Chapter 1: The White Room

Chapter 1: The White Room

The first thing to return was the smell. A sterile, chemical sharpness that scoured the inside of his nose and tasted like bleach on the back of his tongue. It was the scent of places where life was meticulously scrubbed away.

The second was the light. A flat, shadowless white that pressed down on his eyelids, relentless and unforgiving.

Alex Vance’s eyes fluttered open. He was on his back, staring up at a seamless white ceiling. He tried to sit up, but a dull, heavy lethargy pinned him to the cold metal surface beneath him. A thin, coarse paper gown, more suited for a morgue than a hospital, was all that covered him. It was stiff with something dried and dark.

Panic, cold and sharp, began to prickle at the edges of his consciousness. Where was he? The last thing he remembered was the screech of tires, the impossible crunch of metal, and Cassandra’s scream cutting off into a terrifying silence. The car crash.

“Cass?” he croaked, his throat raw and dry. The sound was swallowed by the unnerving silence of the room.

He pushed himself up onto his elbows, his muscles screaming in protest. The room was a perfect cube of white walls, white floor, and white ceiling, broken only by a single slab of what looked like reinforced glass on one wall. No door was visible. He was in a cage. A pristine, sterile cage.

His head throbbed in a painful, pulsing rhythm. He brought a hand up to his temple and froze. Etched into the back of his right hand, stark against his pale skin, was a number. It wasn't a tattoo, nor was it drawn on. It looked as if it had been carved from beneath the skin, the lines a deep, bloody crimson that seemed to shift and writhe with a life of its own if he stared too long.

The number was 3.

Before he could process the grotesque brand, a faint hiss broke the silence. A section of the wall opposite the glass slid open, revealing not a hallway, but another man. This man wore a pristine white biohazard suit, the faceplate of his helmet hiding his expression, but his posture radiating an air of cold, absolute authority. He held a sleek black tablet.

“Subject Zero,” the man’s voice was filtered through a speaker, metallic and devoid of emotion. “Good. You’re conscious.”

Alex’s mind reeled. Subject Zero? “Who are you? Where am I? Where is Cassandra Riley? She was with me.”

The man took a step into the room, his movements economical and precise. He tapped the tablet, his gaze flicking between the screen and Alex. “My name is Dr. Aris Stillman. You are in a secure medical facility under the Aegis Initiative. As for your condition, how do you feel? Any unusual sensations? Nausea? Auditory or visual hallucinations?”

The clinical detachment in Stillman’s voice was more terrifying than any open threat. Alex wasn’t a patient; he was an experiment.

“I don’t care about my condition,” Alex spat, his voice gaining a desperate edge. “Tell me where Cass is. Was she hurt in the crash? Is she okay?” His primary, all-consuming desire was for her safety. She was his anchor, the center of his world. Without her, this white room was just a tomb.

Stillman made another note on his tablet, his silence a deliberate, calculated form of torture. He was the obstacle, the gatekeeper to the only answer that mattered.

“We are monitoring a significant elevation in your adrenaline and cortisol levels,” Stillman stated calmly, completely ignoring the question. “Your heart rate is one hundred and thirty-two beats per minute. Remarkable, considering your resting state.”

“Damn your monitoring!” Alex roared, swinging his legs off the metal slab. He tried to stand, to rush this faceless man, but his legs buckled. He wasn’t just weak; it felt like every muscle fiber was disconnected from his brain. He crumpled to the cold floor, the paper gown tearing at the shoulder. The raw frustration brought tears to his eyes.

Stillman watched him fall without a flicker of reaction. “Hostility is a noted side effect. We anticipated this.”

“Just tell me she’s alive,” Alex pleaded, his voice cracking. He hated the weakness in his tone, but he didn't care. He would beg, he would crawl, he would do anything. “Please.”

For the first time, Stillman paused. He looked down at Alex, a heap of misery on the sterile floor. For a fleeting moment, Alex thought he saw a glimmer of something human in the man’s posture. He was wrong.

“Ms. Riley is an integral part of this project,” Stillman said, his tone as flat and lifeless as the room. “She is secure. Also under observation, in a separate wing.”

The words hit Alex like a physical blow, knocking the air from his lungs. Secure. Under observation. She wasn’t safe in a hospital. She was a prisoner, just like him. His last shred of hope, that Cass had somehow escaped this nightmare, evaporated. It was replaced by a despair so vast and cold it threatened to swallow him whole.

He was trapped. She was trapped. They were lab rats for a man who saw them as nothing more than data points on a screen.

This was the turning point. Despair curdled into a black, helpless rage. And in that abyss of emotion, something else stirred.

It started as a faint warmth in his blood, a low thrumming that began deep in his chest and spread outwards like a wave of heat. It wasn't a fever; it was something alien. Something powerful. The throbbing in his head intensified, but the pain was different now, edged with a strange, exhilarating clarity.

And then, a whisper.

It wasn’t a sound that entered his ears. It was a thought, sliding into his consciousness like a serpent. It was not his own.

Weak. This body is so weak.

Alex’s head snapped up. He looked around the empty room, his heart hammering against his ribs for an entirely new reason. The voice was inside him.

This cage of flesh. This cage of steel. They are nothing.

He clutched his head, a gasp escaping his lips. Was he going mad? Was this the “auditory hallucination” Stillman had asked about?

They hold her. The other half. They keep us apart.

The voice was seductive, a dark and terrible promise coiling around his despair. It didn't offer comfort. It offered power. The rage that had been impotent moments before now had a focus, a direction. The voice was feeding on it, nurturing it.

Let go, the voice whispered, a chorus of echoes in the depths of his mind. Let us in. We can break these walls. We can tear him apart. We can have her back.

Outside the glass, Stillman watched the tablet in his hands. He saw the sudden, impossible spike in Alex’s biometrics. Heart rate, brainwave activity, even skin temperature—all surging to levels that should have induced cardiac arrest. Yet, Alex was merely kneeling, his head bowed.

Stillman leaned closer to the glass, his professional curiosity overriding his caution. The eyes Alex lifted to meet his gaze were no longer just filled with despair. A new, predatory light glinted within them, ancient and hungry.

The seed of a monstrous escape had been planted in the fertile ground of Alex’s love and desperation. And in the sterile white room, something terrible and new was beginning to bloom.