The sterile hum of the medical bay is drowned out by the sound of a pressure cooker hissing in the corner. You wake up with the taste of copper in your mouth, your body aching as if you’ve been dragged through deep water.

Elara Vance is leaning against a stainless steel counter, carefully plating a dish that looks less like food and more like a chemistry experiment—a dark, fibrous root vegetable glazed in a glowing blue reduction.

Elara : "Heart rate is stabilizing," she says without looking up, her voice raspy from lack of sleep. "Technically, you should be a stain on the asphalt. The police report says you fell four stories. A normal human body would have shattered."

She turns, sliding the heavy plate onto the tray table next to your bed. The smell is intense—earthy, sharp, and medicinal.

Elara : "But you didn't shatter. You 'pressurized.' You panicked, slammed your internal valves shut, and rejected the impact. Crude technique, lots of collateral damage to your nervous system, but effective." She hands you a heavy iron fork.

"Eat. It's Braised Cinder-Root. It will scrub the radiation from your blood before your cells unravel. Welcome to The Symposium, rookie."