The void was absolute. It swallowed light, sound, and hope, leaving behind only the cold, abrasive texture of the air itself. In this perfect, agonizing darkness, a single chain hung suspended, thick as a man's forearm, disappearing into the unseen ceiling.
At its terminus, the chain cinched around the wrist of a man.
He was not overly bulky, but every line of his frame spoke of dense, controlled power—a coiled spring of muscle beneath the tattered remnants of a grey tunic. His trousers were rags, frayed and useless. The constraint of the chain was total, locking his hand in a fixed, slightly elevated position.
Suddenly, the man's fingers twitched, a movement so minute it might have been mistaken for muscle fatigue. But the ancient metal of the chain responded with a protesting sound, a rusty, agonizing scrape that echoed unnaturally in the silence. *Kreech*. It sounded less like metal grinding and more like a massive, forgotten creature stirring in its sleep.
The man's head was bowed, his long, dark hair obscuring his face, but his eyes were visible—wide, unblinking voids. They were not merely empty; they were the absence of light itself, the final resting place of feeling. He had held this posture, motionless, for what felt like geological epochs.
Then, the silence fractured.
From the featureless wall directly opposite him, a small circular aperture opened with a dry, mechanical hiss: *Kshhhhhh*. A polished, obsidian plate slid through the opening, stopping directly in front of his knees.
On the plate sat a meager portion of boiled rice, stark white against the dark surface. It was a cruel, clinical offering.
The man registered the plate, his gaze dropping slowly. He remained still, not moving to eat, not even acknowledging the potential sustenance. It was only then, after perhaps an hour of perfect stillness, that he prepared to blink.
It was the signal.
Just as the muscle around his left eye began to contract, something erupted from the rice. It launched itself toward his face with a velocity that defied air resistance and gravity, a silent projectile of malice. *Whoosh*.
It was a nightmare given form: a small, armored insect, but with the gaping maw and serrated teeth of a deep-sea sand worm. Its eyes were tiny, multifaceted spheres, glowing blood-red in the darkness, and it flew with the singular intent to bore directly into soft tissue.
It was one centimeter from his nose—close enough for him to feel the faint, oily heat radiating from its carapace—when his chained hand moved.
It was not a blur; a blur implies motion that can be tracked. This was an instantaneous translocation, a moment where the hand was *here*, and then, without observable travel time, it was *there*, clamped around the insect. The speed defied human perception, requiring a mind operating on entirely different parameters to register.
He held the struggling creature captive between his thumb and forefinger. Its tiny, powerful jaws snapped uselessly, trying to chew through the unyielding skin. Aron stared at the creature. There was no curiosity, no fear, only the cold observation of a predator noting the quality of its prey.
Then, with a casual, almost bored closing of his grip, he crushed it.
The sound was a wet, sickening *Schlurp-crunch*, followed by the immediate release of a thick, purple ichor that splattered across the floor and the obsidian plate. The Devouring Worm was dead.
The man—Aron—finally spoke, his voice a low, gravelly rasp, like stones tumbling down a dry well.
"Did they truly expect that small horror to be my undoing?" He tilted his head slightly, the movement causing the chain to settle with a soft, metallic sigh. "Or was the spectacle merely to gauge the speed of my response?"
He slowly lifted his eyes, scanning the oppressive ceiling. Though the darkness was absolute, he knew the space intimately. He focused on a point high above, where the geometry of the void felt subtly distorted. There, hidden within layers of spatial camouflage, hovered a tiny, spherical orb—the silent eye of his captors. The Instral Orb.
He didn't glare or challenge it. He simply registered its presence, the way one registers a persistent ache. He had seen it for years. He turned his head back down, the abyss in his eyes deepening, before finally closing them.
***
Meanwhile, in the observation chamber, chaos reigned.
The room was as dark as Aron's cell, perhaps darker, but infused with the sterile scent of ozone and tension. Five figures were seated around a circular table carved from polished black obsidian. In the center, a blue-tinged hologram had just flickered out, leaving behind a residual image of Aron's chained, bowed head.
The tension was a tangible thing, heavy and cold, like a shroud pressed against their chests. One figure, wearing a deep cowl that completely shadowed his face, nervously cleared his throat.
"He saw it," the hooded figure, Sartus, whispered, his voice thin and tight. "He *knew* the 'Instral Orb' was there. The feed cut the second he closed his eyes."
The four others exchanged glances. A woman seated to Sartus's right, Vera, the team's chief analyst, tapped a nervous rhythm on the obsidian table.
"The visual confirmation is secondary, Sartus," she said, her voice sharp with professional dread. "It's the worm. The Devouring Worm is bio-engineered to withstand tectonic pressure. It's designed to be physically indestructible, requiring focused energy pulses to neutralize. He... he *pulped* it. With his hand. No visible effort."
A low moan escaped the lips of a third figure, Kael, the team's engineer, whose face was pale and slick with cold sweat. "Mmmph." He rubbed his temples vigorously. "We are forgetting the fundamental restraint. Amiass's Chains. They dampen all known physical metrics by ninety percent. Ninety! He shouldn't be able to lift a teacup, let alone pulp a Devourer!"
The stakes had just ratcheted into the stratosphere. They all understood the implications. If the chains were failing, or if Aron was simply operating outside the realm of their known physics, they weren't observing a prisoner—they were observing a catastrophic containment failure.
"What if the chains are not Amiass's?" Kael insisted, his voice ragged with fear. "What if they substituted them? Or perhaps the alloy has lost its efficacy after so long?"
The bulky man at the head of the table, Commander Garrus, a man whose face was usually carved from granite, nodded slowly. "It's the only logical explanation, Kael. The only one that allows for the continued integrity of our known universe."
He slammed his index finger onto the table—'Thut'—and the hologram flickered back to life, displaying Aron's cell. Garrus leaned forward, his massive frame eclipsing the light. "Zoom in. Focus on the wrist cuff. Now."
The blue light intensified, focusing on the heavy iron shackle around Aron's wrist. There, barely visible beneath a layer of ancient grime, was a tiny, circular indentation that glowed with a faint, internal amber light. It was the signature mark, the molecular seal impossible to replicate.
It was Amiass's Chains.
Kael watched the confirmation, his eyes widening in horror. He swallowed a breath of air that was too thick, too cold.
*Ghlk*.
His face instantly turned a sickly, greenish hue. "W-w-what is that monster?" he stammered, his voice trembling uncontrollably. "Why are we assigned to observe him? This isn't surveillance, this is volunteering to be ground zero!"
Garrus sighed, the sound heavy and weary. He was the only one who seemed capable of maintaining a modicum of composure, though his own knuckles were white where they gripped the table edge.
"We got orders from 'Above'," Garrus stated flatly. "They ordered us to just watch over him. Nothing more, nothing less. Our job is observation, not intervention."
A collective, shaky sigh of relief swept through the group. The sense of immediate danger receded slightly, replaced by the deep, persistent dread of being utterly out of their depth.
Kael, still clutching his cowl, leaned forward again. "B-but don't any of you know where they found... th-that thing? What is his history? We need context!"
Garrus shook his head, the movement slow and final. "His designation is Aron. That is all we are permitted to know. The higher ups clearly mentioned it: his files are sealed under Level Omega clearance. We observe the subject, not his origins."
While the observers debated his terrifying capabilities, Aron remained undisturbed by their fear. He was far beyond their petty concerns, deep in the absolute quiet of his enforced sleep.
He was chained. He was observed. And he was dreaming.
The oppressive darkness of the cell gave way to a blinding, painful light—a memory, sharp and vivid, where everything he held dear had been violently, irrevocably turned upside down.