Chapter 5: Drawings in Red

Chapter 5: Drawings in Red

The first few days in the cabin were a study in oppressive silence. The dense, ancient forest that surrounded them was a perfect sound barrier, swallowing every noise from the outside world. There were no distant sirens, no rumble of passing trucks, no hum of electricity. There was only the whisper of wind through the pines, the frantic scuttling of unseen things in the undergrowth, and the loud, frantic thumping of Ethan’s own heart. The isolation he had so carefully engineered to be a shield now felt like a bell jar, trapping him with his fear.

He tried to impose a routine, a desperate attempt to paint a thin veneer of normalcy over the gaping cracks in their reality. He made pancakes in the morning on the gas stove. He read from a tattered book of fairy tales he’d stocked years ago. He tried to initiate games of hide-and-seek among the dusty furniture. He was trying to summon the ghost of a normal father, a role he wasn’t even sure he’d ever rightfully held.

But Leo was a passive participant in this charade. The boy was different. The raw, alien terror of the highway episode had receded, but it had taken the warm, affectionate child with it. In his place was a quiet, unnervingly calm observer. Leo would sit for hours by the cabin’s grimy window, his gaze fixed on the unchanging wall of trees. He wasn’t looking for anything; he was simply watching, his stillness so profound it was unnerving. He ate what Ethan gave him without complaint, he listened to the stories without expression, his wide eyes holding an ancient patience that did not belong on a five-year-old’s face.

The memory of the DNA test—0.00%—and Sarah’s horrified scream were a constant, low hum in Ethan’s mind. But the boy’s gurgled whisper of the dark, silent water was a far more immediate and terrifying presence. He found himself watching Leo constantly, scrutinizing every gesture, every word, searching for another flicker of the thing that had looked out from his eyes that night.

On the third day, Leo discovered the wooden crate in the corner. It was filled with supplies Ethan had packed for a long stay: batteries, first aid kits, and a box of children’s art supplies—crayons, paper, blunt-nosed scissors. For the first time in days, Ethan felt a flicker of hope. Art. Drawing. That was normal. That was something a child did.

Leo ignored the rest of the crate’s contents. He lifted out the thick stack of construction paper and the sixty-four-pack of crayons. He sat cross-legged on the dusty floorboards, the afternoon light casting long shadows across the room. Ethan watched, holding his breath, praying for a clumsy, colorful scribble of a house or a sun.

The boy opened the box of crayons, his small fingers moving with deliberate precision. He pushed aside the blues, the greens, the yellows, the purples. His fingers closed around a single crayon: a deep, visceral red.

He pressed the crayon to the first sheet of paper. His movements were not the hesitant, sweeping arcs of a child. They were firm, controlled, and eerily geometric. A series of straight lines, intersecting at sharp, unnatural angles. Within a minute, the first drawing was complete. He placed the paper beside him and immediately started on a second, his focus absolute.

Ethan’s hope curdled into a familiar, cold dread. He moved closer, trying to keep his voice light. “Whatcha drawing there, buddy?”

Leo didn’t look up. The rhythmic scrape of wax on paper was the only reply.

“Is it a spider? Or maybe a super cool star?” Ethan pressed, kneeling beside him.

He could see the drawing clearly now. It was neither. It was a complex, symmetrical sigil. It looked like an asterisk that had been warped and weaponized, its lines extending and bending back on themselves, all converging on a single, sharp point in the center. It was balanced and intricate, a design of cold, alien purpose.

“Leo?”

The boy finished the second drawing. It was identical to the first. He set it neatly on top of the other one and pulled a fresh sheet of paper toward him, his red crayon poised to begin again.

An hour passed. Then two. The sun dipped below the treeline, plunging the cabin into a gloomy twilight. Ethan lit a gas lantern, its yellow hiss filling the silence, but Leo did not stop. He worked with a tireless, obsessive focus that was utterly inhuman. The floor around him was becoming a sea of red. Page after page, each one bearing the exact same, perfectly rendered symbol. It wasn’t art; it was mass production.

Finally, Ethan couldn't take it anymore. He reached out and put his hand over Leo’s. “That’s enough drawing for today, son.”

Leo’s hand went still beneath his, but he didn’t look up. He simply waited. Ethan gently took the crayon from his fingers. The boy offered no resistance. His hand fell limp to his side, and he stared at the half-finished symbol on the page, his expression as blank as the paper itself.

Ethan stood up, his heart pounding. The cabin felt like a shrine to some terrible, unknown god. Dozens of identical sigils stared up at him from the floor, stark and menacing in the lantern light. The sheer volume of them was horrifying. It was a message, screamed in a silent, repetitive chorus.

He bent down and picked one up. The waxy red crayon was smeared thick, almost like a smear of blood. He traced the impossible angles with his finger. There was a nagging familiarity to the shape, a splinter in the back of his mind. He knew he’d seen it before.

He closed his eyes, forcing his mind back, past the years of running, past the grief. Back to the sterile, white-on-white office of the Genesis Clinic. He remembered the final meeting, the day he signed the last of the paperwork and wired the final, ruinous payment. The consultant, a man with a clinical smile and empty eyes, had left the room for a moment to retrieve a document.

Ethan had been left alone with a stack of files on the desk. He remembered a single page that was slightly askew, sticking out from the others. He’d only glanced at it, his eyes scanning the header out of nervous habit. It read: INTERNAL USE ONLY: PHASED IMPLANTATION PROTOCOLS (ECHO-CLASS SUBJECTS).

He had dismissed the strange terminology as corporate jargon. But in the top right-hand corner of that page, where a company logo would normally be, there had been a small, embossed symbol. He’d barely registered it at the time, but seeing it now, rendered in blood-red wax, brought the memory crashing back with the force of a physical blow.

It was the same symbol.

Ethan’s breath hitched in his throat. He dropped the drawing as if it were on fire. This wasn't a child's obsessive fantasy. This wasn't a psychological tic brought on by trauma. This was a signal. A status report.

He looked at Leo, who was now calmly stacking the drawings into a neat pile. The boy was not his son. He was not even a copy of a stranger's son. He was a piece of equipment, a biological machine created by that clinic, and he was now broadcasting a message from the absolute isolation of Ethan's self-made prison.

The cabin was not a safe house. It was a laboratory. And Phase Two had just begun.