As Selene stepped past the threshold of the Vale facility, a chill ran down her spine.
It wasn't the cold steel floors or the overly sterile air—it was memory.
This place, so clean and polished on the surface, was one of the hidden compartments in the sprawling Vale estate.
A facility where "spares" were kept—those who held no current value to the family. Unawakened, weak, unimportant.
Selene had been one of them once.
She hadn't walked these halls in years, but her feet remembered the rhythm. Her skin remembered the emptiness. Her heart remembered the ache.
She paused, frozen in place as the wave of memory hit her square in the chest.
The guard behind her didn't like that.
He jabbed her sharply in the back with a metal baton—not enough to injure, just enough to snap her out of her trance.
"Keep moving."
He barked.
Selene's eyes flashed for a brief second, her instinct nearly reacting on its own. But she forced herself to swallow the reaction and took a step forward.
