Evelina woke before the first light of dawn had even touched the horizon. The world outside was a silent, pre-dawn blue, but inside her room, the air was heavy with the scent of ozone and ancient earth. Her muscles were screaming, the 1000-year-old primordial ginseng she had consumed the night before still vibrating in her veins like a low-voltage electrical current.
She didn't waste time on the luxury of sleep. In her world, sleep was a vulnerability. Using the heavy, solid oak wardrobe and the reinforced bedframe, she began a brutal conditioning circuit—a series of "Specter-class" calisthenics designed for the elite deep-cover units of her era.
Push-ups, core stabilization and high-intensity bursts of movement. Every time she pushed her body, her bones creaked. This vessel was still a cage of glass and she was trying to turn it into steel.
