Vienna — A Place of Ghosts and Cures
The city greeted them with cold winds and pale skies, a chill that seemed to seep into the bones, carrying the weight of unspoken histories. Vienna was a city draped in elegance and shadow, a place where the past whispered through cobblestone streets and ancient buildings leaned in close, watching.
The black car rolled slowly over the narrow cobblestones of the older district, careful not to disturb the fragile silence that wrapped the city like a shroud. Inside, Rayyan sat quietly in the backseat, one hand gently holding Dee's. Her fingers were cold, almost translucent, a fragile thread connecting her to this reality.
Dee leaned her head against the window, eyes unfocused, staring out but not really seeing. The world outside blurred past—gothic spires, twisted iron streetlamps, the faint glow of lanterns in the mist. But inside, she was somewhere else. Somewhere lost.
She hadn't spoken much since they landed. Not a word. And she hadn't smiled either.
Sometimes she flinched at shadows, like they were reaching for her, trying to pull her under.
Sometimes she stared blankly into space, as if her mind was shattered into a thousand pieces and she was silently gathering them back—one fragment at a time.
Rayyan refused to let go.
Not for a moment.
His thumb stroked the back of her hand in slow, soothing circles—an anchor, a promise.
---
They arrived at their destination: a discreet medical facility nestled in the heart of Vienna's older district. What had once been a cathedral now stood repurposed, its stained glass windows dimmed, its nave filled with gleaming scientific instruments and stark, white walls. The grandeur of the holy place was replaced with the cold precision of an underground scientific alliance.
Rayyan pushed open the heavy door, and they stepped inside.
Waiting for them was a man who carried an air of authority in his white coat. His piercing eyes scanned Dee like a general assessing a wounded soldier.
"Elijah Voss," Rayyan greeted him quietly. They'd crossed paths before—Voss was no ordinary doctor. He was a specialist in the rarest, most dangerous fields: mutations, genetic warfare, and drugs like the one Dee had been subjected to.
Voss's gaze lingered on Dee, cold and clinical.
"She looks unstable," he said bluntly. "The damage is deep. You're late."
Rayyan's jaw clenched tightly. "Can you fix her?"
Voss looked directly at him. "That depends. How far are you willing to go?"
Rayyan's eyes burned with determination. "I'll burn the world for her. Don't test me."
---
The tests began immediately.
Dee was whisked away to cold, sterile rooms filled with machines that beeped and hummed. Scans traced every inch of her body, mapping neurons, tracing blood flow, probing deep into her DNA strands that seemed to glitch and rewire like a corrupted file.
Blood was drawn again and again, vials filling with dark red life fluid. Her heartbeat thumped unevenly against the sensors, too fast, too irregular. Her eyes, once sharp and alert, now responded strangely—reacting to sound rather than light, flickering wildly like stormy seas.
She was mutating. Slowly. Uncontrollably.
They ran simulations on the injections Duke had used—the so-called "treatments."
Voss's face darkened in horror.
"These aren't treatments," he spat. "They're experimental mutagens. This isn't science—it's war crime."
Rayyan stood silently, watching Dee sleep under the harsh glare of the sterile fluorescent lights. Her body was fragile, broken, but beneath the surface, something was stirring.
"I think she's becoming something," Voss said quietly. "Something powerful. But she isn't stable."
Rayyan swallowed hard.
"She was never meant to be their experiment," he whispered.
Voss's gaze softened slightly.
"She still remembers you," he said. "That might save her."
Rayyan nodded, hope and fear twisting together inside him.
---
Nights in Vienna were quiet, but haunted.
Rayyan sat by Dee's bedside, holding her hand in the dark while her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and lavender—the only softness in the sterile white cage.
He pulled out his phone and read messages left behind by Margaret, the one woman who had cared for Dee before everything fell apart. Her words echoed in his mind:
She's not just a girl, Rayyan. She's something more. And they'll try to own her. But she's yours. Only you can pull her back.
Dee would sometimes wake in the night, screaming. The sound ripped through the silence, raw and desperate.
