The white haze hung heavy in the air of the storage room, a dense, swirling curtain that clung to the damp wooden floorboards. It was a suffocating, unnatural fog, thick with the sharp, metallic tang of the high-dose sedative that had been deployed from the shattered remains of Rey’s armor. Zeven remained on his knees, his vision swimming as the world warped into soft, indistinct shapes. The edges of his consciousness were fraying, slipping away into the quiet, dark abyss of the chemical fog. Every breath he took felt like inhaling liquid lead, heavy and slow, settling deep within his lungs to anchor him to the floor.
He looked down at his brother, who lay limp and motionless against the rough timber planks. Rey’s cybernetic shell was silent, the aggressive hum of his internal processors
