Excerpt from the journal of Raiza Lennox: Scientist on the planet of Thill: 

I did not add the extra DNA to the sample. When I did it, I thought I was

taking every precaution to ensure that my baby would grow and live to

breathe air. But now that Eli is here, I am scared that I have done a very

terrible thing. He’s different from the other babies. He cries so much more

than any baby I’ve ever seen. At first I feared it was because his health was waning. 

But he feeds and grows and every blood test I’ve done proves that 

he is in fact healthy. What perplexes me is how he cries, like he is in pain 

or afraid. But the babies of Thill are not afraid of anything. They simply 

exist. Eli does not just exist though, he is experiencing a world that I do 

not think any other human being alive can experience. What exactly did I 

leave out in my desperate attempt to birth a child? 

Eli hadn’t slept in two days. He couldn’t understand it. What in his DNA was different than everyone else? What didn’t she add? Clearly his mother thought this was why he was different, perhaps it was even why he had such horrible dreams. 

He waited, pacing outside of the leader’s castle for hours, his mothers journal in hand. Finally Veer emerged, walking down the steps, his mother and father both standing next to him, talking quickly in a language Eli couldn’t discern. Onyx glanced towards him and turned Veer towards her, whispering quietly to the boy. Veer glanced behind him only for a moment before responding to his mother in the same language. Sayer patted his sons shoulder, saying something else before both turned and walked back into the castle. 

Veer took a breath before turning towards Eli. “Hi.” 

“What was that about?” Eli asked. 

Veer shrugged. “They’re reminding me of my responsibilities to the city. It’s stupid really, all my life they told me I could be whoever I wanted, and now suddenly they’ve changed their minds.” 

Eli chewed on his lip, not wanting to interrupt the other boy, but he was desperate. “I need your help.” He said quickly before pressing the book into Veer’s open hand. 

“Your mothers journal.” Veer said. 

“I found something.” Eli said. “She wrote after my birth of changing something in my father’s… sample.” 

Veer made a face. “Okay? I don’t understand.” 

Eli took the journal back, flipping to the page. “She says here that she left out the extra DNA and that she was afraid that was why I was so different from others.” 

“What do you mean different?” Veer asked. 

Eli sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “I dream, really terrible awful dreams that have frightened me my entire life. And I’ve always been different than the children my age.” 

“Different how?” Veer asked. 

“I guess I’ve been more inquisitive and more reactive with my emotions. Ive always been far more curious than the others.” 

“Ghost…” Veer glanced around before stepping closer. “Eli, those aren’t abnormalities. Everyone dreams.” 

“Not like me. I dream tangible things, actual realities, people and places.” Eli said. 

“That’s normal. Everyone does that. And everyone is reactive and emotional when they’re children, aren’t they?” Veer put a hand on Eli’s shoulder. “Do you think perhaps it’s just an extra protein or something? You told me she had lost four babies before you. Maybe she was just trying to ensure she carried to term.” 

Eli nodded, but his mind was racing. He knew he had been the only child to have such intense dreams growing up. Other children used to call him the freak of nature because he dreamt and questioned and got himself into trouble for it. 

“Veer… what if I am normal?” Eli asked. 

Veer cocked his head. 

“What if I am normal, and everyone else in the sectors aren’t. You called my dreams something, while we were together in the ice cavern.” 

Veer nodded. “Yeah, a nightmare. When you have scary or troubling dreams its called a nightmare.” 

“You dream?” Eli asked. 

“Yes. Everyone here dreams, Eli.” 

Eli took a breath in, what had his mother left out of his DNA. What additive was making the children not dream?

“Do you have access to the science labs?” Eli asked. 

Veer shrugged. “Not really. I’m sure I could get one of the healers to look at you.” 

“I need them to take my blood, and tell me if there’s anything different in it. My mother did something she was scared would bring me trouble one day. I know that’s how she was so prepared to run when we did. And I think that’s why she had me carry her journal. I think she wanted me to know what it was.” 

Veer huffed and flipped the pages in the journal. “Have you read the rest of it? Does it say anything else?” 

Eli shook his head. “The rest is really weird. It’s all just random numbers and poems.” 

Veer opened it to a page, his fingers running across the typed out string of numbers. “Do you think your mother was hiding something?” 

“Why?” Eli asked. 

“During reconnaissance, when we send reports back. We code them in a secret language so if any of the wall dwellers ships happen to try and intercept it they couldn’t… easily at least.” 

“She was writing in code?” Eli grabbed the journal and looked down the pages again. It seemed completely chaotic, if he hadn’t known any better he would have assumed his mother had already started decaying as she wrote this. His mother was brilliant, one of the leading minds in genetic biology. Perhaps she was scared of them finding out what she knew. “If she was scared of something. Something she wasn’t meant to know, why write it down in the first place? Why not just let it die with her?” 

“Could you let something dangerous die with you?” Veer asked. “Perhaps she felt a responsibility to do something. Maybe that’s why she left it with you. Maybe she wants you to do something.” 

Eli took a breath and folded the journal shut. “I need my blood analyzed.” 

