I woke up disoriented, like I’d surfaced from a dream someone else had lived for me. My eyes blinked open to a ceiling I didn’t recognize, blank and cold. No sunlight. No warmth. No hint of safety.

  Just silence.

  My arms felt heavy. Restrained. Tubes connected to both of them, looping upward into the ceiling like veins made of steel. With a faint whoosh, they began retracting, disappearing one by one into hidden compartments above. A soft click followed, as if something had been unlocked—or worse, triggered.

  Panic crept in.

  I tried to sit up. Couldn’t. My muscles were sluggish, my thoughts foggy. I wasn’t just trapped—I’d been sedated. The realization hit like a slap to the face.

  “Hey… what’s going on?” I croaked, my voice hoarse, brittle. Even speaking felt foreign. My throat was dry, like I hadn’t used it in days.

  Where was I? What had happened?

  The room around me looked more like a medical ward than any place of healing. It wasn’t just sterile—it was deliberately inhuman. Cold steel. Dull gray walls. No windows, no comfort, not even a clock. Just one door, closed and looming. The facility badge on the door read ‘BMO Containment Wing 04.' The corners were sharp. The light overhead buzzed faintly, too white, too bright.

  A chill danced down my spine.

  I blinked fast, forcing my eyes to focus. There was a small metal table in the corner, a single chair pushed beneath it. Everything looked like it belonged in a government facility—or a laboratory. And I was the subject.

  Then came the footsteps.

  Heavy. Measured. Boots against tile. Each step echoed through the hallway like a warning bell—I’m coming, and I’m not here to help you.

  The door creaked open, slow and deliberate. And in walked a man covered head to toe in tactical gear—thick gloves, heavy boots, a helmet with a dark visor that hid everything but the set of his jaw.

  “Awake, huh?” he said, not really asking. His voice was flat, mechanical, like he’d said those words a hundred times to a hundred other people who meant nothing to him.

  “Where am I?” I rasped, already feeling my voice grow stronger. “What is this place? What’s going on?”

  He didn’t answer. He just stepped forward, grabbed my arm without hesitation, and yanked me upright like I was a rag doll.

  “Hey!” I tried to pull back, but his grip was iron. “Let go! I’m not going anywhere until you tell me something.”

  His visor tilted slightly, like he was amused by my resistance—or maybe just annoyed. “You’re going to walk,” he growled. “And you’re going to like it.”

  Chains clinked around my wrists as he shoved me forward. The cuffs dug into my skin, each step jarring the bruises blooming beneath them. He marched me down a hallway lined with doors—each identical, each leading to… what? More people like me?

  Eyes peeked out from narrow windows. Some were blank, some frightened. All wore the same plain uniform I now realized I had on—grey, shapeless, the kind of clothing that stripped away identity. We weren’t people here. We were numbers. Projects.

  Prisoners.

  After what felt like miles, we reached an elevator. The button lit up with a cheery ding, but the sound felt wrong. Too normal. Like elevator music in a horror movie.

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  Inside, the silence was suffocating. The guard said nothing. I didn’t dare speak. Tinny jazz drifted through hidden speakers, light and bouncy. I almost laughed at how absurd it was.

  I didn’t.

  The elevator jolted to a stop. The doors slid open to reveal a room that looked like it had once been a lab, but now stood empty. Two hospital-style beds. A table. A couple chairs. No monitors. No instruments. Just the bones of what used to be something worse.

  “Sit,” the guard barked.

  I obeyed, mostly because my legs felt like jelly. The moment I sat down, cold metal clamped over my wrists. I gasped. Chains—again. They hadn’t even given me a moment to breathe.

  “Seriously?” I muttered, my voice cracking with frustration.

  The guard didn’t respond. He paced toward the door and stood with his back to me, listening. Waiting. For what, I wasn’t sure.

  But then the door burst open again—and everything changed.

  Mr. Drails entered like a ghost set on fire. His usually calm face was twisted with something I’d never seen before. Rage.

  Before I could even speak, he was across the room, and with one smooth, vicious strike, he knocked the guard unconscious. The man dropped to the ground with a thud, blood pooling from his nose. I stared in disbelief.

  Mr. Drails didn’t do things like that. At least, not until now.

  Another guard appeared at the door, gun drawn. Drails didn’t flinch. He turned and—just lay on the bed across from me, like this was part of the plan all along.

  I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Because that’s when he arrived.

  Demeitrus Rocke.

  He strolled in like he owned the place, his long coat swaying behind him, the fur collar looking too rich, too wrong for a man like him. His smirk practically glittered.

  “Well, well, well,” he said, lounging into the empty chair across from me. “Sleeping beauty finally wakes. You Perkies don’t bounce back like you used to, huh? Cute.”

  I stiffened. Everything about him screamed danger—his voice, his posture, the way he looked at us like we were toys on a shelf.

  “It’s already ten A.M.,” he added, checking an imaginary watch. “Figured you’d be up and screaming by now. Guess I overestimated you.”

  Drails’s voice cut through like ice. “How did you acquire the copying power?”

  Rocke turned to him slowly, as if amused he was still speaking. “Ah, straight to the heavy questions. No warm-up? Fine.”

  He laced his fingers together and leaned back. “Let’s say you’re a fire mage. Cool, right? Blazing hot. Now, pair that with ice. Not exactly compatible, right? But what if… what if someone found a way to make them compatible?”

  I frowned, my eyes narrowing.

  “In 2010, I discovered something extraordinary,” Rocke continued. “A molecule. ADA-4. Stupid name, I know, but trust me—it’s a game-changer. It can host any power. Four at a time. Like little USB drives for human abilities.”

  Drails didn’t flinch, but his fists clenched.

  Rocke chuckled. “See, when people first get their powers, they’re messy. Unstable. But link those abilities to ADA-4? You stabilize it. Control it. Bend it to your will.”

  I stared at him, stunned. He wasn’t just using powers—he was manufacturing them. Like a dark alchemist. But what for?

  “Why the Armonk?” I asked, unable to stop myself.

  His eyes gleamed. “Ah, that’s the good part. There’s a cloning machine there. Think about it—an army of people with custom-built abilities. Soldiers who don’t get tired, don’t question orders, don’t lose. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  I swallowed hard, bile rising in my throat. “What does Jones have to do with this?”

  Rocke rolled his eyes. “That stubborn fool. He won’t tell me the machine’s location, even after I offered him enough money to buy a country. But that’s okay. I always get what I want.”

  Mr. Drails sat still, his voice low and lethal. “So what do you want from us?”

  Rocke stood, and something in the room shifted. The temperature. The air pressure. Reality itself.

  “Simple. I want your powers. Your portal abilities, to be exact. I need to move troops. Fast. Imagine—one spell, and my soldiers appear in the heart of any city. Turn playgrounds into battlefields. Peace into ash.”

  The walls felt like they were closing in. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think.

  Then the tubes came back.

  From the ceiling, they descended like snakes, wrapping around my arms, my legs, my skull. A sharp sting—followed by burning.

  My blood. They were taking my blood.

  Rocke watched with eerie calm. “Just a quick extraction. Nothing personal.”

  I writhed against the cuffs, teeth clenched. “You’re insane…”

  But I was already fading.

  A beam of sunlight cut across the room, slipping through a narrow window I hadn’t seen before. For a moment, everything slowed.

  The tubes withdrew. The pain eased.

  Rocke stood and dusted off his coat. “Not so bad, was it?” he said with a grin, smug as ever. “I’ll check in later. Try not to die before then.”

  And with that, he left—leaving us in silence, in chains, and with the terrible knowledge that this was only the beginning.