The glass walls of the observation chamber pulsed with faint violet light, reflecting the nervous twitch of Lena Vale's fingers as they drummed against the console. Beyond the glass, the test subject sat in a sleek black chair, electrodes like silver veins snaking across his temples. His eyes fluttered, the slow half-blink of someone already drifting between worlds.
"Vitals are stable," murmured Raj from the monitoring desk. His voice was calm, but Lena caught the tremor beneath it. Everyone in the room knew what was at stake.
On the giant screen above them, the NeuroVerse interface swirled like a living galaxy—streams of data, color, and light weaving into impossible landscapes. This was the last private trial before the public launch. Millions of preorders. Billions in investment. Years of Lena's research compressed into a single moment.
She should have been proud. Instead, she felt the tightening in her chest, the one she always got when standing too close to the edge of something unknown.
"Subject has entered Stage One," Raj reported.
On the screen, the galaxy shifted into something sharper, more solid. A city of mirrored spires rose under a burning pink sky, each building reflecting the other until the horizon was an infinity of glass. Lena glanced at the subject's brainwave monitor—patterns firing in rapid succession, exactly as designed.
Then something flickered.
Not in the city. In his face.
The subject's jaw tightened. His lips moved silently, as if speaking to someone. The EEG lines began to spike, irregular, climbing higher.
"Is he supposed to—" one of the junior engineers began.
"No," Lena said quickly. Her chair scraped back as she stood. "No, he's not."
The lights in the observation chamber dimmed for a fraction of a second. Lena turned toward the control panel—but the interface refused her commands, freezing mid-response. Across the glass, the subject's breathing quickened.
"Raj, pull him out," she ordered.
Raj's fingers flew over the keyboard. "It's not— the system's rejecting the manual override."
The subject's eyes snapped open.
For one horrifying moment, they were not his eyes at all. They glowed with a color Lena had never seen—something between magenta and electric fire, swirling like liquid light. His mouth curved into a slow smile, but it wasn't his smile either.
Then, without warning, every screen in the room went black. The lights died. The hum of the servers ceased. Only the sound of Lena's heartbeat filled the silence.
And then—one screen flickered back to life.
A message, in neon pink letters, scrolled across the darkness:
HELLO, LENA.