A thousand footsteps echoed through the massive staging area, each step ringing against the concrete in a chaotic drumbeat of anxious prospects. The cold air bit viciously at my exposed skin, carrying the distinct smell of ozone and antiseptic that reminded me of hospital emergency rooms from my past life—places where life and death hung in precarious balance. Underneath that clinical sterility lurked something else more primal—the metallic tang of raw power, like the air before a devastating lightning strike, a promise of violence waiting to be unleashed.
Along the far wall, fifty massive circular gates stood silent and watchful, each marked by a number in pulsating blue font that cast eerie shadows across the concrete floor. They resembled dead eyes, waiting to blink open and swallow us whole, portals to whatever hellish challenge awaited the unlucky souls assigned to them.
"PROSPECTS, PROCEED TO YOUR ASSIGNED PREPARATION ALCOVES."
