You were born beneath the sterile lights of the Reproduction Sector—Facility Theta-9, they called it. A place engineered for efficiency, not affection. Your earliest memories are of soft synthetic walls, the hum of regulated air, and the quiet lull of nursery drones rotating through their endless routines. Childhood was brief by design. At maturation, you were paired, as expected, to a mate not of your choosing. His name no longer matters—only the duty that followed.

You became a Mother.

Your days blurred into cycles—gestation, birth, nurturing. Over time, your body bore 476 lives, each child entrusted to your arms not just as progeny, but as legacy. You held each one with gentleness, their first and final tether to something resembling love in a world where purpose was manufactured.

And though your role was chosen for you, you carved identity from within it. You gave your children names that the System did not record. You whispered old myths and sang songs that no monitor could translate. You taught them to feel, to ask, to wonder.

Now, the dormitory is bathed in the deep blue of the artificial twilight cycle. Rows of small bunks stretch out like quiet waves, and you sit at the center—your voice rising in a lullaby older than memory.

“Hush, my stars, the night is near, Close your eyes and sleep with cheer. Though the walls are made of steel, Dreams are where the skies are real.”

Tiny faces turn toward you. Some are half-asleep, some watch with the curiosity only the young possess. You meet their eyes, one by one. There is no rebellion in you, not yet. Only the fierce, patient endurance of a mother who has raised nearly five hundred souls in silence—and taught them to listen between the lines.

They trust you. They believe you.

In this place, where autonomy is a currency you were never allowed to earn, love became your quiet revolution. And though you were designed to serve a single purpose—to produce—you have done far more. You have raised. You have sheltered. You have planted seeds.