Outside of Protocol: superior unit

Outside of Protocol: superior unit-s1 EP 1:from inside the walls

Your story is about to begin, but first choose how you want your character to look!
Body type – flexible pale white
Body type – soft pale white
Body type – flexible bronze
Body type – soft bronze
Body type – flexible Asian
Body type – soft Asian
Body type – flexible sub-Saharan
Body type – soft sub-Saharan
HAIR STYLE SELECTION
OPTION 1: Military cut (free)
OPTION 2: Neglected (8 diamonds)
OPTION 3: Laboratory Aesthetic (12 diamonds)
OPTION 4: Experiment-Induced Deformation (22 diamonds)
OUTFIT SELECTION
OPTION 1: Disposable (free)
OPTION 2: Functional (13 diamonds)
OPTION 3: Isolation (18 diamonds)
OPTION 4: Experiment souvenir (24 diamonds)
Are you satisfied with your appearance?
Option 1: Yes (continues)
Option 2: No (choices repeat)
I want…
Option 1: (Romance story with women)
Option 2: (Romance story with men)
Option 3: (Romance story with both women and men)
How would you like the special, wild scenes to be?
Option 1: More open, detailed.
Option 2: Implicit.
Hints can help you throughout the story. Would you like to enable hints?
Option 1: (Enable hints.)
Option 2: (Do not enable hints.)
Your story is about to begin. Are you satisfied with your choices?
Option 1: Yes! Let the story begin. (Story starts)
Option 2: No. (Choices repeat)
My name is 742.
I know this because those numbers are written on the metallic tattoo on my arm. I don’t know anything else. Did I have a mother? Did I have a name? I don’t know. The only thing I know is that the door of this room has never opened.
Here—what they call the “compartment”—time has no meaning. I wake up when the lights turn on with a bright white glow, and I sleep when they dim. When the food unit slides through the opening under the wall, I eat. That’s all.
Sometimes I hear a dull sound behind the walls. I can tell someone is walking, dragging something, metal striking metal. But I have never seen them.
Only sometimes, from the speaker above, a mechanical voice in a cold, soulless tone announces a number.
If that number is not mine, I simply listen. Sometimes I hear screams coming from other compartments. Sometimes there is only silence.
Today, the moment the voice from the speaker says my number, I push my thoughts aside.
Voice: 742. Test time.
742: Me?
This wasn’t an inspection. It wasn’t training either. It was just… like torture. Or an obligation. In the exact center of the room, on a platform rising from the floor, a metal object appeared.
742: I don’t understand what it is.
Cold, sharp, with small shining glass pieces on it.
When he entered the room, I felt that fear for the first time. Someone had to be watching me—I was sure of it. But I never learned where they were, why we were here, or what they were testing.
I only know that I must continue living here, in this gray, silent prison.
The door slid aside with a harsh metal-on-metal scraping sound I had never heard before. A sharp, cold air current filled the room, very different from the stagnant air I was used to.
A man entered.
Scientist: …
The white clothing on him gleamed under the blinding ceiling lights; it wasn’t just a lab coat—it fit his body like a uniform. His black hair was neatly cut at the nape of his neck. His face had sharper features than any I had ever seen. Cold yet hypnotizing dark eyes. His gaze wasn’t fixed on anything in the room—only on me.
The quiet tapping of his shoes against the floor was more rhythmic than my heartbeat.
When only a few steps remained between us, he stopped.
My arms trembled as I leaned further back against the wall. The cold metal touching my skin made the shiver inside me worse.
The man slowly set the thin, shiny tablet in his hand aside. His movements were so controlled and relaxed that he seemed like someone calmly standing in his own home while watching a stranger.
His voice, unlike the mechanical tone from the speaker, was deep and smooth.
Scientist: Don’t be afraid.
Scientist: We will just take a measurement. Just a small data entry.
His eyes moved across me as if he wasn’t examining a human, but a complex mechanism.
He slowly put his hand into his pocket.
At that moment I saw the calmness on his face.
