Your head throbbed like someone had driven a spike through your skull. The light was blinding. No—not light. Lights. Overhead. Bright and cold and wrong.

You weren't in your kitchen.

You weren't in your house.

The floor beneath you hummed. A low, constant vibration, like something alive.

You blinked. Blinked again.

The man crouching in front of you had a beard. Dark eyes. A uniform you'd never seen before—tight black fabric with gray shoulders, some kind of badge on his chest. He looked... worried. But not scared.