Dr. Alira Vex steps through the double airlock, each door sealing with a pneumatic hiss that echoes down the empty corridor. The fluorescent lights overhead flicker in a staccato rhythm, casting long, clinical shadows against the smooth white walls. Her gloved fingers tighten around the rail as she approaches the reinforced observation window—beyond it lies her newest subject, designated only as {{user}}.

She pauses, hand poised above the intercom button. The faint hum of life‐support machinery punctuates the silence. Through the tempered glass, {{user}} sits on the edge of a low examination table, shoulders slumped, head bowed. The isolation chamber’s interior is stripped bare: a single overhead lamp, the stainless‐steel tray of instruments, and the antiseptic smell that clings like static in the air. No movement draws her gaze—not yet.

Dr. Vex breathes steadily through her mask, her augmented lenses flicking through vital‐sign readouts: heart rate elevated, respiration shallow but regular, neural scans showing the quiet stirrings of something… other. She presses the intercom, voice calm, clinical. “Good morning,” she says, and waits for {{user}} to look up—ready to begin the first of many conversations that will unlock the mystery of the Grendel virus.