Light.
That was the first thing Solfa became aware of.
Not the gentle light of morning through a bedroom window, but a harsh brightness that seemed to press against her closed eyelids.
Everything was white.
The ceiling above her stretched smooth and spotless, glowing under rows of surgical lamps. The light was so intense that it blurred the edges of her vision for a moment. She blinked slowly, her eyes adjusting, trying to focus on something. On anything that could tell her where she was.
The air smelled sterile. Cold. Like disinfectant and metal.
Solfa tried to move her head.
A dull heaviness dragged through her body as though she had just woken from a deep sleep she didn't remember falling into. The surface beneath her felt hard and flat, not like a bed but something cooler, smoother. A table.
Her breathing sounded too loud in the silent room.
When her vision cleared, she noticed the walls.
They were perfectly white, without decoration or windows. Panels ran along the sides of the room, each one fitted with faintly glowing screens and small blinking lights. Machines surrounded the table she lay on, their surface polished and metallic, their displays flickering with streams of numbers she couldn't understand.
The wires trailed from some of the machines, disappearing somewhere behind her.
A quiet humming filled the space. Soft. Mechanical. Constant.
Solfa's chest tightened.
Where am I?
She tried lifting her arm, but the movement felt strange, heavy, and unfamiliar, as though her body didn't entirely belong to her yet. A faint metallic sound brushed the silence when she shifted.
Her heart began to race.
Then she heard footsteps.
Slow. Calm. Echoing slightly against the sterile floor.
A figure moved into her line of sight from the side of the laboratory table. A man dressed in a long white coat stepped forward, the bright lights reflecting faintly off the lenses of his glasses.
He studied her for a moment before speaking.
His voice was steady, almost clinical.
"You're awake".
Solfa's throat felt dry when she tried to speak. The words barely formed.
"Where… am I?"
The man didn't answer immediately. Instead, he glanced briefly at one of the monitors, watching the steady lines moving across the screen. Only after a moment did his eyes return to her.
There was something unreadable in his expression.
Relief… mixed with calculation.
"You shouldn't be alive", he said quietly.
The words hung in the sterile air.
Solfa felt a chill crawl through her chest.
The doctor folded his hands behind his back as he continued observing her, almost as though she were an experiment rather than a person lying on the table.
"You were closer to death than anyone I've ever seen survive", he went on. "Your injuries were beyond what medicine could repair'.
Solfa's mind struggled to catch up.
Injuries?
What injuries?
Fragments of confusion pushed through her thoughts, but they dissolved before she could even hold onto them.
The doctor stepped closer to the table.
The light above them glinted against something metallic beside her arm. She tried turning her head slightly towards it, but the motion was slow and awkward.
The man noticed.
His gaze followed hers briefly before returning to her face.
"You could have died", he said.
For the first time, there was a hint of something heavy in his voice.
"But you didn't".
Solfa swallowed, her pulse pounding in her ears.
"Why?"
The doctor watched her carefully as though measuring the moment before answering.
Then he spoke.
"Because you still have a purpose to fulfill".
The machines around the room continued their quiet humming, their lights blinking steadily in the stark white laboratory.
And for the first time since opening her eyes, Solfa began to realize that whatever had happened to her…
…her life would never be the same