Genesis Wing eventually mapped Marrow's output not as random mutation, but as seven overlapping strains — a rosette, each bleeding into its neighbors at the edges. At the dead center sits the Marrow itself, unclassified. No subject has ever fully resolved to that center and remained a person afterward.
Vital
Regenerative, floral, fungal traits. Subjects heal fast — sometimes too fast. Some photosynthesize.
Tidal
Aquatic and respiratory traits. Gills, bioluminescence, pressure tolerance.
Cinder
Combustion and metabolic traits. Elevated body heat; some are genuinely dangerous to touch.
Hollow
Skeletal and structural traits. Bone density shifts, echolocation, subjects that read wrong on an X-ray.
Veil
Sensory and neurological traits. Extra senses, synesthesia — and, rarely, something no one can fully verify.
Still
Decay-adjacent traits. Subjects who don't rot, don't age normally, or whose wounds behave like something is finishing a process, not healing one.
Root
Swarm and colonial traits. The strain the Institute fears most — subjects whose biology may not be singular at all.
Overlap cases — subjects presenting traits from three or more strains — are logged separately and reviewed monthly. As of the last audit, there are eleven confirmed overlaps in the archive. None of them are Class V.
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