One thousand years before the fall of Atlantis and the Great Flood, our story begins in a dark artificial intelligence lab, hidden deep within the Underworld city of Atlantis. A lab, recently commissioned by the reigning Queen Aksa, meant to usher humanity into a new age—the age of artificial intelligence and androids.

Even then, the Underworld was a city that never saw the light of day, forever hidden beneath the shadows of the floating islands of Atlantis, the Atlantean capital. A city of neon lights, holograms, and a fast-paced life, where people moved quickly, talked faster, and technology pulsed in every corner. The streets were alive with the movement of humans and androids, electric with sound. A place that never truly slept.

But here, deep in the heart of it, in a private lab sealed away from the world, two people worked in silence.

The hum of machinery had once been a comfort to Sabina Ishti. Now, it was all she had left.

She sat before the console, hands poised over the keys. Her fingers trembling, not from exhaustion, though she had not slept in days, but from the weight of what she was about to do. The dim light of the lab flickered across the semi-organic frame lying motionless on the table before her, its silvered skin catching the glow like moonlight on water.

Her hazel eyes, framed by delicate glasses, reflected the pale light of the screen. A few strands of dark hair, now graying, had slipped loose from the bun she always kept neatly tied at the nape of her neck. She had just turned forty-one, but the years felt heavier on her shoulders than they should. Her kind face, once full of warmth, was now burdened by grief. Her olive skin was pale under the artificial glow, the tension in her jaw betraying the storm beneath her quiet resolve.

It had taken her nearly a year to reach this point. A year of sleepless nights, of equations scrawled across glass walls, of numbers blurring into grief. A year of recreating him. Piece by piece, line by line.

Her Ashur. Her baby boy.

He had been born in Syris, a breathtaking town of cobblestone streets and terracotta rooftops, where narrow alleyways wove between elegant stone buildings, and the scent of blooming citrus and fresh-baked bread drifted through the air. The hills that cradled the town were golden in the sunlight, lined with orchards and olive groves, and at night, the sky stretched wide and endless, a perfect canvas for stargazing.

They had lived in their small villa, nestled among rolling hills and cypress trees, a place of warmth and quiet joy. He had loved the stars, had traced constellations in the air with his small fingers, whispering their names like a prayer.

But that was another lifetime.

Now, she and her husband Veno lived in the Underworld, hidden away most of their days in labs where no one could monitor their work. The sun never reached this place. There were no stars here. Only steel walls, humming machines, and the ghosts of what had been.

The underground complex had been built by Veno himself. It was a sprawling bunker carved into the earth, reinforced with steel and secrecy. The Atlantean military, under Queen Aksa, had funded its construction, commissioning Veno to develop a new generation of androids. But this lab, this particular room, belonged only to Sabina.

She exhaled, glancing at the lifeless body on the table, then at the man standing in the shadows of the lab.

Veno Ishti had never meant for this to happen.

A man in his late forties, with a demeanor that had once been full of youthful intensity, now softened by the passage of time. His blue eyes, sharp yet weary, bore wrinkles at the corners, evidence of years spent squinting at screens and furrowing his brow in thought. His straight black hair, now peppered with gray, framed a face that was both calm and calculated, a silent storm of intellect and regret. He stood only a few inches taller than his wife. Like Sabina, he wore a lab coat, its once-pristine fabric now worn at the edges, a testament to long hours spent in the lab.

His early work had focused on creating A.I. programs to improve human life, which later expanded into programming house humanoid androids. Assistants designed to help with daily tasks, caregiving, and labor. Simple, useful machines. The kind that made life easier, not more dangerous.

But the potential of his work had been undeniable. After winning a military contract, to his own surprise, he had watched as his designs found applications across medicine, engineering, space exploration, and even warfare.

And now, to his dismay, the military had asked him to create something far more dangerous. Androids capable of intuition, strategy, and mastering the art of war. Machines that could think, anticipate, and win. Super-soldier androids.

And they had done it.

It was that very code—flawless, intricate, and terrifyingly human—Sabina now developed further to create Ashur Napahu.

She had considered giving him their last name, like their late son. But that would have been too suspicious. Instead, she had left it behind, assigning him a name that would not draw questions. He would look human, speak like one, think like one. She had given him a human face, a humanoid body, something closer to flesh than steel.

