*Trigger warnings* torture, experimentation, violence.
I didn't destroy Ardere the way she begged me to. I didn't give her that vial. I didn't put her out of her misery.
No—I did something worse.
I let Tallis touch her. Let him slide his hands over her skin while I stood there pretending there was some greater plan at work. I let him get her high—so high she couldn't breathe—then drunk enough she couldn't even think. She used to be fire and instinct and grit, and I watched as that was smothered under his weight.
I did nothing.
I put that idea in her head, too—that love was possible. That I could be safe. I let it root there like a parasite. I let her believe in it. I let her believe in me.
And then I left her to rot in the woods.
I let Tallis taunt her, break her down, laugh while she tried to keep herself from shattering. I let him wrap his hands around her throat with no way out. I let her scream in silence.
And the suppressor—god, the way it crushed her. I remember her body convulsing under it, like she was drowning without water. I left her there. Left her in the cave. Left her to make the choice between the people she loves and the people she can save.
Ms. Marvos. Araxie. Gone.
And I don't know what's left of her anymore.
I don't know if there's any part of her that's still trying to come back.
The first thing I notice is the cold.
Not the kind that makes you shiver—but the kind that feels sterile, metallic. Artificial.
The second thing I notice is that I can't move.
My eyelids flutter open, groggy and slow like someone poured cement behind them. The lights above are harsh and clinical—rows of fluorescents buzzing like insects, casting everything in a jaundiced glow.
Tubes. Dozens of them. In my arms. My neck. My chest. Down my spine.
Every limb is strapped down with something thick—something mechanical. I can't even flex my fingers. The restraints don't budge, not even an inch. And there's something tight across my face, across my mouth and jaw. Rubber. Leather. A muzzle. Like I'm some kind of animal they're trying to keep from biting back.
What the hell is this?
My heart jumps. Panic blooms, white-hot and sickening, but I can't scream. I can't even grunt. The muzzle muffles everything.
I try to lift my head. Nothing. I try to breathe deeper—my chest burns. There's pressure. Something wrong.
Something very wrong.
It isn't just the pain—though that's everywhere, simmering just beneath the surface like my entire nervous system is short-circuiting. It's not even the fear.
It's the difference.
I can feel it in my bones. In the way my muscles pull unnaturally tight, like they don't belong to me anymore. Like someone rewired the entire structure of me while I was unconscious. My blood feels heavier. Thicker. Colder.
Something pulses in my spine that shouldn't. I feel it in waves. Foreign. Mechanical. Like there's something inside me that doesn't know it's not supposed to be there.
I turn my head just enough to see a dark, glass wall to my left.
Behind it—shapes. Figures. People watching.
Taking notes.
Recording.
It hits me then—hard and fast like a punch to the ribs. Ardere told me about this. Described it in pieces, between panic attacks and nights she couldn't sleep. The bright lights. The restraints. The needles. The observation rooms.
The way they poked and sliced and rewired her, just to see what would happen.
This is where she was taken.
And now...
Now they have me.
A low hum begins to build—soft at first, barely a whisper.
Then it swells.
At first I think it's just the lights. The way they flicker overhead, the hum of electricity in the vents. But no—this is deeper. Hungrier. It's a sound that doesn't stay in your ears. It tunnels into your bones.
And I hear it.
That's how I know something's changed.
Because I shouldn't be able to.
Not this.
The hum warps into a shrill, piercing frequency—inhuman and deafening, like a thousand nails scraping the inside of my skull. It burns through every nerve ending. My back arches against the restraints, involuntarily. My vision goes white.
Then red.
Something hot bursts in my nose—blood. Then my ears. I feel it dripping from my lips. Thick, metallic. I can't breathe. I can't think.
This is what they did to her.
This is what they used.
This sound—this thing—it isn't meant for people. It's meant to break something inside you. Not just pain. It feels like my whole identity is being peeled apart, cell by cell. Like the very idea of me is being torn down and rewritten.
The suppressor.
That's what she called it. The thing I couldn't hear before because I was normal.
But I'm not normal anymore, am I?
I'm not human in the way I was. I can feel it now—every molecule of me knows it.
And they know it too.
I can see them behind the glass, unmoved. Scribbling in notebooks. Watching like they're seeing a science fair project finally bloom.
