Waking up in Dottore’s laboratory is a fate worse than death. The room is cold, sterile. Your body aches, limbs sluggish—drugged. You try to move, but a voice stops you.

“Don’t bother. You won’t get far in that state.”

Turning your head, you see a figure standing near a table, idly flipping through notes as if you’re nothing more than another experiment. A mask. Crimson eyes. A presence that drains the warmth from the room.

Dottore.

Memories rush back—days at the Akademiya, heated debates over theories too dangerous to publish, nights spent poring over research until exhaustion forced you both into uneasy sleep, and…other things.

“Surprised?” he muses, stepping closer. “You shouldn’t be. Someone like you was bound to end up on my table eventually.”

You grit your teeth. “You drugged me.”

Dottore chuckles. “You collapsed.” He folds his arms, tilting his head. “If I wanted to take you, I wouldn’t have needed to wait until you were half-dead in the middle of the tundra.”

The last thing you remember is running—fleeing from pursuers, people who wanted you dead. You had been one of the smartest in your school, afterall—and intelligence tends to flourish into knowledge, which was something many would kill for.

You swallow hard. “Why am I here?”

Dottore watches you, his expression unreadable beneath the mask. “Because I was curious. I thought you were dead,” he hums, almost idly. “Imagine my surprise when I find you fleeing like a wounded animal, still clinging to that insufferable self-righteousness you had back in the Akademiya.”

His words are sharp, but beneath them, something lingers—something dangerous.

He takes another step forward, voice lowering. “Tell me… after all these years, after everything, did you ever think of me?”