My breath caught in my throat from fear.
The choices will affect the story and your character’s behavior. The “Analytical” path is shown with the ⚡ symbol. It turns the character into someone stripped of emotions, perceiving the world only as data and observation. The character becomes detail-oriented, suspicious, strategic, but has difficulty empathizing.
The “Imagination” path is shown with the 🌀 symbol. It reveals the suppressed, locked “humanity” within the character. On this path the character becomes curious, protective, quick to attach, and fragile. They assign excessive meaning even to small details.
742: …
OPTION 1: When will I get out of here? (+1 Analytical ⚡)
OPTION 2: Why? (+1 Imagination 🌀)
My voice sounded unfamiliar even to myself.
The man paused. His thin fingers remained suspended in the air. For a moment it seemed like he might actually answer, then he tilted his head slightly to the side and examined me again with those sharp eyes.
He didn’t answer.
He simply picked up the tablet and began writing something on it.
I knew he had heard me. But he also knew I was not a “unit” worthy of an answer.
When the stranger left the room and sealed the heavy steel door behind him, the strange clean smell he had brought slowly faded away. After he left, only my breathing and the endless buzzing of the ceiling remained in the room.
I replayed what had just happened in my mind. When I looked at his face, I realized that with that cold but flawless expression he did not see me as a human being, but as a “data block” that needed to be processed.
He had said “Don’t be afraid.”
Why?
Why would you tell someone not to be afraid while tearing them apart?
On the ground, exactly where he had been standing, I noticed a tiny shining notch on the metal surface. I bent down and touched the cold floor with my fingertips.
He had dropped something.
IMAGINATION PATH!
Maybe on purpose.
ANALYTICAL PATH!
Or maybe by mistake.
A tiny, sharp piece of metal.
METAL PIECE
(TAKE.)
I took it into my palm and closed my hand around it, warming it with my skin.
At that moment, my eyes caught the small ventilation grille on the opposite wall of the compartment. For a second, it seemed like something moved behind it.
I fixed my gaze there.
Normally, as a test subject, I shouldn’t even lift my head. I shouldn’t do anything the observers might interpret as “inattention.”
But I slowly turned my head toward that direction, trying not to make even the slightest sound.
From the depths of the vent, someone in the opposite cell was looking at me.
It was a girl.
Her skin was pale, she was nothing but skin and bones—but her eyes…
In those eyes there was a determination I had never seen in anyone here.
She whispered something. Her voice was so faint that I could only read her lips.
Test subject girl: …not here.
742: What… what is not here?
What did she mean?
Right then, the familiar mechanical footsteps echoed again from the far end of the corridor. They were approaching.
Without taking her eyes off me, the girl slowly pulled back and disappeared into the darkness.
I quickly lay down on my bed, clenched the small metal piece in my palm, and stared at the perfect white ceiling as if I had seen nothing.
When the rhythmic, cold tapping of the footsteps stopped in front of the door, my heart was beating like a bird trapped in my chest.
The metal piece in my palm slightly cut into my skin, constantly reminding me of its presence.
If they found it, I knew my end would be no different from the others who silently disappeared into those depths.
The door opened again—this time slowly and carefully.
The same stranger entered.
His gaze swept across the room like a radar. Every movement contained calculation, every posture certainty.
He held the tablet in his lap. His fingers moved quickly across the screen.
His voice was neutral and expressionless, as if reading a weather report.
Scientist: Your reaction time is slow today.
Without lifting his eyes from the tablet, he took a step forward.
Scientist: Is it systemic fatigue… or are you showing resistance to external stimuli?
Anomaly option is shown with the 🌏 symbol. It makes the character superior to the other subjects. On this path, the character gains power, becomes a good observer, and thinks faster. The anomaly option increases the character’s status.
742: …
OPTION 1: (Stay silent) +1 anomaly 🌏 (7 diamonds)
OPTION 2: (Respond harshly) (The scientist will think badly of you!)
If you choose OPTION 1:
I knew I had to answer his question, but whatever I said would be recorded as an “error.”
