The silence in the white room wasn't peace—it was suffocation, a void so absolute it pressed against Charles's lungs like a physical weight. He sat strapped to a floating chair, its sleek metal surface cold against his skin. The cuffs locking his wrists and ankles bit into his flesh, unyielding as the system that bound him. His Lust Sync interface flickered erratically over his retina, its crimson display fractured and glitching after the Sync Burnout he'd triggered in the vault. Every breath felt like pulling air through shards of glass, each inhale laced with pain and the faint hum of corrupted code.
Across the sterile room, Olivia stood at a digital console, her silver hair tied back tightly, her face an unreadable mask. But her eyes—once warm, once human—glowed with an unnatural light, a cold command that chilled Charles to his core. She didn't look up as she spoke, her voice flat and detached. "You shouldn't be awake."
