Consciousness returned in jagged fragments.
The smell of ozone and sterilized steel. The hum of machinery that sounded suspiciously like breathing. The cold press of a surgical table against my bare back.
I tried to move. My limbs refused.
Above me, the lasers still danced - but now I saw their purpose. They weren't lights at all, but thin red wires suspended in midair, vibrating with some unseen current. They formed a grid across my body, their glow intensifying whenever my breathing hitched.
A voice echoed from the darkness. Not human. Not mechanical. Something in between.
"Subject regaining cortical function. Proceeding with debrief."
To my left, Aaron hung suspended in a vertical glass tube, his head shaved and wired with electrodes. His eyelids fluttered rapidly, dreaming some terrible dream. On my right, Insha and Zayn lay on identical tables, their chests rising and falling in perfect synchronization.
The realization hit like a bullet:
We weren't patients.
We were interfaces.
The shadow that detached itself from the wall had too many joints in its fingers. It moved through the laser grid without disturbing a single wire, its form flickering between human and something else entirely. When it spoke, the words formed directly inside my skull.
"You will tell us about the outbreak."
I tried to scream. My lips wouldn't part.
The shadow pressed a needle-thin finger to my temple. The world dissolved into fractured memories:
The airport terminal. The black fluid dripping from vents. The way the infected had moved with terrible purpose rather than mindless hunger.
"Show us more."
New images flooded in - ones I didn't recognize. A laboratory deep underground. Test subjects strapped to chairs. The same black fluid being injected into their spines. Their eyes turning pitch dark right before they—
The connection severed with a jolt.
Across the room, Zayn's eyes snapped open. Not his normal brown, but solid black from edge to edge. When he spoke, his voice buzzed with unnatural harmonics.
"They're lying to you. We were never meant to escape."
The lasers suddenly flared crimson. Alarms shrieked in a language that hurt my teeth. The shadow operator recoiled as Zayn's body began convulsing, his mouth stretching wider than humanly possible to utter a single phrase:
"The facility is compromised."
Then the real screaming began.