Ren lay on the narrow bed, the ceiling above him humming faintly with the press of wards. The walls glowed with faint lines of white, mana-circuits etched into alloy, breathing in rhythm like a heart that wasn't his own.
Sleep didn't come.
Every time he closed his eyes, the memory of the storm pressed against him. That wave of black-blue, spilling out of him without permission, swallowing an entire facility. He remembered the silence after the way everyone had collapsed.
He turned his head against the stiff pillow. The room felt more like a container than a chamber.
A voice bled into him, soft, threaded with something that could have been amusement or warning.
"You still don't understand."
Ren's chest tightened. "Nyxa."
He didn't move, didn't answer. He had learned quickly that silence was safer.
But she pressed anyway.
"They think they are holding you. That these walls mean something. But you know better. Don't you?"
