The world dissolved into silver.
Elias couldn't see the walls anymore — only waves of glimmering fog, pulsing faintly like a living organism. It shimmered with static, humming at the edge of sound. His breathing quickened; each inhale burned like ozone.
"Magnus!" he shouted. His voice was swallowed. "Nora! Aria!"
A flicker — blue light. Magnus appeared through the haze, electricity arcing around him like veins of lightning. "I'm here! But it's… reacting to my field!"
Aria stumbled forward, armor overgrowing in jagged bursts. The mist amplified her mutation — bone plates fusing into grotesque ridges. She screamed and slammed her fists into the floor, cracking the metal.
"Stop fighting it!" Elias yelled. "The mist amplifies aggression! It's reading your hormones!"
"Then tell it to read this!" Magnus roared, releasing a blast of current. The lightning hit the mist — and for a heartbeat, the fog screamed.
Phase One: The Breakdown
Through the glass, the guards watched. The scientist muttered into a recorder:
"Subject 01 (Elias): cognitive stabilization under duress remains high. Subject 03 (Magnus): increased neural discharge. Subject 02 (Aria): armor overproduction. Subject 04 (Nora): hallucinatory interference elevated. Proceeding to full exposure."
He flicked a switch.
The vents roared again, flooding the chamber.
Nora's eyes rolled back as she dropped to her knees, whispering nonsense. But Elias knew it wasn't nonsense — it was code. The mist's frequency.
He knelt beside her, ignoring the heat and chaos. "Nora. Focus. What do you see?"
Her voice trembled. "Numbers… a pattern behind the mist. Like it's thinking."
"Good. Stay in it."
Aria was losing control, claws digging into her own arms. Magnus was seconds from shorting out the whole chamber.
Elias closed his eyes, visualizing everything as equations — heat vectors, energy feedback, the probability grid fracturing around them. If he could stabilize the narcoleptic boy's storm, the pattern might collapse.
Phase Two: The Countermeasure
He shouted over the chaos, "Magnus! Feed a low-current frequency into the floor grid — 30 hertz! No higher!"
Magnus gritted his teeth. "You want me to hum the mist to sleep?"
"Yes. Trust me."
Magnus adjusted his charge. The lightning softened, became rhythm instead of rage. The mist shimmered, colors shifting — from silver to pale blue.
Nora gasped. "It's listening…"
"Now, Aria!" Elias barked. "Ground the feedback. Bone to metal — connect and hold!"
Aria slammed her armored hands to the floor, energy coursing through her body, her spines vibrating like tuning forks.
The boy convulsed once — then went still. The mist slowed, its pulse fading.
And then, silence.
Phase Three: Awakening
The lights flickered back to white. The glass cleared. The guards stared, motionless. The scientist's face was pale.
"...Impossible," he whispered. "They synchronized."
Inside the chamber, the five of them lay breathing heavily, steam rising from their bodies. Elias sat up, sweat dripping, his eyes glowing faintly with geometric reflections.
He looked toward the glass. "You made a mistake," he said quietly. "You tested us together."
And for the first time, the scientist looked afraid.