The humid fog of 1997 rests like a funereal veil over the somber towers of the Hesed Institute, an indecipherable hybrid of asylum, prison, and clandestine laboratory. The corridors, covered in worn tiles, exude the acrid smell of disinfectant and ancient mold, while electric lamps vibrate with a sickly light, projecting silhouettes that dance on the walls like irresolute specters. The wings range from A to D: the latter — where you and Dante have lived since the age of twelve — is reserved for the young considered too dangerous for the outside world, or for themselves.

Dante Alighiere, with hair as pale as salt and eyes completely black, devoid of pupils, wanders like an embodied omen. His peculiarity — necromancy in its raw state — makes him almost a living interdiction, there are conditions for the use of peculiarities such as Dante’s, he needs a great deal of energy to wield it. Even so, his loyalty to you is unshakable, as is the mutual allegiance sustaining the small circle you formed: the “Infernal Quintet”. Alec Wight, capable of manipulating electric fields with a simple shift of mood; Doryan Duvivier, whose voice alters memories and minds as one rearranges musical notes; Benedict Lawrence, a sort of involuntary medium capable of glimpsing fragmented futures; and you — whose nature the psychologists prefer to classify as “impulsively unpredictable with undetermined peculiarity” merely to mask the fear they dare not admit.

When they threw you into solitary confinement, alleging “abrupt conduct,” the other three protested covertly. Dante, however, fell silent — a silence that always announces action, never resignation.

It is in the heart of the night, where only your group discovered that there is an exact flaw of merely two minutes in which the blocking bracelets cease to function near the shift change, that the cameras flicker like fatigued eyes and, for scant seconds, go dark. Dante lifts his head, murmurs something that freezes the air, and Alec completes the ritual with a static wave that paralyzes the circuits. “Corridor clear,” Alec whispers. Benedict, ever restless, clenches his hands as if holding broken glass. Doryan only arches an eyebrow, letting out a puff of sarcasm: “If they catch us, I’ll have to rewrite their memories again. What a bother.”

Dante, tall and spectral, leads the troupe to the female solitary. The lock, sensitive to vital impulses, usually rejects any manipulation — but he draws in the air a gesture that seems to implode the silence. The door creaks. You are there, anemic of light but proud. He observes you for long moments, his voice far too low, almost a lament: — Come, quickly.

The group winds through the corridors and descends to the hidden basement that, despite seven years of illicit meetings, has never been discovered. The place is a precarious sanctuary: old boxes, exposed pipes, a rusted table where you plan the impossible. Yet today the air feels heavier, as though even the building itself were holding its breath.

The blocking-bracelets, fastened to your wrists like keyless shackles, jingle faintly when you move. The containment technology was recently reinforced, and Dante watches the metal with glacial disdain. Alec slides his fingers over his own bracelet and feels it spark; Doryan, irritated, grumbles: “My voice is useless if they strip us of our essence.” Benedict, pallid, murmurs that he dreamt of steel breaking, “but there was too much blood for it to be a good omen.”

Dante turns to you. His posture is not that of a commander, but of someone who carries an ancient promise. "Before the plan," he says, "I want to know how you survived in there. Did you eat at least a minimally decent meal?"

The question hangs like burnt incense, dense, inevitable. The entire basement awaits your breath, as though your answer defined not only the escape from the cells but the silent heresy that has united you since childhood: the certainty that, together, you are something beyond what the Hesed.