The room was suffocating with unspoken tension, thick like smoke that clung to the walls.

  Robert shifted his weight, his fingers flexing at his sides as he stared down at Edwin's still form.

  The boy lay sprawled on the bench, his face soft with the illusion of peace. But Robert knew better. There was nothing peaceful about this moment, nothing calm about the storm waiting beneath Edwin's unconscious exterior.

  He exhaled sharply, his resolve hardening. "We have to do it now. I should be the one to wake him up."

  "No." Doctor Cenilera's voice cut through the quiet, firm and immediate. "I'll do it."

  Robert turned his head slightly, casting her a skeptical glance. "The last time didn't exactly go well. Maybe I can calm him down."

  "That's because I poked him with a needle," she admitted, her voice softening just enough to acknowledge the mistake, yet still unwavering.

  Robert crossed his arms, his jaw tightening. "And I'm still the better option. I can handle the kid throwing a tantrum—I've been trained for it."

  Cenilera's gaze darkened. "He's not a kid anymore, Robert. He's in his teens. And we still don't understand the severity or full extent of what Albert did to him."

  Robert scoffed under his breath, shaking his head. "The way I see it, he's still a kid. And the best way to wake a kid up?" He smirked. "A little pinch of pain."

  Before she could stop him, Robert leaned over and pinched Edwin's arm. The reaction was instant.

  Edwin's eyes snapped open, wide and frantic, his breath hitching as if he'd just surfaced from drowning. His pupils, dilated with unfiltered panic, darted wildly around the room.

  Then he moved.

  Faster than Robert expected, Edwin shoved him back with startling force, his body twisting off the bench in a desperate attempt to escape. His movements were erratic, pure instinct driving him to run. But Robert was quicker-he lunged, catching Edwin's leg and yanking him back down.

  A sharp crack!

  Edwin's head slammed against the edge of the bench with a dull thud.

  ———///////———

  I was drowning.

  Cold water rushed over, surrounding me—thick and suffocating, dragging me back into the nightmare. The lab's sterile lights flickered above, too bright, too white, buzzing like insects in my skull. My body was a cage of agony, nerves set aflame by Albert's experiments.

  What am I doing back here?

  I took a glance around me as the setting shifted into focus. A familiar setting, formed before me. A steel table with metal restraints, large machines, wires coiling like snakes to the table and the most terrifying part, Albert.

  Oh right. I got caught again.

  Albert’s voice-haunting, methodical-wrapped around me like chains.

  "I'm not just searching for a cure. I'm creating a weapon using the virus inside you as my base."

  I’m a weapon?

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Alberts smile was never warm. It was clinical, sharp with the edge of obsession. I remembered the needles, the currents of electricity surging through my veins, the way his eyes flickered with intrigue when I screamed. When the results disappointed him, he grew colder. More cruel.

  The darkness pressed in, threatening to swallow me whole until—

  Pain.

  A sharp, searing pain in my ribs yanked me from the void. My lungs burned, my breath coming in short, ragged gasps as the nightmare splintered away.

  The walls swam back into focus. I wasn't in the lab. I wasn't drowning. But the weight on top of me-someone holding me down-too much like before.

  Ah! What the hell!" I gasped, thrashing beneath the pressure pinning me. My body was still shaking, still trapped in the horror of what had been done to me.

  "Robert! Don't hurt him!" Doctor Cenilera's voice wavered, her eyes wide with alarm.

  "I'm not trying to!" Robert snapped back, straining against my resistance. "He's stronger than he looks!"

  I fought harder. The panic clawed up my throat, drowning reason, drowning everything but the need to get free. But Robert was relentless, his grip locking me down.

  My vision blurred. My lungs screamed.

  "Stop! I give!" I choked out, my body heaving as I did my best to hold still.

  A long silence followed, thick with the echoes of my ragged breaths. The pressure on my chest eased, but the weight of everything else remained-pressing down, suffocating, inescapable.

  Robert didn’t let go right away. His grip remained firm on my shoulder, pinning me against the cold bench, his weight a silent warning not to resist. His breath came slow and measured, but I could feel the tension coiling beneath his skin like a wire pulled too tight. His eyes flickered to Doctor Cenilera, nodding for her to take over.

  “Listen to her,” Robert muttered, his voice laced with irritation. “She’ll explain everything.”

