The transition wasn't gradual. One moment Elara stood in empty white space. The next, she was somewhere else entirely.
A room. Stone walls. Dim light from a single barred window set too high to reach. The smell hit her first—copper and rot and human waste, thick enough to taste.
She looked down.
A man knelt on the floor, hands bound behind his back, face bruised and swollen. Mid-forties, graying hair, expensive suit torn and stained with blood. His eyes were vacant, shock-glazed, like he'd stopped processing reality hours ago.
Behind him stood another man. Younger. Holding a knife.
Elara recognized the scene type immediately. Execution. Gang violence maybe, or political assassination. She'd seen crime scene photos in her first life, reviewed security footage of corporate espionage gone violent. This wasn't new information.
She waited for the point of this exercise.
The younger man raised the knife.
