The base was asleep. Or at least, pretending to be.
Nash had always had sharp instincts—a voice deep inside him, never fully clear, but always right.
That night, the voice was screaming. Something was wrong.
He slipped out of his room without a sound.
He descended the levels one by one, the voice urging him to turn back—but he didn't listen.
In the basement, the security cameras had stopped. Deliberately, someone wanted this part of the building to remain unseen.
He heard a whimper.
His eyes narrowed. He followed the sound, weaving between crates, cables, and pipes… until he found the door.
Thick. Reinforced. Slightly ajar. He peered through the gap.
And what he saw froze him.
Lexie.
Lying on something like an operating table, draped in a red cloth.
Naked. Her body trembled. Her eyes were open, but empty.
In front of her, a man.
Rowen.
Shirtless, a snake tattoo running along his left side.
A syringe still embedded in Lexie's vein, his hand gently caressing her cheek.
Nash felt sick.
— "Just a little more, baby," Rowen whispered. "Just enough so you forget who you are… and why you were hurting."
He spoke with a horrifically intimate softness.
— "You've never felt this good, have you? So light... So free. You don't remember your past, do you? No family. No name. Nothing… but me."
Nash felt rage tear through his gut.
He had always known Rowen was shady, manipulative, maybe even dangerous.
But this? This was monstrous.
And yet… something was wrong.
Lexie… was accepting. She wasn't resisting. Worse—she was smiling.
Nash couldn't help but speak, his throat raw.
— "You sick bastard…"
Rowen turned, the mask slipping halfway to reveal his true face.
Not the one he showed to the rest of the base.
No—his real face.
He smiled.
— "Nash… Always sticking your nose where it doesn't belong."
— "You're drugging her. Controlling her from the start. You're nothing but a predatory piece of shit."
Rowen stepped forward, hands raised.
— "'You're drugging her,'" he mocked. "That's cute. But you don't get it, Nash. She's mine. From day one. She wanted revenge on the Caledron? She got it. But she never knew who she was really joining."
— "What the hell are you rambling about?"
A short, bitter laugh.
— "You want the truth? Fine. Here it is."
He pointed at the floor, the ceiling, the walls.
— "All of this. This base. This so-called organization… I built this shit. It was never about 'resistance' or 'tearing down the system'. No… It was a game. A trap for all the losers, rebels, and dreamers who thought they could take down the Caledron."
Nash turned pale.
— "Wait… you're saying you work for them?"
— "I AM them."
— "I'm the director of the Caledron's Illicit Products Division. Drugs, slavery, mind-control substances… I supply it all. And Lexie? She's an empty shell… who doesn't even realize she's already dead inside."
Nash stumbled back, stunned.
— "What the hell did you put in her…?"
— "What was necessary. Just enough for her to think she's still human. To believe she's making her own choices. But with every heartbeat, it's me pulling the strings."
Rowen moved closer, cruelly calm.
— "You get it now, Nash? You've seen too much. And that's a shame. You were actually useful."
He snapped his fingers.
Two shadows emerged behind Nash.
The first thing he felt was his ribs cracking.
He didn't even have time to react. The two men had grabbed him, slammed him to the ground.
One—a man in a leather mask—drove a knee into his spine while the other shattered his jaw with a brutal kick.
Nash screamed. But in that room, no one would hear.
The place was soundproof. Designed for experiments. Or "corrections," as Rowen called them.
— "See?" Rowen said, turning to Lexie, still half-conscious, pupils dilated. "Even a curious rat ends up eaten by the snake."
He approached Nash, who was trying to crawl, one arm twisted at an unnatural angle.
— "You want the truth? You're gonna feel it."
He grabbed a hook hanging from a chain and drove it into Nash's shoulder without hesitation.
The scream that followed made even the two guards flinch.
Rowen grinned—a sadistic grin.
— "Did you know the brain releases endorphins during extreme pain? Sometimes it even triggers hallucinations. That's what I want to see, Nash. What you're hiding beneath your screams."
He plunged another needle—this time into Nash's thigh.
Then twisted the syringe inside. Blood spurted out, darkened by adrenaline.
— "You always had that little justice-warrior look, Nash. But you didn't realize you were drowning in filth. What you've seen… is only a piece of hell. You think I'm the devil? You've only touched the front door."
Nash, breathless, tried to spit.
— "You're… just a deranged… fucking psycho."
Rowen burst out laughing—a deep, depraved laugh soaked in superiority and sadistic pleasure.
— "Maybe. But I'm alive. You? You're just future bones."
He leaned in, whispered into Nash's ear.
— "You're going to die here. And no one will even remember you existed. Except her. Lexie. And even in her mind… you'll be nothing more than a blurry sensation."
Then, like petting a child, he ran a hand through Nash's sweat- and blood-soaked hair.
— "But before you die, you'll understand. You'll understand what it means to lose your humanity."
He snapped his fingers again. A sliding door opened.
A cell. Small. Dark. Rusted chains. Scraps of nails. Skin. And the stench of burned flesh.
They threw Nash inside like a corpse.
And slammed the door shut.
Above, Lexie opened her eyes and lifted her head.
A silent tear ran down her cheek.
— "…Nash?"
But already, Rowen was placing a hand on her forehead, and she fell back asleep.
— "Sleep, my love. You saw nothing. You never heard that name."
And in that silence, memory struck like a slap.
He saw himself again in a white coat. Still naïve. Still hopeful.
He believed he could save people.
He had developed a compound that slowed neural tissue degeneration.
A drug meant for patients with neurotoxic syndromes.
He was just a passionate researcher, working in a lab sponsored by what he thought was an independent think tank.
But he'd been robbed.
The Caledron had shown up one night—masked, with fake warrants, threats.
Within forty-eight hours, all his files, his formulas, his prototypes—even his name on the patents—gone.
Rebranded, then funneled into the Caledron's combat drug circuits and underground arenas.
And as he sank into rage, lost and directionless, Lexie had appeared.
She found him on a rooftop, a gun resting on his knees, eyes empty.
— "You want revenge?"
— "Who the hell are you?"
— "Someone who isn't them. Someone who listens."
She had offered him her hand. Not smiling like a friend.
She didn't need to smile.
She had that strange calm, that cold but comforting presence.
— "You think it was chance they took you? That's how they recruit. They tear you apart, then stitch you back their way. But you… you're not disposable. We're going to make them pay."
She had brought him into Spiral.
She forged identities, opened the right doors, erased his traces.
Nash, once again anonymous, had resumed his experiments.
Crafting counter-compounds. Identifying the weaknesses in the Caledron's chemical weapons.
And Lexie—always there. Protective, distant.
Sometimes she would sleep beside him, without saying much.
Now and then, she'd place a hand on his shoulder when he broke down.
— "It's not your fault, you know."
— "They took everything from me, Lexie."
— "Then we'll take back more than what they stole."
He had believed in her. More than in anyone else. Perhaps even more than in himself.
But what he had seen that night, beneath the base…
Lexie, naked, drugged. Her eyes vacant.
And Rowen—that son of a bitch—watching her like an entomologist admiring his finest specimen.
Nash clenched his jaw in the dark.
— "Did you betray me, Lexie ? Or were you being used… from the very beginning ?"
He started laughing. A hollow, sorrowful laugh.
— "That's the real poison, isn't it ? When the only hand that ever reached out to you… might've already been shackled."