The Kingdom's secret laboratories burrowed beneath the royal palace, a labyrinth of steel passages and shadowed cells.
Machines pulsed, their vibrations threading through the walls, mingling with the faint wails of captives trapped in darkness.
Holographic displays flickered with genetic data, their sterile light glinting off vats of viscous fluid and rows of surgical instruments, the air sharp with antiseptic.
Vanes held her newborn daughter close, the infant's warmth a fragile tether against her chest. Her shapeshifter blood, a perilous secret, branded them as targets in a Kingdom that hunted their kind. Her green scales shimmered under the lab's harsh lights, her pale eyes darting with dread.
Gin, her husband, stood rigid, his scaled form tense, fingers gripping a stolen keycard, its edges slick with sweat. His breath was steady, but his knuckles whitened, the weight of their escape pressing hard.
