The blue light slowly faded.
The humming of the machines softened into a low, steady murmur, and the rotating symbols beneath Denver's feet gradually dimmed until they disappeared completely. The glass panels slid open with a soft mechanical click, releasing a faint puff of cool air.
Denver stepped off the platform, feeling strangely… normal. No pain, no hallucinations and no sudden awakening of monstrous powers.
Just silence.
Kiara stared at the floating screens, her fingers moving across the holographic panels as lines of data continued to scroll. Her expression returned to its usual cheerful persona, but her eyes were focused.
"Huh, interesting," she murmured.
Then Kiara stretched her arms, cheerful as ever. "Alright! That's all for today's session, subject... ah, I mean, Denver!" she corrected herself with an awkward laugh.
Denver sat on the cold examination chair, a thin blanket draped over her shoulders. Electrodes still clung to her temples, her wrists, her chest. She felt like she had been peeled apart and put back together again.
"So?" she asked, forcing a casual tone. "Am I dying, cursed, possessed, or secretly becoming a monster?"
Kiara blinked, then laughed lightly. "None of the above at least, not according to today's data."
Kael leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, eyes half lidded, as if he hadn't slept in days. "That means nothing abnormal appeared?"
Kiara removed the last sensor from Denver's wrist and placed it neatly on a tray.
"Diagnostic tests for curses are complicated," she explained, walking toward a large glass panel filled with floating holographic charts. "Curses aren't just physical, they interact with the brain, memory, emotions, sometimes even… reality itself."
She tapped a screen, and a model of a human brain appeared.
"Some curses stay dormant for months. Some react only under stress, fear, or near other gift users and some only activate when certain conditions are met like specific locations, bloodlines, or even dreams."
Denver stared at the brain model, her expression unreadable.
"That's why the full diagnostic takes weeks, sometimes months," Kiara continued. "We need to observe patterns, psychological changes, physiological changes, and external triggers. One test can't reveal everything."
"So you're saying…" Denver said quietly, "…I could still be a ticking bomb."
Kiara smiled, but this time it was softer. "Or probably you could just be a perfectly normal girl who had a terrifying incident."
Denver stared at her hands, then at the dark glass walls reflecting her face. She felt normal, but something about that bothered her more than founding something monstrous. As they walked toward the exit, Kiara called out, her voice cheerful again.
"Good job today, Denver! Tomorrow we start behavioral and environmental observation, try not to die or escape before then, okay?"
"…That's not something people usually say."
The doors slid shut behind them.
And on the dark screens inside the lab, a single irregular graph line continued to pulse slowly, rhythmic, almost like a heartbeat that didn't belong to her. Then, without any command, the signal went flat. The screen shut itself off.
The facility doors slid open with a muted chime, releasing them into the sterile corridor. The scent of antiseptic still clung to Denver's clothes, as if the place refused to let her go completely.
As they stepped outside, the sky was already dimming into evening, the city lights flickering on one by one.
She hesitated.
"…So," she muttered, not looking at him, "where am I supposed to go now?"
Kael paused mid step and turned to her. His expression remained calm, unreadable, as if this was just another routine question.
"You can't go home," he said plainly.
She stiffened. "Figures."
"The WGR has classified you as an active subject. Until your curse is fully analyzed and deemed safe, your movements and living arrangements are restricted."
"Restricted," she repeated, tasting the word like it was poison. "So I'm grounded by the government."
"In simple terms, yes."
She let out a dry laugh, but it sounded more tired than amused. "Wow that's just great, my mom is probably worried sick, and I'm being kidnapped by a research organization."
"You're not being kidnapped."
"Well, it feels like one."
Kael opened the car door for her. "The facility has dormitories."
She froze, one hand on the door handle. "Dorms?"
"Yes. Residential sectors designed for subjects like you those under observation but not classified as high risk. You'll have your own room, basic amenities, medical monitoring, and security."
"So… a fancy cage."
He met her eyes. "A controlled environment."
She stared at him for a long moment, searching for sarcasm, guilt anything. But Kael's face remained neutral, as if this was simply how the world worked.
"Umm so… do I get a roommate?" she asked quietly.
"No... not for now."
She looked away, her reflection faintly visible in the tinted window. Alone again. She climbed into the car, as Kael closed the door, the lock clicked shut with a final, heavy sound.
And for the first time, Denver realized she didn't know where home was anymore.
Arriving in her assigned room, Denver lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling. The room was spotless, the walls were painted in sterile white, the corners sharp and perfect, like nothing was allowed to exist here unless it was controlled.
