The smell of burning circuitry hit before Alessio’s vision even fully adjusted. It wasn’t just a scent, it was thick in the back of his throat, acrid and metallic, the kind of smell that stuck to your clothes and made your eyes water. He blinked hard, once, twice, trying to force his vision to settle, but the darkness was still oppressive, swallowing the room whole.
Tiny motes of light drifted through the black. For a second, his brain wanted to think they were absurd fireflies, wrong before he realized they were tiny shards of glass and scorched insulation hanging in the air. They caught what little illumination there was, winking like dying stars before spiraling to the floor. Somewhere to his right, a blown-out control panel sparked, a blue-white flare so bright it left a ghost-image b
