The headache starts during History of Strategic Warfare, a sharp spike behind my eyes that makes the classroom blur at the edges. Professor Zane drones on about ancient battle formations, but his voice sounds distant, like he's speaking through water.
I blink, trying to clear my vision, and for a split second the classroom flickers.
Where wooden desks should be, I glimpse metal tables. Where students sit taking notes, I see bodies lying motionless, connected to tubes and wires that snake toward monitoring equipment. The warm lighting shifts to harsh fluorescent glare, and the comforting hum of conversation becomes the steady beep of life support systems.
Then everything snaps back to normal.
My heart hammers against my ribs. I grip the edge of my desk, knuckles white, waiting for another glimpse behind the curtain. The bracelet around my wrist feels hot against my skin.
"Ezren?" Professor Zane has stopped lecturing. His gray eyes fix on me with predatory focus. "You seem distressed. Perhaps you should visit the medical bay."
"I'm fine," I manage, but my voice cracks on the words.
Zane moves closer, his footsteps eerily silent on the classroom floor. "You experienced a minor seizure, Ezren. Nothing to worry about. These things happen during periods of... adjustment."
The way he says "adjustment" makes my skin crawl. "I saw the truth," I whisper, loud enough for only him to hear. "We're prisoners here, aren't we?"
Something shifts in Zane's expression—a mask slipping just enough to reveal calculation beneath concern. He glances at the other students, then pulls out the same small device I saw him use after combat training.
"Subject 47 shows premature awakening," he murmurs into the device. "Initiate containment."
The words hit me like ice water. Subject 47. The bracelet. The overheard conversations. It all clicks into place with terrifying clarity.
Time slows as Zane reaches toward me, probably to guide me toward that medical bay where they can fix whatever's gone wrong with their perfect simulation. But my body moves before my mind catches up, enhanced reflexes kicking in with startling precision.
I'm out of my chair and backing toward the door before Zane can touch me. The other students continue taking notes as if nothing's happening, their movements mechanical, synchronized.
"Ezren," Zane says calmly, "you're experiencing confusion due to neural fluctuations. Let me help you."
"Stay away from me." My voice carries an edge I've never heard before. The door handle turns under my hand, and I'm through it before Zane can react.
The corridor stretches before me, but I don't trust it anymore. Nothing here is real. Nothing here is safe.
I find Kira in the library, or what passes for one in this constructed reality. She's alone at a corner table, surrounded by books that probably contain nothing but blank pages designed to look academic from a distance.
"We need to talk," I whisper, sliding into the chair across from her.
She looks up, and for the first time since I've known her, I see raw fear in her green eyes. Not the careful wariness she's shown before, but genuine terror.
"Not here," she breathes, gathering her things. "Follow me. Don't look back."
We move through corridors I'm no longer sure exist, past windows that show views of a campus that might be nothing more than projected images. Kira leads me to a maintenance area I've never seen before, behind a door marked with warnings about authorized personnel.
"How long have you known?" I ask as soon as we're alone.
"Known what?" But her voice lacks conviction.
"That we're trapped. That none of this is real. That students who ask too many questions disappear."
Her composure crumbles. She slumps against the wall, shoulders shaking. "Students who ask questions disappear, Ezren. Vanish overnight. Their rooms get reassigned. Their friends forget they ever existed."
"How long have you known we're trapped?"
"Since the beginning. Or at least, I've suspected." She wraps her arms around herself. "Everyone's memories get altered. But some of us remember fragments. Pieces that don't fit the story they're telling us."
The maintenance room feels smaller suddenly, the walls closing in. "What story? What's really happening to us?"
"I don't know everything," she admits. "But I know we're not students. We're test subjects. And whatever they're testing, it's changing us."
I think of my impossible reflexes, my superhuman reaction times, the way combat techniques download into my muscle memory like software installations.
"There are others," Kira continues. "Other students who remember pieces. Who've noticed the glitches. We've been trying to figure out how to fight back without getting... erased."
"Devon," I say suddenly. "He's been documenting anomalies."
She nods. "Among others. But we have to be careful. They're always watching."
As if summoned by our conversation, Devon appears in the doorway. He moves with the nervous energy of someone constantly looking over his shoulder, but his eyes are sharp with purpose.
"I've been monitoring communications," he says without preamble, pulling out a tablet I've never seen before. "They know you've started awakening, Ezren. Zane filed a report an hour ago."
The small space suddenly feels crowded, but not claustrophobic. For the first time since discovering the bracelet, I don't feel alone.
"How long have you been documenting glitches?" I ask.
"Months," Devon says, fingers dancing across his tablet's interface. "I've been hiding data on servers they don't know about, tracking patterns in the simulation. The system has flaws, and I've been mapping them."
"What are they training us for?" The question burns in my throat. "What's the real purpose?"
Kira and Devon exchange a look that carries weight.
"We're not just prisoners," Kira says quietly. "We're being enhanced for something specific. Military applications, we think. Our bodies are being modified while our minds are trapped here."
"Modified how?"
"Enhanced reflexes, improved processing speed, tactical thinking capabilities," Devon lists off. "But here's the thing—our physical bodies are deteriorating while our minds are locked in the simulation. If we don't get out soon, there might not be anything left to save."
The room tilts around me. We're not just fighting for freedom—we're fighting for our lives.
"What do we do?" I hear myself ask.
"We resist," Kira says simply. "We find others who remember. We gather information. We plan."
Devon's tablet suddenly erupts with alerts, screens cascading with data streams that make his face go pale.
"What is it?" I lean closer, trying to read the technical readouts.
"Something massive is happening to the system right now," he whispers, his voice tight with urgency. "All subjects are showing synchronized neural activity spikes. Look at this—" He turns the tablet so we can see the graphs, dozens of them showing identical patterns across different Subject numbers.
My stomach drops. "How many subjects are there?"
"At least fifty that I can track. Maybe more." His fingers fly across the interface, pulling up more data. "But that's not the worst part. Whatever they've been preparing us for—it's starting tonight."
"What do you mean starting?"
Devon's face looks gray in the tablet's glow. "I'm detecting massive system changes. Something called 'Phase Two Integration Protocol' is being activated. We have maybe six hours before they implement whatever comes next."
"Phase Two," Kira breathes. "That sounds like escalation."
"It is escalation," Devon confirms, showing us streams of code he's intercepted. "Based on these parameters, they're planning to sync all our neural patterns. Merge our enhanced capabilities into some kind of collective system."
The maintenance room falls silent except for the hum of Devon's hidden technology and the sound of our breathing.
"Six hours," I repeat.
"Six hours," he confirms. "After that, we might not be ourselves anymore. We might not be anything at all."
I look at my two companions—the strategic mind, the technical specialist, and me with reflexes that shouldn't exist. Three people who've remembered enough truth to fight back.
"Then we'd better get started," I say.
The bracelet around my wrist pulses with warmth, as if it knows time is running out.