Part 1: White Lights and Silence
Corrected Summary:
Riven wakes strapped down in a Hydra lab. He's not special to them — just another stray body no one will miss. He isn't being questioned. He's being catalogued, broken down, studied. They don't know what he is. They just want to see how much he can take before he stops being useful.
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The ceiling wasn't moving.
Too close. Too bright.
Riven blinked. Once. Then again.
The lights didn't flicker. They hummed — a low, steady vibration. Constant. White.
His mouth was dry.
His arms wouldn't move.
He turned his head to the side, slowly.
Restraints.
Soft-lined cuffs at the wrists and ankles. No slack.
The bed beneath him was metal, bolted to the floor. His head rested on a foam block. No pillow.
---
He wasn't in a hospital.
He knew that instinctively. Hospitals didn't hum like this. They didn't observe like this.
He was being held.
Monitored.
Not for treatment. Not for recovery.
For something else.
---
There was a black square of glass near the ceiling.
Camera.
Or worse — a one-way window.
He couldn't see anyone behind it.
But he didn't need to.
He could feel the weight of attention.
---
A mechanical hiss whispered from the wall. No door opened. But something activated.
A screen blinked to life beside the bed.
No sound. Just green text on black:
> SUBJECT: DAX, R.
AGE: 17
STATUS: NON-MUTANT / UNREGISTERED
OBJECTIVE:
— Muscle density variance under chemical fatigue
— Pain tolerance progression
— Internal organ recovery baseline
SESSION 1: INITIATED
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Then a second hiss. Sharper. Closer.
Beneath his arm, something clicked.
He jerked.
A needle had extended from under the frame and jabbed into his forearm. Clean. No warning.
He clenched his teeth. Heat bloomed in his arm.
Not pain.
Not yet.
Just wrong.
---
His pulse began to spike.
He could feel it in his throat. In his eardrums. In his toes.
The lights stayed white. The walls stayed silent.
No one spoke to him.
No one explained anything.
Because they didn't need him to understand.
They just needed data.
---
Whatever they thought he was…
They didn't care.
To them, he wasn't Riven.
He was measurable.
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