"Finish it," Sugar said once, not unkindly.
Meals became compulsory.
At first, Darin didn't understand why Sugar stayed when the tray arrived. Why she didn't leave until the plate was empty. Why the cameras felt closer then, the air tighter, like the room leaned in.
Darin forced the food down. Every bite felt too large, too deliberate. Her stomach clenched in protest, nausea rolling slow and hot beneath her ribs. Sugar watched the numbers instead of her face.
When it was over, Sugar nodded once, satisfied, and left.
Darin didn't move for a long time after the door closed.
Something in her chest buzzed, sharp and wrong. Her body knew this wasn't allowed.
She stood only when the dizziness crested too high to ignore.
The bathroom light flicked on automatically. The mirror caught her reflection and she looked away, bracing herself against the sink. Her throat burned. Her hands shook.
She leaned over the toilet, breathing hard, eyes squeezed shut.
When it passed, she stayed there, forehead pressed against the cool porcelain.
She rinsed her mouth carefully. Wiped her face, flushed twice, just in case.
When she stepped back into the room, her legs felt hollow, like she had been standing in place for way too long.
Her wrist buzzed.
The sensation was small, easily missed beneath the lingering nausea, but it cut through her haze sharply enough that she looked down.
The health band around her wrist had lit up.
A muted amber glow pulsed beneath the glass.
Her pulse was elevated. That much she could guess. Her breathing is still uneven.
The band vibrated again.
Darin held her arm very still.
The screen shifted, numbers flickering too quickly to read, then froze. For a second, longer than it should have been, the glow brightened.
The hum in the walls sharpened. The air tightened, pressing faintly against her skin. The overhead light adjusted, brightened by a sliver, like an eye narrowing.
Darin froze in place, waiting.
The band went still. And just like that, the room exhaled.
The hum softened. The light eased back into its usual sterile calm. The pressure in the air loosened, leaving her standing in the same white box she'd been in a moment before.
Darin lowered her arm slowly, heart thudding.
She told herself it was obvious. A routine health check. A temporary fluctuation after vomiting. The system is correcting itself, nothing more.
But her skin still prickled.
The air felt… off.
Like it hadn't finished deciding what it was supposed to be. The faint hum in the walls lagged, then resumed at a slightly different pitch. The overhead light brightened a fraction too late, correcting itself after she'd already noticed.
Darin frowned.
Her first thought was coincidence. The system adjusted constantly. The temperature drifted. Lights compensated. Nothing about this room was ever perfectly still.
Still, she shifted her weight.
The floor didn't respond right away. The subtle pressure adjustment came a heartbeat late, like the room had missed the cue.
It was nothing. It had to be nothing. She was lightheaded. Her body was wrong in familiar ways. People noticed patterns when they were tired and sick.
She took a step.
The light followed her movement, but not cleanly. A soft stutter. A correction layered over another correction.
Darin stopped.
The room caught up.
The hum evened out. The temperature settled back into its narrow, obedient range. Everything slid into place so smoothly it almost erased the moment that came before it.
She stood very still, breath shallow, heart tapping faster than it should.
It would have been easy to dismiss it then. To lie down. To let the feeling drain away like the nausea had.
But something in her, older than logic, sharper than reason, arises instead.
A hunch.
She didn't know what had shifted, only that the room had reacted and she'd seen it happen.
She just stood there, listening to the air, to the walls, to the faint, imperfect rhythm of a system pretending nothing had gone wrong.
Her hunch pressed harder.
She sat down slowly, letting her vitals settle, letting the room relax around her. The hum softened. The light steadied. The temperature wrapped itself back around her skin like nothing had ever changed.
But Darin kept her eyes open.
Whatever had slipped, however briefly–
It could slip again.