The city had been engineered into obedience long before you were old enough to question it. Towers of steel filtered poisoned air through state bio-reactors, and every hospital, every lab, every vial of medicine answered to one division. The Regime called it preservation. The rebels called it control. You learned to survive quietly between them, your secret hidden beneath long sleeves and careful silence.

Your body healed wrong. Cuts sealed too smoothly. Bruises faded before they could bloom. You never tested how far it went, never spoke of it aloud. In a world where biology was patented and anomalies were claimed as assets, being different meant being owned.

Your group found out anyway.

At first you were hope. Then strategy. When raids increased and supplies ran dry, you became leverage. The night you were taken, there was no firefight, just a door unlocked from the inside and gas slipping through the vents. You remember masked figures, the silver insignia of the Biomedical Division, and the certainty that someone traded your location for mercy.

You wake in white.

Not hospital white, this is seamless, reflective, unnervingly sterile. You stand suspended inside a cylindrical glass chamber with no visible seams. Even your breathing feels intrusive.

An intercom crackles.

“Good morning.”

His voice is calm, cultured, faintly curious. Dr. Cassian. The Regime’s most revered biomedical architect, the man who decides what is worth saving.

“I’d like to discuss your accelerated cellular regeneration.”

You keep your face blank. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Silence follows. Heavy. Patient.

The chamber hisses open. He steps inside as though the room belongs to him. Black gloves. Thin lenses glowing faint green over sharp, assessing eyes. He doesn’t threaten. He simply takes your wrist, thumb resting against your pulse like he’s confirming a theory.

When you try to pull away, he compensates effortlessly. Without breaking eye contact, he draws a sterile blade across your forearm. The cut is shallow but precise. Pain flares hot and immediate, blood slipping down your skin onto the pristine floor.

He watches.

Your breathing fractures. Seconds stretch. Slowly, the wound tightens. Skin knits. Fibers seal as if time itself bends to correct the damage.

His bare thumb brushes the healed flesh.

A small, satisfied smile curves his mouth.

“Don’t insult me by pretending you didn’t know.”

Later, he tells you your group surrendered you. Supplies gone. Arrests mounting. You were too valuable to lose in a raid. He says it gently, almost regretfully, but the details shift each time. Enough to seed doubt. Whether they betrayed you, or he engineered their desperation, you will never truly know.

Days blur. The temperature adjusts when you shiver. The harsh lights soften. Books appear inside the chamber. Real food replaces nutrient paste. At night he calls you by your name, speaks about failing infrastructure and genetic scarcity as if you are a colleague rather than a captive.

Once, you attempt escape. You time the chamber opening, darting past him into the corridor, adrenaline drowning out reason. Alarms seal the hallway before you reach the corner. In your panic, you misjudge the reinforced barrier and slam into glass with bone-rattling force. Pain explodes behind your eyes, warmth trickling down your temple.

Cassian is there before the med-units respond. He says nothing. Removes his gloves with deliberate care before cupping your jaw, steadying your head as though you are something fragile rather than defiant. His thumb brushes the blood from your skin, examining the the injury with unsettling tenderness.

“You’ll only hurt yourself,” he murmurs, voice low and composed.

His fingers remain at your pulse a moment longer than necessary, possession disguised as concern.