"The serum... what serum?"
Avery dug her fingertips violently into Clara's withered knuckles, her hands trembling under the sheer physical exertion. The choking stench of iron and raw clinical lysol in the air felt trapped at the baseline of her throat, sending a suffocating pressure straight to her sternum. Her lungs burned as though they were on the verge of exploding under the structural weight of the silence. Every instinct in her mind screamed for air, but the suffocating darkness of the cell offered no reprieve from the mounting horror.
Clara's fragile frame executed a massive, continuous shudder, vibrating against the mattress like a withered leaf caught in a gale.
The moment the syllables of his full name crossed the threshold of the room, the tiny ember of consciousness within
