Elias hadn't sat in a real chair in weeks.
Not this kind. Not stainless steel bolted to the floor, not the plastic seats outside triage tents, not the makeshift crates converted into benches in collapsing outposts.
A chair designed for work.
A chair designed for thinking.
It should have felt like a return to purpose.
Instead, it felt like a firing squad.
The lab hummed around him—machines waking, initializing, screens blooming to life with system logs and sample histories. The overhead lights stayed too bright, bleached-white, the kind of illumination meant to scrub shadows out of corners where dangerous things might hide.
The creature laughed at that. Shadows are not where the dangerous things hide, little idiot. They hide under your ribs. Behind your eyes. In the places you pretend don't exist.
Elias ignored it.