Small cameras blinked faint red in each corner, their lenses quietly watching every breath she took. A thin strip of LED light ran along the ceiling, casting a cold, artificial glow that never fully dimmed.
No shadows, no privacy, and no escape. She hated it.
The bed sheets were smooth and smelled faintly of disinfectant. Even the air felt filtered, purified, stripped of anything human. It felt less like a bedroom and more like a cage disguised as comfort.
Her fingers curled into the blanket, knuckles whitening as she clenched it, as if gripping onto something real in a place that didn't feel real at all.
Then it came back, the image burned itself into her mind. The boy in the void, his pale face, raven black hair, and those dark gray eyes that looked exactly like hers yet wrong in every possible way.
His lips twisted into that unnatural smile, too wide, too deliberate. Blood slowly trickled from the corners of his eyes, staining his porcelain skin as if tears had turned into something corrupted.
And beneath them was the endless black water. A mirror like ocean that swallowed everything, rising like a living thing, reaching for her, dragging her down into darkness.
"…Wake up."
His voice echoed inside her skull, soft, calm, and terrifyingly close like he was whispering directly into her mind.
Her breath hitched, she turned her head toward the window.
Beyond the reinforced glass, the WGR core tower pierced the night sky like a spear. Layers of walls, floodlights, and security drones surrounded it. From afar, it looked magnificent a shining beacon of humanity's power and order.
From here, it looked like a fortress, a city built inside a cage, a prison pretending to be a sanctuary.
"Normal, huh…" she whispered, her voice barely louder than her own heartbeat.
The word felt like a lie, then lights flickered once, briefly dimming the room before returning to full brightness. Shadows rippled across the walls, then vanished.
For a moment, her heart skipped, she remembered the silhouette from her dream standing behind her, watching, waiting.
But this time, there was nothing, no presence, no reflection, and no voice. Just silence, she exhaled slowly, forcing the tension out of her body.
Sleep slowly caught up to her.
Her thoughts drifted, her senses dulled, and the world around her faded into darkness. At first, her sleep was normal, no strange dreams, no voices, just quiet. Then...
"Drip."
The sound echoed through the darkness, sharp and unnatural. She stirred in her sleep, her brows furrowing, then another drop followed, the sound rippling through the emptiness like a signal.
Her eyes slowly opened, she was no longer in her room, she was back in that place.
The endless void stretched in every direction, and beneath her feet was the familiar black water. It glowed faintly, pulsing like something alive, each ripple spreading in perfect circles.
She jolted upright. "Not here again," she muttered, her voice shaking.
A sudden chill crawled up her spine, she slowly turned around. There she saw someone standing, it was a man, he looked oddly familiar. Her heart skipped as she stared at him more closely, it was Kael.
He stood there motionless, almost lifeless, his expression blank, his dark blue eyes staring straight at her.
Then he spoke, his voice identical to the real Kael.
"You… you're not supposed to be here."
"W-what?" she whispered, her voice trembling.
He took a step forward, then his body began to distort. His figure melted like liquid shadow, his form twisting unnaturally, until it reshaped into another familiar person.
Dr. Kiara.
She stood there with the same gentle smile, the same calm eyes, the same cheerful aura.
"Hold up!" Denver raised her hands, backing away. "Don't move. What… who exactly are you?"
The woman tilted her head, her smile slowly becoming eerie.
"Oh, Denver," she said softly. "I am you."
Her body suddenly lost its shape, dissolving into a fluid, shadowy substance that collapsed onto the water like ink spreading across a page. Denver's eyes widened, she didn't understand what she had just seen. Then a sudden whisper brushed against her ear.
"And you are me."
She turned around, he was right in front of her. Her reflection.
Raven black hair, pale, porcelain like skin, hollow gray eyes that felt like they were staring straight through her. His lips stretched into a wide, twisted smile that didn't belong to a human face.
Her breath hitched as he leaned closer, his presence suffocating. A sudden, crushing pain erupted in her stomach.
She gasped, her body jerking as if something had passed straight through her. The boy's arm was buried in her torso, his hand emerging from her back like it belonged there, as if her body were nothing more than water and shadow.
"You came back," he whispered, his voice brushing against her mind. "Did you miss me?"
Cold spread from where he touched her, creeping through her chest, down her arms, into her fingers. The world around her distorted, the endless black water trembling as her vision blurred, then everything was consumed by darkness.
Then she woke up.