By the end of the first week, Helix began to feel less like a trap and more like a system Mina could understand.
She learned the staff wing first,
the safe routes, the quiet stairwells, the schedules that kept things smooth. She learned which supervisors liked direct answers and which ones preferred written updates. She learned that the kitchen staff were protective in a way that surprised her, and that security did their job without making staff feel like suspects.
She also learned that staff came in types.
There were the lifers, the ones who loved the structure and never wanted to leave. There were the drifters, saving up for something beyond Helix. There were the quiet ones who did their jobs with careful precision, like the world had taught them trust was a risk.
Mina understood those.
Lira introduced her to everyone like Mina had been there for months.
"This is Rhea," Lira said one afternoon, waving at a woman in housekeeping who pushed a cart with surgical precision. "She sees everything."
Rhea's eyes flicked to Mina's face, then to her hands, then away. "New," she said quietly.
Mina nodded. "Yes."
Rhea's mouth tightened in what might've been approval. "Don't linger near the east greenhouse after ten."
Lira made a sound like she'd been waiting for that. "See? She knows all the real rules."
Mina glanced between them. "Why not?"
Rhea didn't answer. She just pushed her cart away, leaving the warning behind like a gift.
Tomas, the security staffer who had escorted Mina on day one, became another steady presence. He wasn't talkative, but he was consistent. When staff joked, he didn't laugh, but he didn't snap either. He simply existed like a wall.
One day, Mina found herself carrying documents toward administration when Tomas appeared at the corridor junction and gestured her back.
"Resident movement," he said.
Mina stepped aside immediately, heart ticking faster. "Which resident?"
Tomas looked at her for a beat. "Doesn't matter."
It did matter to Mina, but she didn't argue.
She waited in the shadow of a marble pillar while staff redirected quietly around her. It reminded her of old instincts—stay out of the way, avoid attention, don't be the reason anything goes wrong.
The corridor remained empty for a moment.
Then the air changed.
Not because someone shouted, or because footsteps stormed down the hall, but because the space itself seemed to tighten in response. Mina felt it before she saw anything. A presence approaching like pressure.
A man passed her.
Black suit. Polished shoes. A faint scent of clean metal and something expensive. He didn't look at her directly, but Mina knew, the way she knew weather was changing, that he was aware of her standing there.
Her throat tightened.
When he was gone, the corridor loosened again.
Tomas gestured her forward. "Go."
Mina moved quickly, pulse still racing.
That night, in the staff dining hall, she asked Lira quietly, "Do you ever get used to it?"
Lira didn't pretend to misunderstand. "The residents?"
Mina nodded.
Lira shrugged. "You get used to the rules. You don't get used to the feeling. They're… not normal people."
"What does that mean?" Mina asked.
Lira leaned closer, eyes sparkling with gossip she'd been holding back. "It means if they notice you, you pretend you don't notice back. And if they speak to you, you respond politely, briefly, and then you walk away before your brain invents meanings."
Mina didn't like that.
She also understood it.