Other times, she whispered in her sleep—names he didn't know, places she'd never been.
She cried sometimes, quiet tears that traced silent rivers down her cheeks.
And when she did, Rayyan stayed by her side, voice barely a whisper.
"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
Because he wasn't.
Not this time.
---
One evening, the door opened softly, and Voss stepped inside carrying a silver tray.
On it, a single vial glowed faintly blue, almost ethereal in the dim light.
"This," Voss said gravely, "is the Skill Killer."
Rayyan looked at the vial as if it held both a promise and a curse.
Voss continued, "It's a double-edged sword. Once it starts, there's no undoing it. Her body will purge every synthetic mutation inside her system."
Rayyan's fingers tightened around Dee's hand.
"It will hurt. Badly."
Rayyan met Voss's eyes.
"Will it fix her?"
The doctor's expression was unreadable.
"If her mind holds on."
Rayyan squeezed Dee's hand, voice low but fierce.
"I'll be right here."
---
Dee woke as the serum entered her bloodstream.
The pain came like fire, igniting beneath her skin, twisting through her muscles and bones. It was unbearable.
Her body convulsed, gasping for air as though drowning in flames.
She clutched the sheets, nails digging into the thin fabric.
"Rayyan—!" Her voice was a broken plea, raw and urgent.
"I'm here!" he reassured her, wrapping his arms around her trembling form. "Just breathe—hold on!"
Memories crashed into her like waves in a storm—fragments of a nightmare she had tried to bury.
Duke's lab, sterile and sinister.
The injections, searing and relentless.
Hallucinations of shadows with sharp teeth.
Experiments on flesh and mind.
And then, Margaret's face, soft and tearful, whispering:
You're not alone.
Her body arched with a sharp crack of pain as something inside her broke open.
Then silence.
Stillness.
She collapsed, utterly spent, into Rayyan's arms.
And with a voice barely above a whisper, she said:
"…I remember something."
---
Rayyan held her close, every inch of his being focused on the fragile life in his arms. His heart thundered in his chest, equal parts terrified and hopeful.
"What is it?" he asked gently, brushing damp strands of hair from her forehead.
Dee's eyelids fluttered, struggling to hold onto the fragile thread of consciousness.
"I… I see a place," she murmured, voice faint but clear.
"A place filled with light and shadows," she said, fingers trembling as they reached for something unseen. "Voices calling me… but not threatening. Familiar… safe."
Rayyan's brow furrowed. "Where? What place?"
She shook her head weakly, eyes fluttering shut again.
"I can't… not yet."
Tears slid down her cheeks, mixing with the sweat from the pain.
"You're safe now," he whispered fiercely. "I'm here."
The night stretched long, a fragile silence wrapping the two of them. Outside, Vienna remained indifferent—ancient and cold—while inside this small room, a battle was raging, fought not with guns or blades, but with memory and will.
---
Over the next days, the process drained them both.
The Skill Killer serum pushed Dee's body through hell and back.
Her strength waned, but her mind sharpened.
She began to speak more, fragments of sentences, names, flashes of emotion.
Rayyan became her anchor—her voice when she forgot words, her strength when her limbs refused to obey.
There were moments of breakthrough, bright and sharp as lightning.
And moments of despair, dark and suffocating as a tomb.
Yet Rayyan never left.
Never stopped believing.
---
One morning, Dee sat up slowly, eyes brighter than they had been in weeks.
Rayyan handed her a glass of water.
She took it, fingers trembling.
"I remember," she said quietly.
"What?" Rayyan's voice cracked with hope.
"Not everything… but something real."
She took a deep breath.
"It was… a garden. A place of light and warmth."
She looked at him, eyes fierce.
"A place where I wasn't a prisoner."
Rayyan smiled through tears.
"We'll find that place, Dee. Together."
---
Vienna, with all its ghosts and cures, watched silently from outside the window.
The city of secrets had met its match.
Because inside this small room, a new story was being written—a story of pain, of survival, and of love that refused to let go.
---