Ethan lay sprawled on the concrete, the world slipping through him in slow, merciless increments. Blood escaped his body not in a rush, but in measured, deliberate losses—each drop a quiet decision made without him. It pooled beneath his cheek, warm at first, then shamefully cold, as if even his own body had begun to reject him.
He tried to scream.
The sound never came.
His lungs convulsed, drowning from the inside, thick fluid choking every breath before it could become air. Blood filled his mouth—metallic, bitter—coating his tongue with the undeniable truth of ending. Panic flared, sharp and useless.
He couldn't speak.
He couldn't breathe.
Silence pressed down on him, vast and intimate, as if the night itself were leaning close to watch. Somewhere, the wind sighed—not in concern, but in passing indifference. Above.
No one was coming.
His clothes clung to him, soaked through, heavy with what remained of him. Cold crept inward, threading through muscle, bone, thought. Sensation dulled.
Fear followed.
His lips trembled.
"I… don... wan… di—"
The words broke apart before they could mean anything.
His chest shuddered once.
Then again.
Then not at all.
His eyes opened.
Not to pain. Not to darkness.
To elsewhere.
He stood upright on a boundless plain that should not have existed. No horizon. No landmarks. No life. The sky burned with a muted gold, the sun frozen in a perpetual half-descent, casting light that warmed nothing. The air was dense, unmoving—so still it felt engineered.
No birds.
No wind.
No weight.
Nothing touched him.
Nothing acknowledged him.
The ground beneath his feet was neither solid nor liquid, a translucent expanse that rippled faintly, as if responding to thoughts rather than steps. The emptiness hummed—not loudly, but insistently—like something restrained by design.
He looked out over the infinite.
A chill traced his spine.
"Is this heaven?"
The thought felt wrong the moment it formed.
Then he felt it.
A presence.
He turned.
A boy stood behind him—young, no older than a teenager. Black hair fell neatly around a face too calm, too composed. His eyes were an unnatural blue, sharp and bottomless, as if depth itself had been condensed into color. Broad-shouldered. Still. Radiating something that wasn't emotion, but authority.
The boy looked at Ethan the way one might look at an object already understood.
No malice.
No curiosity.
Only certainty.
"Who are you?" Ethan asked.
The words sounded thin here. Small.
The boy didn't answer.
He smiled.
And the world collapsed inward.
Fog surged from nowhere, violent and absolute, swallowing light, space, direction. The plain dissolved. The gold sky shattered. Sensation tore away all at once.
Ethan fell—not downward, but away—
into darkness that did not feel empty,
but waiting.
Awareness returned without permission.
It did not come as thought, nor memory, nor identity — only sensation.
A low, continuous hum vibrated beneath him, steady and artificial, the kind produced by hidden systems meant to be unnoticed. It traveled through the surface supporting his body and into his bones, subtle enough to ignore, persistent enough to feel once noticed.
The air was cool. Not cold — controlled. Filtered to the point of sterility, yet carrying faint undertones of polished stone, treated wood, and the barely perceptible bite of ozone. Each breath felt shallow, as though his lungs were learning the dimensions of a body they had not yet mapped.
His heartbeat was slow.
Too slow to belong to panic.
Sound sharpened next.
Beyond whatever enclosed him, a city existed — distant, restrained, reduced to a muted pulse. Traffic hummed far below, stripped of individuality by thick glass and architectural insulation. Somewhere nearby, electronics whispered softly: a near-silent click, followed by a pause, then the measured whir of climate systems recalibrating themselves.
This was not a hospital.
Hospitals announced themselves with urgency — alarms, footsteps, voices layered over one another. This place carried silence like an expectation.
Silence like a luxury.
Pressure gathered behind his eyes.
It did not hurt yet. It waited.
A faint compression, like fingers resting lightly against his skull, gauging resistance. He frowned instinctively, a minute tightening of facial muscles — and the pressure answered by increasing just enough to register.
He stilled immediately.
The pressure eased, So movement mattered.
