doing, but he wasn’t responding to any attempts to get his attention, even as tears began streaming down his face.
It wasn’t until his father physically pulled him away from the whiteboard that Raito reacted to the outside world again. The marker dropped from his shaking hand as he curled in on himself, sobbing in fear.
When asked later, Raito would describe how he could feel something pulling him in while he was in the Gaia Library, something that he couldn’t describe because they’d never taught him to deal with emotions, but it was clear that it had him terribly frightened. It took them months to convince him to enter the Library again, setting Gaia Memory production so far back that they nearly lost Foundation X’s backing.
And try as they might, nobody could understand the significance of the phrase ‘From beneath you It devours’.
THE END