The room was silent again.
I sat cross-legged in the center of the floor, eyes half-closed, palms resting on my knees.
I'd been sitting like that for what felt like hours, though it was impossible to tell time here—no windows, no clock, just the steady mechanical heartbeat of the facility humming through the walls.
My stomach growled. It broke the stillness like a gunshot, and I exhaled slowly, breathing through the ache in my gut, the soreness in my shoulders, the dull pulse in my throat.
I'd managed to ignore it until now—the physical side of all this. But hunger had a way of dragging you back to your body, no matter how hard you tried to stay somewhere else.
Tired.
Hurt.
Sweaty.
Hungry.
I'd been through worse. But this was different.
No streetlight. No metal bars. No sound of guards down the hall—just this room, and the weight of a world that shouldn't exist pressing in on me. A world that wasn't supposed to feel real.
I rubbed the heel of my palm against my temple and laughed quietly under my breath. "The immersion tech in this game is insane."
The words tasted hollow the second they left my mouth.
Because no matter how many times I told myself this was just code—a simulation, a dream, a trick—the bruise on my throat was real. The ache in my muscles was real. The hunger twisting my stomach into knots was real.
And Sylus—his hand, his voice, his eyes—those were real too.
I stared at the floor, letting the thought dissolve before it could spiral. This wasn't the time to break. I needed to focus.
I closed my eyes, inhaled—long and slow—and sank my awareness into the silence around me. Into that strange, electric hum that had been hovering at the edge of my senses since I'd started moving earlier.
There it was again. Like invisible veins running through the walls—pulsing, faint, alive.
My Evol.
The realization still made my chest tighten. It wasn't a real power yet—I couldn't do anything with it. I couldn't reach the data, couldn't extract information, couldn't override the locks or find an exit.
But I could feel everything. Every signal. Every frequency. Every faint digital whisper moving through the base.
Cameras breathing.
Doors syncing.
Security loops pinging quietly like heartbeats.
Biometric sensors whispering through the walls, tracking every breath, every twitch beneath my skin.
The whole facility had a pulse—and somehow, I could hear it.
I didn't understand how, and for the first time in my life, that didn't terrify me.
It was… beautiful, in its own way. Like standing in the middle of a city and realizing the grid itself could breathe with you.
I smiled faintly, eyes still closed. "Guess I'm not a total glitch after all."
My stomach growled again, louder this time. I winced. "Okay, maybe a hungry glitch."
The sound faded, leaving me in that strange, meditative quiet again—halfway between focus and fatigue. My body wanted rest. My mind wanted answers. And the world around me refused to give either.
Still, I sat there. Breathing. Listening. Mapping the static veins that pulsed through the metal like a heartbeat.
Because even if I couldn't fight my way out—not yet—I could learn the rhythm of the cage. And that, in my world, was always the first step to breaking it.
—
I woke with my face pressed against the cold floor.
I couldn't tell if it was morning or night—if those even existed here. The only thing I knew for sure was that my head felt like it was full of static.
I must've fallen asleep while meditating.
I rolled onto my back, wincing as the motion made my skull throb. The lights above hummed faintly—the same dim, artificial glow that never changed.
No sense of time. No sense of place. Just that steady, mechanical pulse that filled the air like a second heartbeat.
My throat ached. Dry, raw. I hadn't had anything to drink—or eat—since I'd woken up in that car. Elara had been next to me then.
Elara.
I swallowed hard, or tried to. The thought of her sent a twinge of something sharp through the haze of fatigue.
Where was she now?
If the story was following its script, she should've woken up in one of the other rooms by now. The twins would be there—Luke and Kieran. They'd test her, watch her, the same way they were watching me.
Then she'd do what the main character always did. Trick them. Pretend she had a laser weapon when it was just a normal laser.
The twins would tell her she could leave whenever she wanted. A hollow gesture. None of them ever really let anyone go.
I pressed the back of my hand to my forehead, trying to push the ache away. My tongue felt like sandpaper. My stomach knotted, twisting itself into sharp, empty shapes—so hungry that the thought of eating made me nauseated. Every breath scraped against my throat.
I tried to sit up, but the world tilted sideways, vision tunneling for a second. "Okay," I muttered, voice cracking. "That's a no."
I curled onto my side, facing the door, knees drawn to my chest.
The position made the hunger duller, at least for a little while. My body was a tight coil of fatigue and ache. The hum of the facility pressed into the silence until it felt like I could hear my own pulse syncing to it.
I wanted to reach for that strange awareness again—the pulse of circuits, the whisper of frequencies in the walls—but it was impossible to focus. My head pounded too hard.
I couldn't even find the signal anymore. Just static.
So I stopped trying.
I let my eyes close, my breath slow, and my body curl tighter into itself.
For now, survival didn't mean fighting or training. It meant waiting.
Maybe if I slept, I'd wake up somewhere else. Maybe this time, I'd go back home.
The thought barely finished before a faint sound cut through the hum. Not metal shifting. Not machinery.
Footsteps.
Slow. Precise.
I forced my eyes open. The door hadn't made a sound when it opened, but he was there now—standing just inside the threshold, as if he'd been there for a while.
Sylus.
The same calm expression. The same impossible stillness. Only his eyes moved, faintly lit from within, taking in every detail—me curled on the floor, bruised, aching, and exhausted.
His tongue clicked softly. "You're in bad shape."
I didn't have the strength to answer. So I glared.
He stepped closer, not quite within reach. "I need to keep you weak until I understand exactly what you are—and why I can't get in your head."
That's the problem with not being the main character. You don't get to see the rare soft side of the ruthless criminal that falls for you.
"I hope you understand," he said.
A weak laugh clawed its way up my throat and turned into a cough.
Why the hell would he hope I understood?
Manipulative bastard.
"Here."
He crouched and set a paper bag in front of me. The smell hit instantly—warm, salty, real. Food.
I was pretty sure my pupils dilated. My hazy vision suddenly snapped into focus.
"Eat slowly," he said. "You'll get more if you cooperate."
He stood, turned, and left without another word.
The door sealed behind him with a hiss.
I stared at the bag.
Hunger won before pride had a chance to argue.