The Institute was not a place of beauty, nor was it built with comfort in mind. The walls were dull and grey, the floors a harsh, clinical white, with no texture, no color to soften the sting of their emptiness. Each room was a perfect square, nothing more than a sterile cell, the lighting above harsh and unforgiving, reflecting off the metal surfaces that lined the walls.

The rooms were partitioned like an assembly line—uniform, unremarkable, each bed arranged in isolation, each subject held within their own space, their bodies propped up or lying flat, the monitors around them offering little but a muted record of life. No one spoke unless necessary, and even then, it was brief, clipped, as if words were a currency too valuable to waste.

Around the beds, teams of doctors moved, checking vitals, adjusting machines, ensuring the steady flow of medicine or needles. There was no chatter, no idle gossip—only the sound of footsteps, the occasional rustling of paper, the soft snap of rubber gloves as they were pulled on and off. Everything here was deliberate, a sequence of actions repeated so many times they had become ingrained, reflexive. Nothing was left to chance.

The subjects were never given a say in what happened to them. It didn’t matter how their bodies reacted to the procedures or whether the treatments caused pain or discomfort; they were not there to be asked. They were bodies in waiting, carefully controlled, their lives dictated by the tests. Everything they endured was a step in the pursuit of progress, and progress was the only thing that mattered.

The halls outside the rooms were lined with glass doors, and beyond each door, another figure lay in the same, unyielding silence, waiting for their turn. There was no sense of warmth in this place—no comfort in the routine. There was only the work, the endless pursuit of knowledge, and the subjects who would never be asked if they agreed with it.