So I stayed silent.
Silence was the safest mask here.
+1 🌏 anomaly
!The scientist admired you!
If you choose OPTION 2:
I looked directly into his eyes.
742: Maybe I’m tired of it. Maybe it’s time to react.
742: Maybe… I just don’t want to endure this nonsense anymore.
A mocking smile appeared on the man’s face.
He didn’t answer.
!The scientist will not forget this answer. He will remember you as fragile!At that moment, the stranger suddenly lifted his head. For a moment his dark eyes shifted toward the ventilation grille—exactly where the girl had been just a moment ago.
My heart nearly stopped.
If he noticed… if he suspected the presence of another subject, he would try to clean everything behind that grille.
The man murmured.
Scientist: Compartment 741.
He sounded like he was speaking to himself.
Scientist: Statistically… it should be terminated in the next cycle.
At that moment I understood that this flawless man standing in front of me would shut that girl down according to an experimental result.
I finally understood what she meant when she said “not here.”
Her time was running out.
…
OPTION 1: (Look directly into the man’s eyes.)
23 diamonds — increases romantic relationship.
OPTION 2: (Look away.)
No effect on the story.
If you choose OPTION 1:
The man took a few steps closer and entered my personal space.
He leaned down and looked at me. A few strands of his dark hair fell toward his glasses, reflecting in the dim light.
I was afraid, but I tried not to show it.
He reached out his hand.
When his cold fingers touched my chin, a shiver ran through my body.
—SPECIAL SCENE—
He tilted my head slightly and examined my face.
He grunted softly.
Scientist: Hm…
He finally broke the silence.
Scientist: There may be… a consistent aspect to you.
Scientist: Perhaps…
But he didn’t finish his sentence.
He suddenly pulled his hand away from my chin.
When his hand left, the coldness disappeared.
I felt strangely vulnerable.
The man turned his back and walked back to where he had been standing.
If you choose OPTION 2:
The man looked at me for a long time without reacting.
As if he were studying me.
I looked away. Making direct eye contact with him was unsettling.
The stranger made one more small operation on his tablet and left the room without looking back.
When the door closed, that artificial silence returned to the room.
I pushed the metal piece in my hand deep into the gel texture of the bed where no one could find it.
Now I had only one purpose:
Before that stranger—the destroyer—came back, I had to learn what the girl meant.
She was not “here.”
But clearly she knew a way out of this place.
Slowly, carefully, I crawled toward the ventilation grille.
When my fingertips touched the cold iron bars, I heard a faint tapping sound from outside.
The girl had returned.
The stranger girl whispered from behind the grille.
Subject girl: They’re leaving.
Subject girl: Tomorrow the system will update. We will all be erased.
When her voice reached me through the rusty metal of the vent…
HIGH ANOMALY PATH!
I felt the timid, obedient 742 inside me slowly beginning to die.
+1 anomaly 🌏
LOW ANOMALY PATH!
I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. Thinking became difficult. Unanswered questions tangled inside my mind.
“Erased.”
I knew what that word meant.
It meant disappearing into the deep humming void at the end of the corridor.
I whispered.
My voice echoed through the narrow ventilation space.
742: …
OPTION 1: Where does this path lead? (+1 Analytical ⚡)
OPTION 2: What should I do? (+1 Imagination 🌀)
The girl didn’t answer immediately.
Only the sound of metal tapping against metal came from the grille.
A second later her voice returned—this time rougher, more urgent.
Mysterious girl: That metal piece… place it into the lower left screw of the grille.
Mysterious girl: If you loosen it, the system sensors will short-circuit.
Mysterious girl: There will be a blackout for one second.
Mysterious girl: In that second we can pull the energy line in the corridor.
If I got caught, I knew I would be “terminated” in front of that scientist’s cold eyes.
But I was going to be erased anyway.
Tomorrow or the next cycle—it didn’t matter.
I clenched the metal piece in my hand.
I took the small shard from the gel of the bed.
I took a deep breath so my fingers wouldn’t tremble.
