~Elara~
I awoke gasping in darkness. Not the peaceful kind—the smothering, disorienting blindness that comes when even your enhanced senses can't pierce through. My fingers trembled against cold metal, searching for purchase on the smooth surface beneath me.
Where was I?
The scent of antiseptic burned my nostrils, mingling with something else—something metallic and familiar. Silver. It coursed through my veins like liquid lightning, both foreign and strangely intimate.
"Neural patterns stabilizing," a clinical voice announced somewhere to my left. Dr. Chen. "Subject is regaining consciousness."
Subject. No longer Elara, no longer even Ms. Winters. Just another experiment in Damon Marx's quest for evolutionary dominance.
"Good morning, Elara." Damon's voice slid over me like oil on wa
