Sera woke to the sight and smell of metal.
Not the sound of it, not the taste of it, but the certainty of it pressed into the shape of her body.
There were bars under her shoulders, bars under her spine, and bars close enough to her face that she could feel the temperature difference between her breath and the steel.
She did not jerk upright. She did not test the door. She did not waste movement on proof of what she already knew.
Soft light pulsed in the room beyond her cage, warm and unsteady, casting the shadows of the bars across the concrete like a second set of restraints. The air smelled of antiseptic that couldn't quite overpower damp stone, old rust, and the sour trace of too many bodies kept in one place for too long.
Somewhere nearby, water dripped steadily, slow enough that each drop had its own echo. It was quiet in the way a place became quiet when sound was discouraged rather than absent.
