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Kai sat alone.
The room was small. Square. Clean in a way that felt unnatural—like the walls had been scrubbed free of history. No vents. No seams.Just deep red light, humming steadily from the center of the ceiling. He sat in the center, arms draped over his knees, spine curled forward, staring at the black glass panel in front of him.
Two cameras blinked red from the upper corners. Silent. Watching. Unmoving.
He didn't know how long he'd been here. Maybe thirty minutes. Maybe longer. Time felt different in this place—like it didn't need to pass. Like it could stop altogether and no one would notice. A void dressed in white.
His wrist itched.
A band of thin grey metal hugged his skin, just above the joint. Sleek. Seamless. With a black wiring pattern, no buttons, but just a single soft pulse of green light every few seconds. Faint. Steady. Unsettling.
Kai didn't know what it meant.
His eyes drifted back to the black panel. He stared into it, not expecting it to respond. Not expecting anything.
"Why did you choose me for this?" he asked quietly.
His voice didn't echo.
He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, his breath fogging slightly in the cool air. "I shouldn't be here."
No reply.
He watched his reflection in the glass—dim and distorted. A ghost version of himself. Then, a memory drifted in, carried on the silence like a breeze through a crack in the wall. Not this room. Another. Darker. Harsher. Concrete floors. One chair. One masked figure.
"You won't be part of the trial," the man had said, voice distorted through some kind of filter. "You'll observe. That's your purpose."
"Why me?" Kai had asked.
The man hadn't answered. Instead, he raised Kai's wrist, tapping the band once.
The light turned green.
Then the room changed.
Kai was no longer part of the experiment.
He was its witness.
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He remembered standing behind a reflective panel—one-way glass so perfectly engineered it looked like a blank wall from the other side. He wasn't sure how he got here. Only that when he opened his eyes, the White Room was already filled.
The room stretched out before him, vast and terrible. A psychological coffin built by hands that understood how to make people unravel.
He remembered watching them.
Leilani—tight posture. Her bleeding palms. Trying to think. Always holding something together.
Jade—still, silent, saying that "they're watching us."
Luna—whispering to herself, her stare pinned to the invisible watchers like she could sense them through the veil.
Riley—on the edge, holding himself steady, scanning, calculating. Trying to anchor the others by sheer force of will.
They didn't know he was there.
But he saw everything.
Each time the lights flickered and another body vanished… the green light on his wristband pulsed. He'd flinched the first few times. Then stopped.
He didn't know what it was measuring.
But something told him—it wasn't just watching them.
It was watching him, too.
Now, in the present, the wall in front of him hissed.
A seam split down the center. The black panel receded with a soft hydraulic whisper. Cold air leaked into the room like a breath held too long finally released.
An elevator waited behind the panel—grey interior, no buttons, no floor numbers. Just silence.
Kai stood.
He didn't hesitate.
He stepped inside.
The door closed behind him, and he began to descend.
Far above, behind a mirrored array of monitors, a man, clad in black watched the elevator screen.
The man's voice emerged through layers of distortion.
"Watch him."
There was no one else in the room.
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Down on the first floor, the cafeteria buzzed with tension—not from noise, but the absence of it. Trays clattered. Chairs scraped. A few forced conversations floated up and died quickly. The silence lingered.
Riley sat near the back with Jade. Neither had touched their food. Luna sat at a separate table, stirring a drink that had long gone cold, never once lifting it to her lips.
The others were scattered. Disoriented. A few faces were missing.
Then—Footsteps.
They turned.
Kai stood in the doorway.
His uniform was pristine. His hair neat. His hands tucked calmly behind his back.
For the first time since arriving, he was smiling.
But the smile didn't match his eyes.
Not even close.
He crossed the room at a steady pace, like nothing had happened. Like he hadn't vanished. Like he hadn't missed the worst trial of their lives.
He sat beside them at the nearest table, placing a hand on the edge of the tray like he was ready to eat. Like it was just another day.
Riley felt his stomach clench.
Jade sat straighter. His fingers curled slightly around his fork.
Luna watched him the longest. Her eyes didn't blink. Her drink stopped stirring.
Then came the voice that cut the tension.
Leilani.
"Where were you?"
Kai blinked, like the question surprised him. He gave a slight shrug, eyes drifting to the side.
"I… don't know. I woke up in this white room. After I fell asleep. I didn't see anyone else."
He hesitated, as if testing their reactions.
"Felt like I was dreaming the whole time."
No one responded.
He added, softer, "Was there some kind of test?"
Riley's chest tightened. Leilani's gaze narrowed just slightly.
Jade looked away.
Kai gave a light chuckle to fill the space, but it landed hollow.
"We just had a trial in the white room." Leilani said her voice faint.
"I must've been in there too then, right?"
The silence that followed wasn't just uncomfortable—it was suffocating.
Because they all knew.
He wasn't.
And somehow, that was the scariest part.