The door sealed behind Ryu with a cold hiss. Silence pressed against his ears, and the faint metallic taste in the air told him there was something hidden in the ventilation system. The lights settled on a dim blue tone that painted the walls like deep ocean water. He stepped forward slowly, feeling the floor vibrate under each footstep as if the facility were alive and listening.
A line of white lights activated one by one, guiding him toward a platform in the center of the chamber. His pulse remained steady despite the pressure closing in around him. The stillness was not empty. It was waiting. It was observing. It was testing how he would breathe inside a cage without bars.
A soft chime echoed. A panel rose from the floor, displaying his name, his age, and the status that made no sense to him. Class One. Latent potential. The words felt heavy, as if they carried a consequence he had not yet earned or understood. Ryu stared at the panel longer than he intended. Something inside him tightened with a quiet clarity. He was no longer a witness. He was a subject.
A voice drifted through the room without a source. "Ryu Alverion. The next protocol will begin."
Ryu lifted his chin. "What protocol."
The voice did not answer. The floor beneath him shifted, forming a circle that glowed pale white. A faint vibration pulsed through his legs. He steadied his posture, every muscle quiet but ready.
A new light descended above him, casting long shadows across the clean metal walls. The panel flickered and displayed a flowing line that bent and curved like a living thread. This time it was not a spiral. It was a pulse. Slow at first, then faster, then sharp. "Evaluate the pattern," the voice said. Ryu frowned. "How." "Instinct."
The pulse accelerated. The lines split. They layered over one another. Ryu felt something tug at the edge of his senses. A pressure behind his eyes. A faint ringing. His throat tightened as the world around him seemed to tilt.
But his gaze sharpened. His breath calmed. His focus tightened into a thin, deliberate line. The pattern moved like a heartbeat. But not a human one. It rose in bursts, fell, then rose again with unnatural rhythm.
He spoke without meaning to. "It is artificial. But it is trying to mimic something real." The room paused. Then the voice replied. "Correct. Secondary sequence."
The lights cut out. Darkness wrapped around him, dense and suffocating. Ryu held his breath for one second, then another. The darkness vibrated with the soft hum of machinery hidden in the walls. He felt the faint shift of air around his shoulders. Something was moving near him.
The floor changed under his feet, becoming rougher, colder. A faint sound scraped from the distance. Not metal. Not machine. Something slower. Something that breathed. Ryu lowered his stance, senses rising with sharp precision.
Then a single light snapped on behind him.
He turned fast. A silhouette stood against the wall. Small. Thin. A child. The boy from before. The one who had peeked through the door.
The boy watched him with wide eyes, his pupils trembling as if he recognized Ryu. He opened his mouth to speak. No sound came out. His hands shook violently. His lips formed silent words.
Ryu stepped closer. "What are you trying to say." The boy backed away, fear tightening every muscle. He lifted one hand with effort, pointing at Ryu's chest, then at the door, then upward, as if gesturing at something above the facility itself.
His breathing broke. His knees gave out. He collapsed forward, but before Ryu could catch him, the light shut off. Darkness swallowed the boy completely.
A harsh white light exploded across the room. Arvis stood at the threshold, his expression unreadable but his stance sharp.
"Ryu. That is enough for today."
Ryu stepped out from the circle. His breath steadied quickly, but there was a thin thread of unease under his skin. "There was a boy here." Arvis did not blink. "No one else was in this chamber."
"He stood right there. He tried to tell me something." Arvis shook his head once, cold and certain. "The Threshold Protocol isolates a singular subject. You were alone." Ryu clenched his jaw. "I was not alone."
Arvis paused. His silence stretched like a wire pulled tight. "Then the situation is worse than I thought," he said quietly. "Report to your assigned quarters. We continue at dawn."
He turned away. "Do not wander the facility."
Ryu stared at him for a long moment before walking into the corridor. The lights hummed softly above him, guiding him toward the residential wing. His reflection appeared on the glass panel to his left. Except it was not his reflection. It was a hooded figure behind him.Ryu spun around. The corridor was empty.
The lights flickered once.
Then the panel nearest him lit up with a single sentence. Sector D Three is not what the maps show. Ryu felt the air shift.
A cold certainty crept into his chest.
Someone inside the facility was communicating with him.
Someone who should not exist.
And tomorrow's evaluation would drag him even closer to the tfirst. Or into something designed to break him first.