His eyes opened
The ceiling above him was high — uncomfortably so — smooth and unbroken except for recessed lighting arranged with exact symmetry. No fixtures protruded. No imperfections existed. The walls were clad in dark stone, matte and absorbent, swallowing reflections rather than returning them.
The room felt larger than necessary.
Not for comfort — for control.
He lay on a bed wider than his outstretched arms, its frame hidden, its mattress firm beneath heavy sheets that retained coolness against his skin. The fabric was unfamiliar, woven tightly, expensive in a way that favored durability over softness.
To his right, a floor-to-ceiling window revealed a partial skyline. Towers rose in the distance, their lights steady and indifferent. The glass did not vibrate. It did not rattle. It held the city at bay effortlessly.
Nothing in the room bore signs of habitation.
Everything felt placed.
He shifted, carefully.
The pressure behind his eyes flared in response — not violently, but insistently. A warning, not a punishment. Ignoring it, he pushed himself upright and let his feet drop to the floor.
Cold bit into his soles immediately.
The stone beneath him was polished to perfection, holding no warmth, no give. The sensation grounded him, anchoring his weight.
Across the room stood a mirror.
Tall. Narrow. Framed in brushed black metal that reflected nothing but shape. It waited, impartial and absolute.
He approached it slowly.
The reflection stopped him.
The man staring back was not wrong — but he was not right either.
Broader shoulders than expected. A body carrying weight differently, heavier in places it should not be, lighter where it should be firm. His face was familiar in structure but foreign in execution — softer edges, fuller cheeks, eyes that shared his shape but none of his certainty.
Black hair, neatly kept. Skin unmarked.
His pulse spiked sharply.
That reaction did not feel chosen.
It felt inherited.
The pressure collapsed inward.
Pain exploded.
His vision fractured into overlapping images without sequence or mercy:
A narrow room — damp air, peeling paint, a flickering ceiling light buzzing incessantly.
A phone vibrating in his hand — DECLINED flashing across the screen in unforgiving red.
Laughter behind him — sharp, dismissive.
A mirror avoided deliberately.
A voice, exhausted, whispering, It's fine. It's always fine.
Emotion accompanied each fragment, raw and immediate — shame without origin, fear without explanation, resignation without context.
His knees buckled.
The room tilted violently as equilibrium abandoned him. He reached out blindly, fingers scraping against the edge of a desk — solid wood, dense, real — before his grip failed.
The pain intensified, compressing thought, suffocating coherence.
The sound tore out of him.
Uncontrolled. Ragged. Animal.
It ripped through the room and rebounded off the stone walls, filling the space completely before collapsing into a heavy, suffocating silence. His hands clawed at his scalp as though the pressure were something physical that could be dragged out.
It could not.
The memories surged faster, louder, closer together — fragments colliding, overlapping, drowning any attempt at resistance.
His legs gave out entirely.
The fall was sudden.
His shoulder struck the floor first, the impact jarring enough to send another violent spike through his skull. His cheek pressed against the cold stone, breath shuddering, vision narrowing as darkness crept inward from the edges.
The hum beneath him continued, unchanged.
The room did not react.
The last thing he perceived was the echo of his own scream still suspended in the air, fading slowly.
Then nothing.
Light flickered.
Red. White. Red again.
The world jolted rhythmically beneath him, uneven and mechanical. A sharp, sterile scent filled his lungs — antiseptic, rubber, metal. Something beeped nearby, steady and urgent.
Voices overlapped.
"…pressure's unstable—"
"…don't let him sit up—"
A face leaned into view — distorted, stretched by motion — then vanished.
His eyes fluttered.
Darkness reclaimed him, moment later his eyes opened.
Brightness slammed into him.
White walls rushing overhead.
Cold air brushing exposed skin, Ceiling tiles passing in rigid succession — one cracked, lightning-shaped fracture etched into its surface.
Gloved hands.
A woman's voice, calm but edged with command:
"Clear the corridor."
The world fractured once more.
ENED OF CHAPTER 4