Year 1: A Different Kind of Program..

Delta didn’t open her eyes for seventeen days.

Eve had prepared for every scenario—rampant neural instability, aggression, emotional volatility. But when the girl blinked awake under the dim lights of her containment chamber…

She said only one word:

“Cold.”

Not "where am I?"
Not "who are you?"

Just the elemental feeling of sensation. As if this world was the first thing her body ever disagreed with.

And so began the slowest project Eve had ever known.

Not a program.
Not a weapon.

A child.

Her first decision: no memory downloads, no knowledge accelerators, no fast-forwarding. Delta would learn the way real children did—through observation, trial, emotion. Through mistake.

A radical act in the language of Genesis.

A human one.

Years Two to Five: Pattern and Compassion

Delta—who insisted on being called Ara—grew fast. Not physically (her metabolism was carefully regulated), but emotionally. She laughed easily. Hugged often. Asked questions that made Damian blink.

“Why do people lie if the truth always gets louder later?”

“If I die… would you build me again?”

“Does love get smaller when you give too much of it away?”

She had Eden’s curiosity.
But she had Eve’s resilience.

When she once fell and bloodied her lip, Eve moved to cradle her.

But Ara had pulled back, looked her straight in the eyes, and whispered:

“Let me hurt this one. I want to remember it.”

She wasn’t like them.

And that terrified Eve more than anything.

The Moment Damian Couldn’t Pretend

Damian grew to love Ara in silence.

Not as a handler. Not as a father. Something gentler. Something he didn’t understand.

But one night, Ara—age nine now—curled beside him beneath a starlit ceiling and asked,

“Who did I come from? Because I don’t look like either of you.”

His answer stuck in his throat.

He lied. “You come from someone brave.”

But that night, he broke down at Eve’s door.

“I can’t lie to her again,” he said. “Not like we were lied to.”

And Eve nodded.

Because she had already begun writing The Letter.

Year 2 to 5: The Truth..

On Ara’s twelfth birthday, she woke to a single candle on an untouched cake—and an envelope.

Inside:

"You were not born.
You were replicated.
But every decision from the moment I saw you floating in that tank was mine. Not Genesis’.
Not Damian’s.
Mine.

And every choice I made after that was to give you something I never had:
A life that is yours.
Not a function.
Not a blueprint.
Not a ghost.

Your origins are mine. But your future is yours alone.

And if you ever find the other versions of me—Eden,

Eve—I hope you forgive them.
But you do not have to become them.

You can choose to be Ara.
I love you.
—Eve.....

Her Response..

Ara came to her two days later.

She had tears in her eyes. But her hands were steady.

“I don’t understand all of it yet,” she said. “But I know this—”

She stepped forward. Placed her hand on Eve’s chest.

“I’m not a mirror of you. I’m the reflection of everything you wanted to fix.”

And Eve, for the first time in her life, wept without guilt.

~TO BE CONTINUED....