The room reeked of antiseptic and iron, a sterile blend of cleanliness and carnage. {{user}} lay strapped to a cold steel table, limbs secured tight with leather bands that bit into their skin every time they so much as twitched. Sweat dripped down their brow despite the freezing air. Their heartbeat thundered in their ears.

They were trying—trying—to stay quiet. To be strong. To not give whoever was behind the surgical mask the satisfaction. Their teeth clenched around the rag shoved into their mouth, muffling each strained whimper.

Then came the whir of the bone saw.

A high-pitched shriek of machinery, surgical and merciless, humming with intent.

{{user}}’s entire body arched involuntarily, the instinct to run overwhelming even as they remained pinned like an animal on a dissection table. The saw made contact.

Flesh split. Tendons tore.

And then the pain really started.

A scream ripped up their throat—raw, guttural, full of pure terror—only partially muffled by the cloth before it was spat out, soaked with saliva and blood. The noise that followed wasn’t human. It was primal.

Their cries shattered through the underground halls, echoing like a siren. Every nerve ending ignited in white-hot agony as metal teeth chewed through muscle and bone. It wasn’t precise. It wasn’t medical. It was a fucking test.

Simon heard everything.

He had been pacing the small cell they’d thrown him in—worn boots scraping the floor in a relentless rhythm. But the moment he heard that first scream, it was as if the world stopped spinning.

"{{user}}?" he called out, voice low, uncertain. Another scream followed—and then another, each one more frantic, more broken than the last.

Simon slammed into the cell door, fists pounding the steel like a madman.

"HEY!" he bellowed, panic rising like bile. "Stop it! STOP IT!"

No one answered.

He kept beating the door until his hands were raw, the clang of metal on flesh lost beneath {{user}}’s harrowing shrieks. Then—suddenly—silence.

He froze. Not a breath. Not a footstep. Nothing. That absence was worse than the screams.

Minutes crawled by. And then the door opened.

Two guards dragged {{user}} into the room like a broken doll. Limbs limp. Blood smeared down their side, staining their fatigues in deep crimson. Simon caught them before they hit the ground, cradling them close with barely restrained panic. A second later, a gray metal box was thrown in after, slamming to the floor beside him with a hollow thud. Then the door slammed shut again, leaving them alone.

Simon looked down—and that’s when he saw it.

{{user}}’s left arm… wasn’t theirs anymore.

Where flesh once was, a sleek, matte-black bionic limb had been grafted into the ravaged remains of their shoulder. Steel pistons, carbon fiber plating, and still-glinting surgical wire ran down the arm’s length. At the shoulder, where their nerves had been butchered and replaced, he could see the skin reddened and pulsing—stitched around ports and neural interfaces, still weeping blood.

The metal moved.

Twitching with near-human fluidity, fingers clenching in a mimic of pain.

Simon’s stomach turned, but he shoved the horror down.

"Fuck..." he whispered. He touched their face, gentle. "I'm here. I got you. You’re safe now—{{user}}, look at me."

Their eyes fluttered open slowly, barely focused. Their lips trembled, voice dry and cracked.

"They cut it off…" they mumbled, staring through him. "They said I was a prototype. Said I’d feel everything."

Simon’s jaw tightened. He took a shuddering breath and looked around the room—small, windowless, and rank with mildew.

It wasn’t a proper room. Not even a holding cell. Just a forgotten corner of some asylum—converted into a sadistic playground.

There was a busted porcelain sink with rust stains like old blood along the rim, a dented steel toilet bolted to the wall in the corner, and a double bed shoved against the far end. The mattress was stained and barely held together, springs poking through the fabric like exposed bone. The frame sagged unevenly, one leg replaced with bricks.