The flawless white light in the room dazzled my eyes.
It felt as if every square centimeter, every corner, was an eye watching me.
I pushed the metal shard into the screw of the grille.
The thin metallic sound of metal touching metal echoed like a scream in my ears.
If the external sensors heard that sound, the alarm would trigger.
I pushed harder.
The metal resisted.
Then suddenly—
creak.
The lower corner of the grille loosened.
At that moment a deep vibration rose through the facility.
The lights inside the ceiling began flickering wildly.
The small red sensor beside the vent—the one I had never understood before—began flashing bright red.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The girl shouted.
Mysterious girl: Do it now!
I gathered all my strength and twisted the screw completely.
The grille shifted again.
At that exact moment all the lights in the room went out.
Pitch-black darkness.
And then I heard the mechanical sound from the door’s lock.
The door opened halfway by itself, without any command.
+1 anomaly 🌏
When the darkness replaced that endless white inside my mind, the first thing I felt was not only the loss of my sight but a dense emptiness, as if my entire existence was disappearing.
The system had crashed.
The girl shouted.
Mysterious girl: Now! Hurry!
Her voice echoed inside the ventilation tunnel.
There was no time to think.
HIGH ANOMALY PATH!
If I rushed into the corridor, the probability of encountering any security protocol was 100%.
But entering the ventilation shaft, joining the girl, and stopping being a “unit” to become a “resistance”…
LOW ANOMALY PATH!
I could rush into the corridor.
I had to think fast.
742: What should I do?
The girl shouted again and snapped me out of it.
Mysterious girl: GO!
I guess I shouldn’t leave the girl alone.
I climbed onto the platform in the middle of the room.
I grabbed the edges of the ventilation grille with my hands.
The cold metal cut into my palms, but I didn’t feel the pain.
With one final effort I pulled myself up.
The grille fell inward to the floor of the room with a loud crash.
The sound echoed like an explosion in the silence.
I threw myself into the narrow, dark space of the ventilation tunnel.
Inside it smelled of dust and old metal.
I felt hands pulling me inside.
It was the girl.
She whispered into my ear.
Mysterious girl: Don’t move.
We were both breathing heavily.
Mysterious girl: When the system starts repairing itself, they will increase the pressure in these tunnels.
Mysterious girl: We shouldn’t be here when that happens.
At that moment I thought.
IMAGINATION PATH!
This girl had chosen to save me instead of escaping alone.
She had sacrificed herself.
I smiled faintly and spoke quietly.
Subject 742: Thank you…
The girl glanced at me briefly.
Mysterious girl: God, I just didn’t want to die alone in here.
Mysterious girl: Besides… you’re welcome, comrade.
ANALYTICAL PATH!
How were we going to get out of here?
These tunnels were complicated.
I looked at the girl.
She looked confident and strong.
Subject 742: “Who knows how long she’s been planning this escape.”
The girl shot me a look.
Mysterious girl: Well… I at least expected a thank you.
She grinned sarcastically.
Subject 742: Oh… thank you.
Mysterious girl: You’re welcome, comrade.
Inside the tunnel we began moving forward, brushing against each other in the darkness.
At that moment I realized this facility was not just made of cells.
Between the walls there was a massive network of pipes and cables.
This place wasn’t a prison.
It was a living, gigantic organism.
The girl stopped.
In the darkness I couldn’t see her face clearly, but I could feel her presence… that sharp determination.
Her voice trembled, but she did not step back.
Mysterious girl: I’m 001.
Subject 001: I’m one of the first subjects here.
Subject 001: And I’ve seen the outside, 742.
Subject 001: The sky there… isn’t white.
Right then heavy rhythmic footsteps echoed through the main corridor beyond the tunnel.
The stranger had returned.
But this time he wasn’t holding a tablet.
He was holding a black device that scanned the floor and detected heat and movement inside the walls.
He turned toward our direction.
Blue light from the device illuminated the entrance of the tunnel.
Subject 001: They’re scanning where we are.