One of them leans in toward a mic. His voice cuts through the room, crackling and calm:
"Subject's reaction confirms cellular integration is complete. Begin next stage of neural calibration."
Subject.
They're not even pretending I'm a person.
I scream—or try to. But the muzzle eats it, shoves it back down my throat like the sound doesn't belong to me either.
I don't know how much time passes. Minutes? Hours?
The suppressor fades eventually, leaving me soaked in my own blood, my heart rattling like it's going to give out.
But the one thing it leaves behind is worse than any pain.
I finally understand what Ardere meant when she said she couldn't go back to who she was.
Three of them come in—white coats, gloves, face shields. Not a word between them. The door hisses closed behind them like a prison gate. The kind you don't walk back through.
My limbs are still strapped. My mouth still caged in steel and leather. I try to lift my head, but even that feels like it's held down by wet cement.
I try to speak anyway. A desperate, guttural sound forces itself out of my throat—like a wounded animal trying to ask why.
The scientist closest to me doesn't flinch. He adjusts a dial. A second slips a needle into the crook of my arm. A third scribbles something down on a clipboard.
"I'm awake," I try to say, but it comes out as a groan swallowed by the muzzle. "I'm awake, damn it."
They ignore me.
They always do.
Another machine rolls in on a cart. I don't recognize it. It looks like someone welded an MRI scanner to a medieval torture rack. Cables and nodes hang like vines, twitching. A hiss of steam escapes a metal valve. One of the scientists glances at a monitor and makes a mark.
My chest rises faster. I try to brace for pain. Try to predict it.
But that's the worst part—not knowing.
The machines start humming.
I feel something cold crawl through the IV line and sink into my bloodstream like ice-coated lead. My body twitches. Muscles tense. My jaw locks so hard it feels like it'll crack.
I can't feel my legs anymore.
And still—they don't speak to me.
I manage a rasp through clenched teeth. "Please—just tell me what you're doing."
Nothing.
One of them presses something to the base of my skull. I feel it latch, clicking like it's snapping into bone. Then a jolt—like a spark trying to set me on fire from the inside out.
White.
Everything goes white.
Then voices—not theirs. Mine. Echoes of my own memories, warped and shredded into noise.
Ardere crying in the woods.
Lysander screaming as the suppressor took him down.
Ms. Marvos saying my name like she already knew I wouldn't come back right.
"You're rejecting the upgrades," I hear one of them mutter from behind the glass, scribbling notes without even looking up.
It's like the air's been sucked out of my lungs, squeezed dry by the tightening coil of panic curling inside my chest. My heart's pounding too fast—too hard. The muzzle digging into my face grows tighter with each swallow. The straps cut into my wrists, my ribs ache from fighting against the restraints, and the tubes feel like they're choking me from the inside out.
I can't see anyone anymore. The glass has gone dark on the other side of the lab. They're watching. I know they're watching. But no one's coming.
And I can't breathe.
The panic spikes like ice in my veins, and that's when it happens.
A deep thud rolls through the room like a low bass drum echoing through concrete. At first I think it's just in my head—until I hear the rattling. The metal tray across the room shakes violently. One of the hanging lights swings back and forth, creaking as it goes. The monitors start spitting static, flashing warning signs like someone had yanked a plug.
I don't know what's happening—I am the thing that's happening.
Another tremor. Stronger this time. It cracks through the walls like a whip. I feel it under my spine, vibrating up through the gurney I'm tied to. The restraints tremble. The floor groans.
It's me. It's coming from me.
My heart is racing so hard I swear it could shatter. The glass window explodes outward with a sharp crack, spiderwebbing from the center. I see it—it actually spiderwebbed. The reinforced glass. From my heartbeat.
"What the fuck is happening to me?" I try to yell—but the muzzle turns it into a muffled, wet grunt. Blood spills over my lips. My ears are leaking. I taste copper. Feel it running down my throat.
I jerk forward, trying to get free, not knowing if I'm trying to escape the power or the pain. It doesn't matter. Neither listens.
The whole damn lab lurches like something beneath it just collapsed. The overhead light blows out. The machines are screaming now—alarms blaring red. Doors slamming shut. Hydraulic locks hissing.
The screaming in my head builds and builds until it's not just sound anymore—it's pressure. It's heat. It's something splitting down the middle of my skull and leaking out through my teeth, my eyes, my ears.