  Cenilera crouched beside me, her expression caught between urgency and something that looked too much like sympathy. “Edwin, you have to believe me when I say we’re not here to hurt you. We’re not your enemies.”

  I scoffed, my muscles tensing beneath Robert’s hold. My breath was still ragged, my mind struggling to shake off the residual haze of nightmares and pain. “You both work for Albert. Don’t act like you’re on my side.”

  Robert exhaled sharply, his patience visibly fraying. “We got you out of the Third Level, didn’t we? You’re on the Fourth now. We’re trying to help you escape.”

  “Escape?” I repeated, incredulous. “You didn’t get me out—you just dragged me deeper! Do you have any idea what Albert will do to me for this? He’ll—he’ll…”

  My throat tightened. I didn’t need to finish. We all knew. Albert didn’t forgive. There would be punishments, injections, the raw agony of his experiments, the way his cold voice measured out my pain like data points on a chart. My body trembled as the weight of it all crashed down again, threatening to suffocate me.

  Robert leaned in closer, his jaw clenched. “Shut up and listen. We brought you here to change your clothes and get you out. You want out, right? The emergency tunnel’s on this level. That’s our way out.”

  I wanted to believe him. But trust was a dangerous thing. I glared at Robert, my body coiled, ready to fight if I had to. “This feels like a trap. Let me go, or I swear, I’ll break your arm.”

  Cenilera’s voice cut through the tension like a blade, calm but insistent. “Edwin, we’re risking everything to help you. I know you have no reason to believe us—not after everything Albert’s done—but please, if you want to escape, you have to trust us. If you don’t, none of us will make it out.”

  My breathing was uneven, my pulse hammering in my ears. My mind screamed at me to fight, to run, to do anything but sit here and listen. But beneath that panic, something else whispered. A question I didn’t want to consider. What if they're telling the truth?

  I searched Cenilera’s face, looking for a crack in her words, a flicker of deception. But all I saw was raw urgency, the same kind I had felt when I was desperate for an escape. My gaze flickered to Robert, who was watching me like he was ready to subdue me if I lashed out again. He wasn’t kind, not like Cenilera, but there was something real in his frustration—something that didn’t feel like a lie.

  “You really want me to believe you?” My voice was lower now, uncertain. “After everything?”

  Cenilera leaned in just slightly, her voice steady but pleading. “I understand your doubts. I do. But if we don’t move now, Albert will find us—and then it’s over. This is your only chance.”

  A pause. The weight of her words settled, heavy and suffocating. My defiance faltered, cracking just slightly beneath the uncertainty.

  Robert stepped forward, his voice flat but firm. “We’re the only ones who can get you out of here. And if you want to survive, you have to trust us—just this once.”

  Trust. That word tasted bitter in my mouth. But what choice did I have? If I stayed, Albert would come. And there would be no second chances.

  I hesitated, my hands curling into fists, my body aching from the tension of the moment. “You’re telling me, after everything—after the torture, the beatings, the injections—now, now you’re helping me?” I let out a heavy, exhausted sigh, realizing that I couldn’t undo what they had started. “Fine,” I muttered. “But I’m not making any promises.”

  Cenilera exhaled, a flicker of relief crossing her face, but she didn’t waste another second. She leaned in, her voice urgent. “Do you know what’s been happening to you? Or what Albert wants?”

  I stiffened. The memories clawed at the edges of my mind, but they were fragmented, blurred by pain. What Albert wanted—what he had done to me—was a question I wasn’t sure I wanted answered.

  My voice trembled with barely contained fury. "You want to know what Albert has been doing? Alright, I'll tell you what I remember. I've been tortured, beaten, electrocuted! Stabbed, mentally tormented, injected with poisons and serums! All for some twisted idea he has about creating a weapon and cure at the same time! How does that make any sense?"

  My breath came in short, ragged gasps, my entire body trembling with rage and exhaustion. The walls of the sterile, dimly lit room seemed to close in around me, suffocating me with the weight of everything I had endured. My pulse pounded in my ears, a relentless drumbeat of fury and fear.

  "He said it has the ability to fight off the Virus. But there's something else," I continued, my voice cracking under the strain. "All this torture has been to extract enough so he can use it—to weaponize it. Which means-"

  The silence that followed was deafening, as if the very air had frozen. Robert and Doctor Cenilera exchanged uneasy glances, their expressions shifting from shock to something else—something close to horror.

  “I think I’m a monster.”