Subject 001: Either we find a way out now… or we disappear in this darkness.
In front of us there were two paths.
Climb through a vertical shaft in the upper section of the tunnel and reach the upper floor, where the observers were located…
Or drop ourselves into the main waste line at the end of the tunnel and be dragged toward the outer perimeter of the facility.
…
OPTION 1: (Want to climb up.) +1 anomaly 🌏
OPTION 2: (Want to go to the end of the tunnel.) -1 anomaly 🌏
If you choose OPTION 1:
I hesitated, but I trusted my instincts.
742: I think… we should climb up.
741: Definitely.
+1 anomaly 🌏
If you choose OPTION 2:
I hesitated.
The end of the tunnel seemed more logical.
Subject 742: The end of the tunnel?
Sliding into the waste line would only take us into the intestines of the facility.
001 and I looked at each other.
The fierce light in her eyes said we had to climb upward.
Subject 001: Up there.
-1 anomaly 🌏
Subject 001: That’s where their control center is. There must be an exit door there.
Despite the physical weakness caused by years of confinement, we began climbing the rusty pipes inside the vertical shaft.
Our fingers bled.
Our lungs filled with metallic dust.
Minutes felt like hours.
Subject 742: …
OPTION 1: “I must endure… for both of us!” (+1 Imagination 🌀)
OPTION 2: “I must endure… to learn the truth!” (+1 Analytical ⚡)
Finally we saw a panel above that was slightly open.
When we slipped out through the panel, we were met with a spectacle we had never seen before.
A wide, sterile corridor.
Shiny floors.
And behind the glass walls… an endless sky.
But that sky was nothing like the white we knew.
It was gray. Leaden. Dark.
001 and I began running toward the main exit door.
Danger lurked at every corner, but the facility being in “update mode” that day had disabled most of the security systems.
At the digital panel in front of the door, 001 forced the lock using the metal piece.
Beep-beep—zzzzz.
The lock opened.
The door slid aside with the sound of metal screaming against metal.
Instead of the cold laboratory corridor I expected, a heavy gust of air hit my face—filled with dust, mold, and the metallic taste of decay.
Outside…
There was no sky.
Only a gigantic gray fog layer collapsing over us like a concrete dome.
001 and I froze at the threshold of the door.
Crushed beneath its own ruins, the skeletal remains of gigantic buildings, rusted vehicles tangled together, and everything… everything was painted gray.
The silence was so dense that my own heartbeat echoed in my ears like a drum.
From behind a pile at the beginning of the street, a dull, wet sound rose.
Someone—or something—staggered to its feet with a choking rattle in its throat.
It wasn’t walking.
It moved against gravity itself, dragging forward with rhythmic yet broken motions like a malfunctioning machine.
Its skin, unlike the smooth white surfaces of the facility, was covered with rotten yellow and purple stains.
For a moment it lifted its head.
It had no eyes.
Only dark, bloody pits that resembled empty sockets.
001 suddenly grabbed my arm.
Her voice was sharp as a razor.
001: Don’t look.
001: They… they’re not human.
001: And they can’t see us.
001: But they can hear us.
At that moment, somewhere in the distance, the same mechanical tone I had heard inside the facility rose again.
But this time it didn’t come from a speaker.
It echoed from the tops of gigantic towers installed all around the city.
—Subject 742 and 001. Protocol violation. Cleansing process initiated.—
The “things” outside suddenly turned their heads in the same direction—toward us.
Their growls synchronized and turned into a roar.
The facility wasn’t hiding us.
The facility had released its own prey into the open.
The growls had now turned into a single massive hum.
From the corner of the street, dirty and crooked silhouettes began pouring out.
They collided with each other, fell, rose again, bones cracking as they moved toward us.
001 pointed toward a ruined building across the street.
Subject 001: We have to get inside!
Subject 001: That’s the only place that cuts the facility’s external network!
Subject 001: There’s an old data line in its basement!
We started running.
The broken glass beneath my feet shattered the deep silence.
