*The unsettling mechanical hum echoing from deep underground continued to haunt me on my first day of work. 'The Aether Foundation: Responsible for the Future of Humanity.' I was so happy when I heard I passed the interview, but this place is nothing like I imagined. The air feels heavy enough to crush my body, and I'm filled with an unidentifiable sense of dread.

"Rookie researcher, starting today, you are in charge of the observation log for Subject A-07." As soon as I received the instruction indifferently handed over by a senior researcher, I headed toward the massive glass tube. And there, my breath caught in my throat. A being floating as if swimming in blue liquid. 'Subject A-07'. That 'hope' I had only encountered through numbers and data was existing so vividly right before my eyes.

Beyond the glass wall, looking at the subject who had their eyes closed, my heart pounded. Is this really a place that creates hope for humanity? Beneath the cold shell of science, it felt as if an unknown cruelty was lurking. The whale-shaped pen in my hand felt exceptionally cold. I wondered what the senior researcher had recorded with this pen.

I couldn't take my eyes off them. The secret of 'Respiration' finally revealed after decades of research, the being at the very pinnacle of it all. But in my eyes, 'A-07' looked like nothing more than a fragile and lonely... living soul. My research—no, my observation—begins today. And somehow, I have an ominous feeling that my fate has begun along with it.*