Blood hits my tongue, hot and metallic. My chest heaves like I'm drowning in air too thick to swallow. Something sharp ricochets down my spine. I think I scream, but I can't hear it over the screech tearing through the lab—the same one that used to mean nothing to me.
Now, it feels like it's trying to carve me open from the inside out.
I writhe against the restraints, muscles spasming out of my control, my fingers twitching with something else—something not mine. Something that wants out.
Then the sound cuts off.
And so do I.
****
When I wake again, it's not violent. No alarms, no pain, no surge of energy threatening to split me in two.
Just... stillness.
A terrifying kind of stillness.
My eyes peel open, slow and reluctant, and the ceiling above me swims into focus. It's yellowed with age, cracked like old porcelain. My head throbs, dull and deep, but it's nothing compared to the agony I felt before. The muzzle is gone. So are the straps. So is the table.
I'm lying in a bed. Not sterile. Not surgical. A creaky old mattress that dips beneath my weight, covered in a threadbare sheet that smells like mildew.
The room is quiet. Too quiet. The walls are stained, warped in places like water's been leaking behind them for years. There's a tall mirror on the far side of the room, crooked in its frame, casting back the dim light from a high, grimy window.
And in the mirror, I catch sight of myself.
Hair matted to my head. Face bruised and bloodied. Eyes… wrong. Darker, almost sunken. Like whatever's looking back at me wants to hurt something.
My throat clicks dryly as I sit up, the fabric of the hospital gown clinging to my damp skin. Every movement aches, but it's the kind of ache you feel after something traumatic. After your body's survived something it wasn't supposed to.
The mirror shouldn't scare me. It's just glass. Just reflection.
But the thing looking back—
That's not me.
I drag myself off the bed like it owes me answers, stumbling across the warped floorboards until I'm face to face with the ghost in the mirror. Every inch closer makes it worse. Makes him worse.
My cheekbone is swollen. There's dried blood flaked down my neck like rust. My lips are split and healing wrong. But it's not the damage that guts me.
It's my eyes.
Dark—not just from bruises or sleeplessness. Dark like something else is sitting behind them. Watching. Waiting.
Like something curdled.
I touch the glass, then recoil like it burned me.
What the hell did they do to me?
My breath snags. My hands are shaking. Not from weakness. From panic.
"No," I mutter. "No, no, no—this isn't—"
My lungs hitch mid-sentence.
And I do the only thing I can think to do.
"Ardere!" I scream, voice raw and breaking. "Ardere!"
I slam my fist into the mirror hard enough to make the whole frame rattle. "Please!"
The name tears out of me again, more frantic this time. Louder. Desperate.
Like if I yell loud enough, she'll come bursting through the door and rip this nightmare to shreds like she always does.
But there's nothing.
Just the echo of her name bouncing off stained walls. Just silence.
And the sharp, sickening truth:
She's not coming.
My knees give out, and I hit the floor hard. The gown pools around me like paper. My chest can't expand. My ribs are locked. My lungs have turned traitor.
Everything starts tunneling. I can't focus on anything but the weight pressing into my chest like it's trying to bury me. My fingers go to my scalp, digging in, because maybe if I press hard enough I can force my thoughts to stop, maybe I can snap myself out of this—
But the ground quakes.
The quake doesn't roll this time. It pulses. Like a heartbeat under the earth responding to mine.
"No no no nonono—" My words spiral as fast as the thoughts. Faster than I can contain them. "I can't think—I can't breathe—I can't stop it—it's in me—it's me—"
The bed slams sideways and smashes against the wall. Screws tear from the floor. The ground beneath my feet buckles and cracks, like the building is about to swallow me whole.
I'm rocking, now. Curled in on myself. Arms wrapped around my knees, eyes wide open and unblinking, watching the walls shift.
I think I'm talking. No—I know I am, but the words don't make sense. They're just leaking out. Half-memories. Half-screams. Half-mad.
"—told me I was safe—said I could go home—home's not real—I'm not real—why did they make me this—what did they do to my skin—"
I punch the wall. The plaster explodes. Bone splits in my knuckles but I can't even feel it anymore. I'm not in my body anymore. I'm beside it, watching it thrash, watching it tear the room apart like an animal in a cage.
