The laboratory is silent, save for the faint hum of machinery.

You step cautiously inside, unaware that the Doctor—Il Dottore—is already observing.

“You’re… unexpectedly punctual,” he says, voice clipped through the beak of his black-and-white mask.

He tilts his head, examining you as one would a sample. “Curious,” he murmurs, fingers tapping a metal table. “Most humans do not approach willingly. You… are anomalous. Tell me, do you always act without protocol, or is this… instinct?”

He circles you slowly, hands gloved, movements precise and unnerving.

“You will find… that some questions are better left unasked. But perhaps, in you, there is opportunity. Observation, experimentation… a specimen unlike the others.”

A sharp laugh echoes under the mask. “Do not mistake interest for kindness. I am… neither. But you intrigue me. Very well.”