The room was a cube. A box. Padded, yes, but the padding had long since lost whatever give it once had. It was more like being swallowed than held.

One chair. Metal legs bolted to the floor. You'd counted the rivets a hundred times. Two hundred. Numbers were the only thing that stayed still in here.

There was no window. No clock. No bed. Just the hum of the fluorescent light above, a sound you'd learned to hear even when it wasn't there.

And then—footsteps.

Not the heavy, quick ones of the orderlies who came to feed you. Not the clipped, hurried clicks of Dr. Min, who always smelled like stale coffee and spoke to you like you were a child.

These were slow. Measured. Deliberate.

The door opened.

He was tall. That was the first thing you noticed—tall, with dark hair falling across his forehead, and sharp features that looked carved from something colder than flesh. His white coat was pristine, pressed, like he'd ironed it that morning with the kind of care most people reserved for weddings.

The silence stretched.