The cell was still—too still—the early darkness settling into something thick and oppressive that pressed against the lungs. His bruised body ached with every breath, every tiny shift of weight on the thin mattress, but sleep remained impossible. Each throb in his skull, each crackling rib, screamed louder than thought.
Then came the faint footsteps. Not the heavy, routine tread of guards on rounds. These were deliberate. Slow. Stalking.
A shadow moved across the slats of the cell door. Lin Feng tried to sit up, but pain froze him halfway, locking his spine in a vise of fire.
"Lin Feng," a voice hissed through the small opening, low and cruel, intimate as a secret. "You think last night was the worst?"
The air thickened. The shadows inside the cell shifted, and the soft scrape of metal on concrete echoed like a promise. He could see nothing, yet he felt it—someone inside with him. Waiting. Watching.