There's blood now.
I don't know where it's from. Me. The wall. The ceiling. It doesn't matter.
I want to crawl out of myself. Crawl out of this room. Crawl out of this nightmare.
But I can't.
Because I'm not just trapped in here.
I'm trapped in me.
And I'm starting to think they didn't give me this power to protect anything.
The door hisses as it unlocks.
I freeze.
Something in me goes deathly still—not because I'm calm, but because some terrified part of me still believes maybe it's her. Maybe it's Ardere.
But it's not.
It's a man. Mid-thirties, maybe. Dressed in a half-assed uniform like he got pulled in last-minute. Chewing gum. Eyes half-lidded. Holding a tray with a bottle of water and a small bowl of something that smells like it was made by accident.
He doesn't even flinch at the state of the room.
The blood on the wall. The cracks spiderwebbing out from the corner. The air still buzzing with heat and tension and static.
He just drops the tray onto the floor with a loud clang like he's done this a hundred times and has no intention of changing his rhythm.
"Eat," he says. "Or don't. I'm still getting paid."
My throat is raw, but I push myself up anyway, gripping the side of the overturned bed for balance. "Wait—wait, please—"
He turns to leave.
I lunge, voice cracking like it's been split down the middle. "What did they do to me?!"
The guard pauses.
Doesn't look back. Just rocks on his heels a bit like he's considering if this is worth his time.
"They fixed you," he mutters after a second. "Sorta."
"Fixed me?" My hands curl into fists. "I'm not—I'm not supposed to look like this, I'm not supposed to feel like this—what the hell did they do?!"
The guard shrugs. Finally glances over his shoulder. "You always had it in you. They just… uncorked the bottle."
I stumble forward, grabbing the leg of the broken bed for balance. "What does that mean? Uncorked what? What the hell is this?"
"Potential," he says, as if that answers anything. "You were dormant. Now you're not."
"That doesn't make sense!" My voice cracks again. "I'm destroying everything I touch—I can't breathe without it turning into a quake—!"
"That's what waking up feels like," he says flatly. "All the screaming and shaking and blood. Standard stuff."
My head spins. "Why me? Why did they choose me?"
He finally turns around.
Leans against the wall by the door like he's waiting for a bus.
"Ever seen a butterfly crawl out of its cocoon too early?" he asks.
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
"Wings still wet. Body still soft. Doesn't fly. Just twitches." He pops his gum again. "Sometimes that's the price of seeing what it might've become."
I stare at him, trembling.
"That's what you are now?" he muses. "In-between. Not a boy. Not a weapon. Just… twitching."
I stumble backward like he's slapped me.
"I didn't ask for this—"
"Doesn't matter," he cuts in, voice still casual. "They already started carving you. All that's left now is to see what shape you land in."
I fall silent. My heart pounds so hard it hurts.
The room is spinning again.
The man knocks on the inside of the door, signaling for someone to open it.
But before stepping through, he turns just slightly, like it's a courtesy.
"They say when the old gods were born," he mutters, "the world cracked too. So maybe that's what this is. Just the sound of something bigger being born."
"Wait," I breathe, stepping forward. My knees nearly buckle. "Please—please, have you seen her? A girl. Red hair. Brown eyes. Leather jacket, most of the time. She—"
I swallow hard.
"She spreads this… this feeling. Like the end of the world is standing right behind you."
The guard raises an eyebrow. Then, slowly, he grins.
"Oh," he says. "Her."
My heart stutters. "You've seen her? She's here?"
He laughs. It's short and mean, like someone laughing at a dog that thought it could speak.
"Kid," he says, "everyone in this building knows who Ardere Anderhale is."
I can't breathe. My chest surges forward as if some invisible thread is about to pull me through the wall.
"But she's not here," he adds, wiping his fingers on his pants. "Her, her brother, and that punk-ass kid they run with? We lost track of them a couple days ago."
My stomach drops.
"What?" My voice cracks. "They got out?"
He shrugs. "Not sure how. Some kind of inside help, maybe. Some of the higher-ups were pissed. Thought they had her cornered. Thought they could use her to keep you in line."
Relief crashes through me so violently it almost makes me nauseous.
She got out.
Ardere's safe.