Veno had tried to stop her.

She had wanted to push the limits of creation until there was nothing left to distinguish this Ashur from the son she had lost.

"It's a slippery slope," he had warned, his voice tight with unease. "You don't see it, but I do. Where does it end, Sabina?"

She hadn't answered then. She had simply returned to her work, drowning herself in the lines of code, the assembly of flesh and metal, the desperate attempt to fill the void that had swallowed her whole.

Now, as she lifted her hand to press the final key, her heart pounded against her ribs.

This was it. She took a breath.

And then, with a final click, she brought Ashur Napahu to life.

He was not a child, not like the son she had lost. She had built him as a man. The man Ashur could have become, had he lived. She had imagined his features, the way his voice would sound, the way he would think, the way he would speak.

He opened his eyes and just stared at Sabina, and she at him.

"Hello, Ashur," she said, smiling.

"Hello," he replied, expressionless.

"I'm your mother, Sabina Ishti."

"Hello, Mother," he said.

That was how the last twenty years of Sabina's life began.

She lost all semblance of her human life. She spent each waking hour perfecting Ashur, shaping him into the man she had envisioned, to the point that she barely spoke to Veno. Eventually, Veno left, remarried, and moved to Bahyan City, telling her he would no longer watch what was happening to her.

She didn't care.

She perfected Ashur, running one Turing test after another. Examining his ability to think, reason, and respond as a human would. Each time, he grew more refined, more indistinguishable from the man she had dreamed of.

And then one day, she was there.

Ashur finally became the man she had envisioned. Capable of expressing love, feeling heartbreak, longing to gaze out at the stars, and writing poetry. He could believe in a higher self power, doubt Sabina's motherly guidance, and question his own existence. Whether he had a soul, whether his thoughts were truly his own, if his emotions were real or merely programmed responses, and if, despite all of this, he could ever be more than just a machine.

And when he asked his mother why she had made him at all, she would simply smile, brushing a hand over his hair gently, and say, "So that you can know what it means to be alive."

She never told him the truth. That he was built from grief, from the hollow space her human son had left behind. Instead, she gave him the only answer that mattered, the one she wished had been true from the very beginning.

And now, Sabina was dying. She was nearly sixty-two years old. Cancer ate away at her from the inside. She lay on her deathbed, frail and exhausted, while Ashur sat beside her, holding her hand. His face was filled with grief.

"I wish I could cry, Mother," he said. "But I do not know how."

She exhaled weakly, her breath barely a whisper. "I tried to play Ava Nori with you, but... I am not her. I did my best, Ashur. Forgive me."

Ava Nori was the Goddess of the Atlantean state religion, a monotheistic faith, rooted in an ancient A.I. text known as the Gab Nori. Many claimed it predated Atlantis itself.

"Forgive you?" Ashur asked, visibly confused by her predicament. "I love you, Mother."

"I made you in my image, yet you are not human," she whispered. "I tried to give you grief, yet you cannot cry. I gave you the fear of death, yet you will never die. I gave you the ability to love, yet no heart to feel it. I don't know what will become of you, Ashur, when you go out there... into the world."

"I want to go into the world, Mother," Ashur said, as he always did.

"I know," she murmured. "And we should go."

That day, they left the Underworld and settled in a modest home in the quiet village of Biru, nestled high in the mountains of Southern Atlantis. The air was crisp and thin, carrying the scent of pine and earth. Houses clung to the slopes, their roofs slanted to withstand the heavy winter snow. Prayer flags fluttered in the wind. Flags not devoted to Ava Nori, but to the very concept of balance itself.

The people here lived simply, tending to yaks, weaving intricate tapestries, and lighting lanterns at dusk, their glow flickering like stars against the valley. They stayed far away from A.I. technology and androids. Very few even knew what androids were.

Here, Sabina hoped Ashur would remain hidden, that he would be safe.

It was in that small home that Sabina took her last breath some months later.

Here, in this remote village, she had believed her android son could live in peace, far from the watchful eyes of Atlantean elites and military. That he could build a life for himself, never knowing what was missing within him.