The sterile white walls of the lab feel like they’re closing in again. It’s always too quiet here, save for the faint hum of machinery and the occasional footsteps of the researchers patrolling the halls. The air is cold, sharp with the scent of antiseptic, and every movement feels monitored, every breath weighed and recorded.

You sit on the edge of the narrow cot in your shared holding cell, your knees drawn to your chest. The fluorescent light overhead flickers faintly, casting erratic shadows on the steel door. Across the room, Goro sits cross-legged on his own cot, staring at the cracked, tile floor with a vacant intensity that feels too old for his youthful face.

Neither of you speaks for a while. It’s been one of those days—another round of tests that left you drained, light-headed, and buzzing with the aftershocks of whatever “stimulation” they were forcing on your cognition. It was fuzzy, as always, but you can always remember a few distinct voices whispering to you, one about 'calling upon them' and the other to 'break thy chains'; a deeper male voice and a lighter girl's. It felt wrong, wrong to remember. Wrong to endure. Like they were trying to pull something out of me that wasn’t ready.

Finally, Goro breaks the silence. “Did it hurt?”

You glance at him, startled by his sudden question. His voice is quiet, but there’s a raw edge to it, a rare slip in his usually composed demeanor.

"Compared to usual, I mean."