The sound of locks echoed through the ward — heavy, mechanical, final.
Elias pressed his palms to the sealed glass, watching the corridor beyond. Soldiers in black hazard suits marched past, rifles raised. Their visors gleamed with reflections of red sirens. On their backs: the insignia of the National Biohazard Response Unit.
The hospital was no longer a hospital. It was a cage.
Aria slumped against the far wall, her breath ragged. Bone spines cracked and receded slowly, leaving raw scars. She looked at her hands with horror, as if they no longer belonged to her.
Elias wanted to speak, but the equations silenced him. Every possible word he rehearsed ended in failure — panic, violence, or worse. So he said nothing.
The intercom clicked on. A voice, flat and clinical:
"Attention. This facility is under containment protocol. You are considered Subjects of Interest under the Catalyst Act. Do not resist. Medical teams will enter shortly to administer sedation."
Catalyst Act. The term struck Elias like a chord in a symphony. He could almost see the letters hanging in the air: C-A-T-A-L-Y-S-T. Numbers spun off each one, breaking into sequences. It wasn't random. Someone had planned this.
Aria's gaze lifted, sharp despite her exhaustion. "Subjects of Interest?" Her voice rasped, hoarse from screaming. "They mean lab rats."
The steel door groaned. Hydraulic locks hissed. A squad of med-techs entered, armored in yellow biohazard suits, carrying restraints and injection kits.
Aria pushed herself upright, bones creaking under her skin. Elias saw the probability threads spiral outward: the med-techs lunging, Aria lashing out, bullets fired in panic. A massacre waiting to happen.
He had seconds.
"Don't." Elias's voice cracked, but it cut through the tension. "If you fight, you'll kill them. And yourself."
Aria's eyes narrowed. "And if I don't?"
The answer came before Elias could speak. A sharp sting in his neck. Cold spreading down his veins. Sedative.
The last thing he saw before the world collapsed into darkness was Aria's face — torn between fury and fear — and the soldiers' shadows closing over her.
Interlude: Unknown Location
"Subject 17 — male, Savant syndrome. Exhibiting precognitive pattern recognition."
"Subject 03 — female, Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva. Osteogenesis active."
Pause.
"Catalyst Syndrome is stabilizing. The first viable Hosts are confirmed. Proceed to Phase Two."
Elias woke to the hiss of recycled air.
The room was no hospital ward anymore. The walls were matte black, seamless, with no windows. A strip of pale light buzzed overhead. His wrists itched — steel bands around them, threaded with sensors that blinked red when he moved.
He sat up slowly, head swimming from the sedative.
Across from him, a glass barrier divided the chamber. Behind it, others stirred on metal bunks.
Aria was there, hunched forward, her forearms wrapped in reinforced restraints. Even at rest, her skin quivered, bone spines pressing faintly against the surface like thorns under fabric. Her eyes met his for a fraction of a second — a warning, or maybe a plea — before she looked away.
Next to her, a boy about Elias's age lay curled on his side, his fingers twitching in spasms. His eyes fluttered beneath his lids as though he were dreaming, though he was wide awake. A nurse had called it once in whispers: narcolepsy.
And then, further down, a man sat upright with his hands folded neatly on his knees. His jaw clenched in steady rhythm, like he was biting down on invisible lightning. Every so often, sparks danced at his fingertips, tiny blue arcs that crackled against the restraints. Epilepsy, Elias thought. Or something more.
They were like him. Broken bodies, broken minds. Yet each radiated with the same strange frequency he now carried — the Catalyst.
The intercom buzzed again, calm and sterile:
"You are not patients. You are not prisoners. You are Hosts. For your safety and ours, you will remain under study until your conditions are stabilized. Cooperation ensures survival. Resistance ensures termination."
The words struck the others like a hammer. The boy with narcolepsy whimpered. Sparks flared in the man's hands, making the air smell faintly of ozone. Aria's restraints creaked as her muscles tensed, bone shifting beneath the surface.
Elias felt the equations rising in his vision again — probability threads spinning out from each of them. If Aria broke free, half the chamber would die. If the epileptic man let the seizure surge, the glass would shatter. If the boy dreamed too deeply, something might slip into reality with him.
He pressed his palms to the floor, grounding himself.
And then, softly, he spoke.
"We're not Hosts. We're the experiment."
The others froze. Even Aria turned her head.
Elias met her stare. His voice was steady, though his chest trembled.
"They didn't lock us in here to cure us. They locked us in here to see what we become."