“I’ll take care of that.” Veer said. 

“Alright,” Veer said later that night. He had snuck Eli up into his bedroom in the main castle. It was quite a bit larger than Eli’s own living quarters, with a large bed with thick heavy blankets and a dresser of clothes and weapons. “So the rest is all just numbers, right?” 

Eli nodded from his spot on Veer’s bed. “And a few poems. And her favorite thing to say to me.” 

“What was that?” Veer asked. 

Eli winced and closed his eyes. It hurt now, to think about his mother. They had probably taken her body. He prayed they didn’t drop her over the wall to be consumed by a miom like the others had been. “She used to say to me ‘Everything I do, I do because I love you.” 

Veer was silent for a moment. “Do you miss her?” 

Eli nodded. “She was the only person in the entire universe who loved me, or understood me.” 

They were both quiet for a while before Veer cleared his throat. “That was how I felt about my grandmother, before she passed. Although, she wasn’t murdered in the streets.” 

“What happened to her?” Eli asked. 

“She got separated from her pack. They were further north, we don’t go up there anymore.” 

“Why?” 

“There are monsters. Creatures that… should only live in nightmares.” Veer nudged Eli’s socked foot with his own. “Anyways, she was exposed to the gas lakes.” 

Eli felt his stomach churn at the mention of them again, his dream of Veer screaming his name as they were surrounded by the toxic lakes coming back into his mind. 

“What happens when you’re exposed to the gas?” 

“You die. The longer you’re exposed the faster it happens. They said it probably happened quick for her. She was already getting older, her lungs weren’t as strong.” Veer closed his eyes and shivered rubbing his hands up and down his arms. “She used to tell me… that I could be whatever I wanted to be. Leadership be damned.” 

Eli smiled. “She’s not wrong.” 

Veer shook his head. “I have responsibilities to the city now. And someday I’ll have to fulfill them.” 

Eli didn’t ask further. He looked down at the numbers scatters down the page. They looked messy, his mother was never messy. 

“Do you think the numbers could correlate to the poems?” He finally asked.

“Like maybe its a key?” Veer reached over and pulled out a tablet and a small pen. “Read the numbers to me.” 

“8.11.6.5, two dashes. 4.7.7.6.7, two dashes.” 

“Hold on,” Veer said leaning forward and looking at the writing. These dashes, what do they seem like to you?” 

Eli looked at them too. “Stops?” 

“What if these are words?” 

“And the dashes end the words? You are brilliant.” Eli said.

Veer smiled and pulled the pad to him. “Read off the numbers again.” 

“Alright,” Eli rubbed his eyes. “It was late. They had been numbering the entire poem, which at this point felt too excessive even for him. “These words must be the same.” He pointed at two sets of numbers that matched one another.” 

Veer took a breath and sat up looking down at their work. “Count it out for me.” 

“8…” Eli waited. 

“T.” Veer wrote it down. 

“11.” 

“H.” Veer said. 

“6.” 

“E.” 

“5.” 

“Y.” He and Veer met eyes. “It is a word. We were right.” 

Eli smiled, the exhaustion being pushed down by adrenaline. “Lets keep going.” 

Hours later Eli’s eyes burned as he blinked into the still illuminated room. They had only gotten three words in before falling asleep. THEY ADDED SOMETHING. He sat up, the heavy squiel blanket falling down his torso. He glanced over to his right, Veer was sleeping, his head nestled into his arms, his white hair sticking every which way. 

Eli stretched his arms up before grabbing his mother’s journal and the holotablet. He continued counting words and numbers. D.E.A.D. Eli furrowed his brow as he finished the word. THEY ADDED SOMETHING DEADLY. What had his mother discovered, what were they adding? He continued writing out the words that correlated until it was finished. This couldn’t be right. The government wouldn’t do something like this, at least not willingly. 

“Veer.” He shook the other boys shoulder. “Veer, wake up.” 

Veer grunted and blinked a few times before sighing into his pillow falling back asleep. 

“Veer. I finished the code.” Eli said shaking him again. 

Veer opened his eyes and sat up. “You what?” he grumbling, pressing his palms into his eyes and rubbing back and forth. 

“I finished the code. It’s not good.” Eli said handing Veer the tablet. 

“THEY ADDED SOMETHING DEADLY. THEY ARE KILLING US FROM BIRTH.” Veer grimaced and looked over it again. “What does this mean?” 

“I think that whatever the extra DNA they add to the sample before inseminating is killing us. I don’t understand why though. There’s already a population problem. We’re dying young, why would they add something to our DNA that’s killing us?” 

“What if what they’re adding is why your people are dying young?” Veer asked. “They control reproduction when its not necessary. What if it’s so they can add whatever is killing people? My people don’t die young.” 

“But why?” Eli blinked back tears. He didn’t understand why he was suddenly crying. He was frustrated, and confused. His entire life he’d thought they were dying because that was just how the humans had evolved. He thought that the reason everything they were so controlled was to try and protect and expand the population. 

“Eli.” Veer whispered. “I think I know what they’re adding.”