Chapter Text
Prologue
On the Ark, people used to say that family was a luxury — and that luxuries were dangerous. That was why there were no siblings. No clusters of children running through the corridors, no noise that in another world would have meant life. There were rules. Quotas. Limits. And above all, there was silence — the kind that seeped into metal walls and human skin alike, teaching everyone that every breath was borrowed.
Ophelia was alone, then — in the most literal sense. An only child not by choice, but by decree. For a long time, though, she did not feel lonely. She had her mother. And her mother, even while dying, could fill their small living quarters with something the Ark could never manufacture: warmth. Gentleness. The quiet conviction that the world could still be good.
Before the illness accelerated, their life had been simple. Modest. Structured. Ophelia liked structure — she liked when things had rules and patterns. She learned faster than most children her age, but she did not like being noticed for it. She preferred to stay on the edges, watching, analyzing, building mental maps of behavior and routine. Her mind had always worked like a precise machine, especially when emotions threatened to take control.
Her father was an Ark Guard.
A security officer. A man tasked with enforcing the laws that kept the Ark alive. He wore his uniform the way others wore their skin — naturally, without question. When Ophelia was younger, she used to wait by the door for him, recognizing his mood by the sound of his footsteps alone. Some days his steps were heavy with exhaustion. Other days clipped and sharp. Her mother could soften him with a single sentence, a quiet laugh, and suddenly their apartment would feel safe again.
They had been close. Truly close.
Her father taught her how to hold tools, how to read instructions, how to think logically. He never treated her like a child who needed to be guided by the hand — he treated her like someone who understood. To Ophelia, that had meant more than affection. It had meant trust.
Then her mother began to disappear.
Not dramatically, the way illness was described in books. Quietly. First, she grew short of breath after climbing a few steps. Then her hands trembled when holding a cup. Then exhaustion became permanent. Ophelia noticed everything with her unnerving attentiveness: how often her mother paused in the hallway, how long it took her to stand, how her scent changed — from warm and familiar to sterile and chemical.
The doctors spoke carefully. Too carefully. Always calmly, as though they were discussing a malfunctioning filter rather than a person. Her father listened with his jaw clenched, nodding, saying nothing. He knew the rules. He knew the limits. The Ark did not waste resources on lost causes.
Her mother smiled even when she no longer had the strength to do so.
When her mother’s birthday approached, Ophelia understood — not from words, not from conversations, but from facts — that it would likely be the last. The thought came suddenly, cruel in its clarity. The last birthday. The last chance to give her something that said you matter without begging.
She wanted to buy a gift. Of course she did. But on the Ark, nothing was “just.” Everything was rationed, calculated, assigned priority. Oxygen, food, energy — those mattered. Jewelry did not.
And then she saw it.
In a sector used for confiscated and decommissioned items — objects seized by Ark Guards, forgotten, marked for recycling. Ophelia had been sent there to retrieve a small part for a device meant to improve the air quality in their apartment. She remembered how harsh the lighting was that day, how her thoughts raced: about her mother, about time, about how nothing could be stopped.
The necklace lay in a small transparent pouch. Thin. Delicate. A tiny stone that could almost pass for a star. Worthless to the system. Priceless to Ophelia. In a single second, she imagined it around her mother’s neck. Imagined her smile. Imagined a moment where everything was normal again.
She did not plan it.
There was no scheme. No rebellion. She was not a criminal. She was a child trying to steal a fragment of light from the dark.
Her fingers closed around the pouch faster than logic could intervene. Her heart slammed against her ribs.
Then the door opened.
She turned.
And saw her father.
He stood in the doorway in his Ark Guard uniform, the corridor light cutting sharp lines across his face. For a heartbeat, he did not look like an officer. He looked like a man watching something inside himself break.
Ophelia froze.
The pouch burned in her palm like evidence.
“Ophelia,” he said quietly.
Not what are you doing? Not why? Just her name — the way he used to say it when waking her from nightmares.
“It’s for Mom,” she blurted out, too fast, too honest. “For her birthday. She’s— she’s—”
The word dying refused to pass her lips.
Her father stepped into the room. The air thickened. In that moment, there was no daughter and no father. Only an Ark Guard and a violation.
“Put it back,” he said.
His voice trembled — just slightly — but Ophelia heard it. She always did.
“Please,” she whispered. “Just this once. She’s dying.”
For a single moment, his face truly fractured. As though he might reach for her. As though he might pretend the system did not exist.
Then the uniform returned.
He was not cruel. He was conditioned. He had been taught that the law was greater than love. That covering this up would cost him everything — his position, his clearance, his access to medical systems, perhaps even the right to be at his wife’s bedside in her final days.
“I can’t erase this,” he said softly.
And then he did the thing Ophelia would never fully forgive.
He took out the restraints.
“No,” she stepped back until her shoulders hit the metal shelving. “Don’t do this. Please.”
The cuffs closed around her wrists with a sharp metallic click — too large, too cold, too heavy. She was a child.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
This time, he looked her in the eyes.
And what she saw there hurt more than prison ever could: shame. Guilt. And fear — not of her, but of what he had just done.
He walked her through the corridors like a stranger. Like a number. The lights were too bright, the footsteps too loud, the air too dense. She wanted to scream that it was love, that it was a birthday gift, that it was mercy.
But the Ark did not recognize mercy as a defense.
In the interrogation room, questions blurred together. She signed something with shaking hands. Her father stood aside and never once said, This is my child.
When the cell door finally closed behind her, Ophelia understood she had lost two things at once: her freedom — and the belief that family was a refuge.
Days later, the notice of her mother’s death arrived. Cold. Administrative. Her father did not come.
Ophelia did not cry.
She sat on her bunk and stared at the wall until pain lost its shape.
And in the space where love had been, something else began to grow — a cold, precise understanding that the system did not care about intention.
Only obedience.
And that the deepest betrayals were not always born of hatred.
Sometimes, they were born of duty