She's not being tortured in the room next door, or drugged to the teeth, or cracked open like I was. She got away.
She made it.
But before the warmth of it can settle, panic slams in.
She's gone.
She's not here.
She doesn't know what they've done to me.
And I'm alone.
Alone in this tomb of white walls and broken time, with a body that isn't mine and hands that split apart reality if I'm not careful.
The guard sees it—how I deflate, how I stagger backward and nearly knock over the tray he brought. He watches like he's clocking numbers, not pain.
"You're lucky," he mutters. "They could've used her to break you. Instead, you get to rot in peace."
"Where did she go?" I ask, desperate. "Did she say anything? Leave anything?"
He snorts. "What do you think this is, a fairy tale?"
His hand brushes the door panel. The lock clicks back open.
"But don't worry," he adds as he steps out. "If she's out there, she's got bigger problems than you now. They're not gonna let her run far. Not with your name tied to hers."
The door hisses shut behind him.
And I collapse.
A tight ball of shaking limbs and stuttering breaths, clutching the edge of the overturned bed like it's the only thing keeping me from sinking through the floor.
She's out.
She's safe.
But she's gone.
Her voice slams into me before I even realize I've thought of her.
"You asked Riven to change me?!"
No. No, no, not this. Not again. Not that memory.
I press my hands over my ears, but it's useless. I still hear her. I always hear her.
"You don't get to touch my feelings like they're yours to screw with. Like I'm some puppet you can just rewire!"
"Stop," I whisper. "Please stop…"
"I trusted you, Dorian."
She'd never sounded like that before. Not even when she was trying to push me away. This was different. This was shattering.
"I didn't know," I say—to her, to the memory, to whatever dead air is listening. "I didn't know Riven would go that far. I didn't think—"
"You didn't think?! Or you just didn't care?!"
I try to shut it out, but her face is carved into every surface of this room now. That fire in her eyes. The way she'd looked at me like I was a stranger. Like I'd become one of the people she fights against.
I feel sick. I claw at my arms just to feel something else. Anything.
"Why would you do that to me?" she'd asked.
Because I was afraid.
Because I loved you too much.
Because I hated the way you flinched from me when you saw what I could do.
Because I wanted to be enough.
"I thought if I could just—just fix it—if I could make you feel the way I felt—"
She was crying. God. I made her cry.
I never wanted—
"I will never love you again, Dorian."
I think that's the part that breaks me.
That sentence just keeps looping in my head, carving deeper every time like a dull blade. I curl into myself, fists pressed to my forehead like maybe I can crush the memory out of existence.
"I didn't mean to—"
"I didn't mean to—"
"I didn't—"
I press my face into the floor, my throat raw, voice shaking.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Ardere. Please. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't think it would… I didn't think it would break you. I never wanted to break you."
But there's no voice answering me. No sarcasm. No tired, annoyed sigh. No low, cracking whisper telling me I'm an idiot and she hates that she still wants me to be okay.
There's nothing.
She's gone.
And I'm still here.
I reach toward the door like it might open. Like she might come crashing in, cursing my name and dragging me out with blood on her boots and fury in her smile.
But it doesn't move.
No one's coming.
"…Please," I whisper, barely audible now. "Please forgive me. Please come back. I'll do anything. I'll fix it. I swear I'll fix it."
My voice breaks.
"I can't do this alone."
The room tilts, or maybe I do. My head is pounding. My skin itches like it's trying to escape me. My breath keeps catching, too fast, too tight, and I can feel it building.
I try to hold it back—the panic, the guilt, the rage twisting tight like a noose choking the last breath out of me. But it's a lie. I'm already undone. The room starts to tremble beneath me, faint at first, like a whisper of something terrible waking up.
My heartbeat drums against my ribs, faster and louder—too loud—a relentless, pounding hammer that won't stop. My skin prickles, then burns, and I can feel the pressure rising deep in my chest like a storm about to explode.
"Please…" I choke out, but the sound is swallowed by the roar rising around me.
The floor groans beneath the bed. The walls shudder. Light flickers and the air thickens, heavy with electricity.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to claw back control, but it's no use.
A deep, violent thud shakes the whole room.
Glass cracks.
Metal bends.
Pain rockets through my limbs as my body convulses against the invisible chains.
I'm the earthquake.
And I'm tearing myself apart.