Cold hit first.
Not natural cold.
Controlled.
Engineered.
Emily felt it seep into her bones the moment the darkness released them. The ground beneath her wasn’t stone anymore—it was smooth, metallic, faintly illuminated by thin lines of pale blue light running in precise geometric patterns.
She barely had time to register that before another pulse tore through her.
She screamed.
Light burst outward—violent, blinding—but this time it didn’t spread far.
It hit something.
And stopped.
A low hum filled the air.
Steady.
Resistant.
Emily’s vision flickered as she forced her head up.
They were inside a chamber—vast, circular, its walls rising high into shadow. The entire space pulsed faintly with that same blue glow, lines intersecting in complex arrays that hurt to look at for too
