Ethan woke to the subtle tremor of panic in his chest. Sunlight was thin, filtered through the blinds that barely moved. His apartment lay under a gray, suffocating gloom, walls closing in as if the night hadn't left at all.
His hands shook. His body had been tense, unmoving, since the feed ended. Since the mask had stared. The threat — Integration begins now — lingered like smoke, curling in his thoughts.
He tried to rise. Tried to feel normal. The mug of coffee from the night before sat on the counter — empty, cold. The faint ozone smell still clung to the air. Warning. He didn't know from what, or from whom, but it was everywhere.
The apartment hummed. Not the usual city hum, not the refrigerator or the AC. Something under the hum. Subtle. Alive. Waiting.
His laptop pinged. A new folder. Office_LiveFeed.
He froze. Every instinct screamed at him to leave it alone. To run. But curiosity — that cursed, human need — clawed at him. He clicked.
The screen lit the room, flickering. The feed loaded — gray, clinical light. The office. Empty. Silent. Except for one figure. Emma Hart. His coworker. Mid-level researcher. Normally quiet, polite, forgettable. Now… she moved deliberately, walking across the office floor, a bottle in her hand.
Ethan's pulse hammered.
The camera shifted. He saw himself sitting at a desk in the office, glass trembling in hand. Except he hadn't been there. Not yet.
A whisper through the speakers. Processed, distorted, cold:
"Ethan Cole. You've avoided the first traps. You've watched. Learned. But now… the experiment begins."
The glass tilted. His reflection — not real, not yet — sipped. And the fire began. Not physical. Not entirely. But the sensation, sharp, corrosive, crawling up his throat, twisting, burning.
His body jerked. Reflex. Panic. The room seemed to breathe around him. The walls leaned in. The hum rose. Mechanical, deliberate. Watching. Waiting.
Red text pulsed across the screen:
> "Project Helix requires compliance. You cannot refuse."
Ethan's lungs seized. His throat constricted. The apartment held him prisoner in a cage of light and shadow, reflection and screen, fear and control.
He clawed at the desk. Tried to move. The laptop screen mirrored every shiver, every convulsion. And in the video, Emma smiled. Hollow. Watching. Reading him.
Somewhere in the shadows — behind the blinds, in the walls, in the faint hum — something waited. Something always had. And Ethan knew, in that suspended, suffocating morning light: he was already inside the machine.
Ethan's hands were shaking uncontrollably as the feed continued to flicker. Emma's figure moved across the office floor with unnerving precision, the wine bottle glinting under the fluorescent lights. Every step she took, every tilt of the glass, felt choreographed — not by her, but by someone controlling her from somewhere Ethan could not reach.
A whisper, low and processed, crawled through the speakers.
"Drink, Ethan. Participation ensures survival… for now."
He tried to look away. Tried to close the laptop. But the screen warped, folding his field of vision back into the office. His own reflection stared back at him from the monitor, trembling as if the reflection was him, drinking the glass he didn't remember picking up.
Emma raised the glass again. She smiled. But her eyes… hollow, unnatural. Not human. Not Emma.
He realized with a jolt — the glass wasn't just wine. It glowed faintly red on the feed, a subtle, unnatural shimmer. And somehow… the screen made his hand move. Reflex. Trembling. He reached for the bottle beside him, thinking to smash it. But when he poured the liquid into the glass, the warmth of it — too real, too now — hit his lips before he could stop it.
The first sip.
It was fire.
Pain erupted from his throat, hot, corrosive, like acid. Every nerve screamed. His stomach lurched, retched, but the sensation didn't relent. His tongue seared. His throat constricted, closing down around a phantom, invisible iron grip. He gagged, clawing at his neck, trying to expel what hadn't fully entered — and yet had.
Through the burning haze, the distorted voice returned, calm, almost soothing:
"Pain is temporary. Awareness is eternal."
The feed zoomed in. Emma's smile widened. Behind her, masked figures emerged from the shadows, silent, patient. Their chrome-white masks reflected the red glow of the wine. Watching. Always watching.
Ethan fell back, chest heaving, glass slipping from his fingers. He could taste iron, chemicals, fire. Every attempt to swallow felt like swallowing molten wire. The room trembled. The hum of electronics rose to a scream — the refrigerator, the laptop, every light buzzing like needles into his skull.
He tried to run, to smash the laptop, to escape the apartment. But the reflection on the screen mirrored every move, every jerk, faster than he could react. The feed had become a cage, his own body part of the broadcast, part of the experiment.
And then, words pulsed across the screen in glowing red:
> "Phase One Complete. Compliance Verified. Resistance Terminated."
Ethan's vision tunneled. Shadows crept along the edges of the apartment, coiling, breathing. He could feel the pulse beneath his ribs — another heartbeat, mechanical, unyielding, watching.
He tried to scream, but his throat flamed too hot for words. He clawed at the walls, at the floor, at the laptop itself, and in the flickering reflection, he saw it clearly: a chrome mask standing behind Emma. Her hollow eyes still on him, her hand poised in a slow, deliberate toast — and behind her, the masked observer, cold, calculating, eternal.
Then the screen went black.
The apartment fell silent.
But Ethan's chest still burned. His throat still ached. And somewhere beyond the walls, beyond the door, the hum persisted. A promise. A threat. Watching. Waiting.
And somewhere in the folds of his mind, a single thought screamed through the haze of pain:
They've been inside me all along.