Zora opened her eyes and sat up.
Gray walls. Cold floor. Same sterile smell.
Her stars zipped around her lazily as she glanced around the room. She was lying on a padded table in the center, and straight ahead stood a heavy steel door. To her left, a woman sat behind a desk, furiously typing at a computer.
Red hair tied back in a ponytail. Black-rimmed glasses. Pale as a ghost under her lab coat.
Zora frowned.
"Did you enjoy rummaging through my life?" she asked, her voice sharp.
The woman flinched slightly. The squid-like creature — her Eidolon — detached from her head and coiled up behind her, blinking in response.
"It's not like I like doing it this way," the woman muttered, still typing. "But if we want to keep you people mentally stable, we have to understand what kind of trauma we're working with."
Zora rolled her eyes and swung her legs over the edge of the table. "Been here a year, and they still don't trust me."
She slid off and started walking toward the door.
"Ah—wait, one second!"
The woman quickly stood and extended a hand.
"Introductions were rushed before. I'm Dr. Cowl — Jenna, if you prefer."
Zora stared at the hand for a beat... then shook it.
"Zora," she said flatly.
There was an awkward pause. Jenna looked like she was fighting the urge to bounce on her heels.
Zora sighed. "What is it?"
Jenna's face lit up.
"Well... your Eidolon is unlike anything we've seen. Five distinct manifestations. Separate personalities. Independent abilities. It's—it's incredible. Honestly, I was wondering if, from time to time, I could run a few harmless tests—"
Zora cut her off with a deadpan, "No."
Siri muttered, floating above her shoulder, "They always want tests. Not enough to pry into your mind — they've gotta poke at everything else, too."
Zora didn't break stride as she pushed through the door and stepped out into the sunlight of the camp she'd called home for the past year.
"Another day in paradise," Nexus said sarcastically.
Zora didn't answer at first. Her eyes drifted across the towering metal walls that surrounded the camp, barbed wire curled atop them like a crown. Watchtowers made of the same cold, dark steel twisted and rotated mechanically, scanning the perimeter.
"You can say that again," she muttered, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her cargo pants.
She walked the dirt road away from the gray building, passing rows of tents filled with refugees — men, women, children. In one tent, a small boy no older than eight was playing with toy trucks, laughing with a few others. Zora stopped for a moment, watching them. Despite everything, the kids could still pretend to be normal.
Her pocket buzzed.
Snapping out of her thoughts, she pulled her phone free. "Yeah?"
A rumbling truck passed by, forcing her to stop. The voice on the line was rushed. "Briefing starts in ten minutes. Where are you?"
Zora crossed the road, stepping past rows of hydroponic farms. Inside the greenhouse domes, gardeners and their Eidolons coaxed seeds to sprout and bloom with practiced ease. One of the workers noticed her and waved, their Eidolon making another plant blossom in greeting.
Zora smiled faintly and waved back. "I'm on my way. Got pulled for psych eval this morning. They looked through my memories."
"Oof. You okay? You don't have to show up. I can make an excuse—"
"I'm fine," Zora said quickly, though her nose wrinkled as she passed the animal building. The stench never got easier to deal with. Eidolons here specialized in accelerated growth — raising livestock within days — but the grotesque results were sealed behind a building enlarged by a spatial Eidolon, twenty times its size inside.
"It just brought up things I hadn't thought about in a long time."
She stopped in front of a metal building with two checkpoints and armed guards stationed at each entrance. Heavy rifles. Full armor.
"I'm outside. See you in a sec." She hung up and started digging through her pockets. "Damn it... stupid Type Threes..."
After fumbling through her cargo pocket, she finally found her ID and flashed it to the guard. He examined it, then nodded and stepped aside.
"I must say again," Nexus chimed, twirling in the air beside her, "they could've done so much better with the fashion they've provided."
Zora glanced down at her outfit — Army greens, black combat boots, and a brown shirt she hated not for how it felt, but for how it looked.
"What do you want? It's all they gave me," she muttered, voice low. "It's all I have."
She pushed the door open and stepped into the cool breath of the building's AC.
Zora crossed the threshold and immediately shivered.
She snapped her head to the left — Dawkins was staring at her again.
"Cut that shit out," she said, flipping him off. "I've been coming here for a year now."
He didn't blink. "Everyone gets scanned. Doesn't matter how long you've been here."
Above his head, his Eidolon hovered: a single, oversized floating eyeball, unblinking.
Dawkins — head of surveillance for the entire camp. Nothing escaped him within these walls. And to Zora, that just made him creepy as hell.
"He's a slimy bastard, I'll give him that," Ricochet muttered, blinking in sync with the floating eye.
Zora picked up her pace, walking quickly down the sterile white hallway. She passed briefing rooms — one after the other — each one sealed by reinforced doors and a spatial break inside. Even if you put your ear to the wall, you wouldn't hear a damn thing.
At the end of the hallway, she made a right and started up a narrow staircase. Another hallway stretched ahead, just as white and featureless as the last.
"2C… 2C…" she mumbled under her breath, scanning the numbers beside each door until finally—
Found it.
She placed a hand on the doorknob and pushed.
On the other side was a gaping hole — a spatial distortion swallowing what should've been a standard briefing room.
"Ugh, I hate this feeling," Aegis groaned as Zora stepped through the threshold and into the pocket dimension beyond.