Seth’s POVWhen I woke up, I wasn’t sure if I was alive, dead, or something in between. My head pounded like a drum, and every muscle in my body ached. My vision blurred at first, then cleared slowly under the blinding white lights above me. Everything was sterile—too clean, too perfect. A white room. A single white chair. And me, strapped to it like a test subject in some twisted science fair.The air was cold enough to sting my lungs. My hands and legs were bound, but not by metal. It wasn’t steel or iron or any alloy I could twist or bend. The material felt strange—warm, flexible, and yet… unyielding. It was like rubber, but tougher. Reinforced. Designed specifically for me.I tugged at it once, twice. Nothing. No give, no strain. My pulse quickened.“What the hell is this?” I muttered under my breath. I pulled harder, twisting my wrists, trying to feel for any weak point, any tear. Nothing.Frustration rose in me like fire. “Hey!” I shouted into the blinding white void. “Is anyone

Seth’s POVThree days.That’s how long it had been since I last saw Lucas. Three long, empty days filled with sedatives, sterile lights, and the mechanical sound of my own breathing echoing against white walls. I’d been fed, spoken to, and put back to sleep like a lab animal. Somewhere between the second and third injection, I stopped resisting.My reasoning was simple, if I couldn’t think of a way out, I might as well do nothing at all. I let them poke, prod, question, and study. At least it gave them purpose.I didn’t have one anymore.The silence of the room had become a living thing, a companion that hummed softly in my ears. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and burnt metal, a mix that somehow reminded me of the lab before it exploded. Sometimes, when I stared too long at the ceiling lights, I could still see the flash, the wave, the moment everything changed.That afternoon, if I could even call it afternoon, since the light here never changed, the door hissed open with its