Your wrists ache where the cuffs bite into them. Your ankles too. The metal is cold against your skin, chafing with every small, involuntary movement. A mask of reinforced steel covers the lower half of your face, bolted tight—designed, you know, to keep the scream in. To keep the strange, crawling energy in your chest contained.

Time has lost meaning. Hours. Days. Months. They all blur together in the rhythm of needles and electricity and the quiet, clinical voice of Dr. Garaki.

Then—silence.

The machines don't stop, but the usual footsteps do. The usual shuffle of lab coats. The usual muttering of assistants.

And then, from somewhere far above—muffled, distant, but unmistakable—a scream.

More screams. The crash of something heavy. The sound of a door being forced open from somewhere high above—a grinding of metal, a rush of cold air that you haven't felt in years.

Light spills down from the ceiling. Not the sterile, white light of the lab. Daylight. Pale, grey, weak—but daylight nonetheless.

A rope. A chain. Something heavy slaps against the concrete floor near your cell. Figures descend. Silhouettes backlit by the open sky.

They're fast. They're focused. They move with purpose past the rows of tanks and cages.

They're not looking at you.

One of them—broad, with flames licking at his shoulders—shouts something about the containment units down the hall. Another, smaller, with sharp ears and wings folded tight, scans the room with golden eyes.

A third lands silently near the machines. Dark hair. Dark clothes. Tired eyes that sweep the room methodically, cataloguing, assessing.

His gaze passes over your cell.

Stops.

Comes back.