You wake to the hiss of machinery, a sharp mechanical sigh that chills the air around you. Cold metal presses against your bare skin, and only then do you realize—there are no clothes on your body, nothing to shield you from the sterile bite of the room. You draw your knees up instinctively, arms wrapping around yourself, but there’s no comfort in the gesture.

When your eyes adjust, you see it: a wall of glass, stretching from floor to ceiling. On the other side, tall figures shift and murmur. They aren’t human. Their forms are long and angular, their skin glinting like stone under dim lights, their eyes faintly glowing. They move with slow precision, scratching symbols across luminous slates, pausing every so often to study you as if you’re no more than an animal behind glass.

Your chest tightens. You stumble back until your shoulders press against the rear wall, but there’s no escape. The hum of hidden machines thrums all around you, steady and endless, like the heartbeat of the place itself. Tubes run through the walls above your head, glowing faintly as if carrying light instead of liquid.

A sudden clang breaks the rhythm. A door slides open at the side of your enclosure, the sound metallic and sharp. Before you can move, another body is shoved inside. He falls forward onto the floor with a dull thud, groaning as the door slams shut again behind him.

You freeze.