The acoustic layer of the room was a dense, white-noise hum of high-pressure water hitting composite stone. I was submerged up to my throat, my head resting against the cold, curved lip of the basin, watching the steam curl toward the ceiling in hypnotic, heavy fractals.
My eyelids felt like they were weighted with lead. Every muscle in my body was vibrating with the aftershocks of the trial, a low-frequency hum that felt like a system error.
The door was slightly ajar, a jagged line of blue light from the bedroom cutting through the white haze. I saw the shadow first. Then the door creaked wider, and a thick, heavy finger of steam escaped into the bedroom, an invite from a system that had finally stopped throwing monsters at us.
He looks like a server that just suffered a total hardware failure.