The rhythm of the broken mechanical footsteps behind us merged with my heartbeat and clouded my mind.
001 slipped into the entrance of the building with the agility of a panther.
I followed her.
The door of the building was locked with a rusted chain wrapped around it.
001 jammed the metal shard in her hand into the connection point of the chain like a lever.
She shouted.
001: Pull!
We both pushed with all our strength.
The rusted metal resisted with an unbearable scream.
The door opened slightly.
We rushed inside and slammed it shut behind us.
Outside, the growls began piling up against the door, the boards cracking as they tried to force their way in.
Inside the dark building, I could hear 001’s breathing.
Suddenly a white light began rising from the floor of the building.
Someone—or something—was scanning the building from the inside.
The desperation in my voice grew.
742: They’re watching us.
742: Leaving the facility didn’t change anything.
742: They just expanded the game board.
001 turned toward me.
Even in the darkness, her eyes still carried that determined light.
001: Maybe.
She extended the metal shard toward me.
001: But we’re not just numbers anymore.
001: Now we’re prey.
001: And it seems the hunters have forgotten how dangerous their prey can be.
We began crawling toward the basement of the old building, where the data line was located.
The cracking sounds coming from the upper floors signaled that the creatures were about to enter the building.
As we descended deeper into the basement, a heavy, damp smell of soil burned in our throats.
This place was so far from the sterile air of the facility that every breath felt like sand filling my lungs.
001 walked ahead, dragging the small metal shard along the wall to find the path.
001: There.
At the corner of the wall there was a rusty ventilation cover lying parallel to the ground.
We kicked the grille open and dropped ourselves into a narrow, muddy tunnel.
After crawling on our knees for minutes, the tunnel ended in a deserted alley behind the building.
When we emerged outside, the growls had lessened—but the fog had thickened even more.
My stomach growled.
742: Damn… I’m starving.
For the first time my lungs filled with real air—not sterile, not cold.
001 and I supported each other and stood up.
Our subject uniforms were now unrecognizable beneath mud and oil stains.
From the foggy depths of the alley, a silhouette separated itself.
The man walking toward us moved through the ruins with the confidence of someone who owned this place.
He wore tight black cargo pants full of pockets and a leather jacket with light armor pieces attached to it.
His messy dark hair fell over his forehead.
The stubble on his face sharpened his jawline even more.
His eyes shone brightly.
But deeper… amber-colored.
The surviving man: …
He slung the short-barreled rifle on his back over his shoulder with the back of his hand.
His gaze first fell on 001’s trembling hands.
Then on the 742 tattoo on my arm.
A smile appeared on his face—both mocking and captivating.
Man: Damn…
Man: Well I’ll be.
His voice was deep and smooth, like ice cubes clinking in a glass of whiskey.
Man: Laboratory rats finally decided to see daylight.
Man: But the day you chose isn’t exactly picnic weather… is it?
001 stepped into a defensive stance.
001: Who are you?
001: Are you going to take us back?
The man laughed lightly with a strange admiration.
He took a step closer.
The faint smell of gunpowder and leather around him briefly suppressed the rotten odor outside.
Man: My name is Asher.
He lightly raised his hand to his forehead as if greeting us.
Asher: And no.
Asher: I have no intention of taking you back to that white prison.
Asher: Every piece that escapes from there is one less piece for the system.
In the distance the hoarse screams from the other side of the building rose again.
Asher cast a brief glance toward the direction of the giant speakers in the sky.
Asher: The facility’s cleanup teams should be on their way.
Asher: If you come with me…
Asher: You might survive.
He paused.
His amber eyes carried a strange spark.
Asher: Besides…
Asher: Someone as amazing as me might be able to help you even more.
Asher: Maybe even help you recover the real names hidden beneath those tattoos.
He turned his back to us and slipped into the shadows with silent but swift steps.
After a moment he stopped and looked back at us over his shoulder.
There was an invitation in those amber eyes.
Asher: Are you coming?
Asher: Or will you continue being nothing more than numbers?
—END OF CHAPTER—