The tarp peeled back like skin, folding into itself with a slow hiss, and in that instant, Cael knew everything was about to change.
The air surged into the tunnel, sharp and metallic, smelling of ozone and old blood. It wasn't just cold—it was clinical. Sterile. Stripped of anything human. It slid over his skin like the breath of a predator, and for a heartbeat too long, Cael forgot how to move.
Two figures stood at the mouth of the tunnel. They moved in unison, tall and shrouded in matte-black armor that devoured light. Their helmets gleamed with reflective silver visors—blank, faceless, inhuman. They looked like statues brought to life, forged not by hands but by some machine god who had forgotten what a soul looked like.
Collectors.
Not rumor. Not myth. Not nightmares exaggerated by desperate people.
Real. Here. Now.
Cael's body moved before his thoughts could catch up. Muscle and memory did what logic couldn't—he lunged forward, raw instinct overriding everything else.
The tarp ripped from its moorings. His fingers found the rusted pipe beside him, and he swung it in a wide, desperate arc.
It connected.
The sound was wrong. Not a crack or a crunch—just a sharp, hollow clang, like hitting a wall that didn't care about being struck. The nearest Collector staggered half a step and then turned. Not in pain. Not in anger. Just... acknowledgment.
The elbow came fast. Too fast.
It drove into his ribs with mechanical efficiency. The pain bloomed across his chest like a burst of flame. The air rushed from his lungs.
But Cael didn't stop.
He twisted free, fingers scrabbling across the ground until they found something jagged and heavy—a shard of broken concrete. He flung it without aim or precision toward the second figure.
Behind him, Lia screamed.
That single sound cracked something inside him. Not the pain. Not the fear. Her voice—frantic and fragile—was more violent than any blow.
He tried to turn. To reach her.
But the second Collector moved.
A flash of light—white, brilliant, angry—ripped through the space between them. The baton hit him square in the side.
Pain wasn't the right word.
This wasn't pain.
This was annihilation.
Every nerve in his body screamed. Electricity surged through him like liquid lightning. He didn't fall so much as fold. His legs gave way. His vision dimmed. The floor met his face with a brutal finality.
Still, he moved.
Dragged himself.
Crawled.
Fingers scraped against concrete. Muscles spasmed. His mouth filled with blood.
"Run—" he rasped.
A boot pinned his wrist.
The pressure was unbearable. Bone shifted. Something cracked. He didn't even have the strength to cry out.
Then the baton returned. He saw it—barely—a flicker of light near his temple.
And then there was nothing.
He surfaced in pulses—flickers of sound, fragments of thought, like radio static.
White light. Movement. Cold straps biting into his limbs.
He was moving. Carried or floated—he couldn't tell. His body felt far away, like it belonged to someone else.
The ceiling above him was white, seamless, unbroken. The air smelled like disinfectant and electricity. He heard whispers, mechanical and human, bleeding together like fog.
Other beds were moved beside his.
He wasn't alone.
A boy with blood caked in his hair stared blankly at the ceiling. A girl was thrashing until a needle found her neck, and then she went still.
Cael wanted to scream. Wanted to tear the straps off, to find Lia, to tear the world apart if he had to. But his voice was gone. His arms—unmoving. His thoughts—slipping.
Lia.
Where is she?
Where is she?
No one answered.
The room they dumped him in didn't belong to the world.
It was blank. Too blank. Like someone had erased reality with a rubber-tipped hand and redrawn only the minimum necessary.
White walls. White floor. No corners. No door. Just light.
He lay on a metal bed. Narrow. Cold.
His body ached with a deep, humming pain. Not sharp. Just persistent. Like a warning.
When he sat up, the sheet fell away. His old clothes were gone.
In their place: a uniform.
Black. Silver-trimmed. Woven like it was designed for war.
His hands shook as he examined the fabric. It clung to him too tightly, like it wanted to mold him into something he wasn't. The material shimmered faintly with embedded tech—threads that pulsed with data, heat-reactive patterns mapping his vitals.
And then—he felt it.
The burn.
He staggered to the mirror.
It was seamless with the wall, but reflective enough.
He turned.
At the base of his neck, just beneath the hairline, a symbol glowed like a brand fresh from the forge:
♙
A pawn.
The mark pulsed. Once. Twice.
It didn't sting. It throbbed. A steady beat, unnatural and wrong.
He backed away. His own reflection followed—wide-eyed, pale, trembling. The mark didn't go away.
It was a part of him now.
"Candidate 874A," said the voice. Calm. Male. Human—but manufactured. "Classification complete. Alignment: BLACK. Role: PAWN."
He turned toward the sound, but there was no speaker.
"Where is my sister?!" he shouted. "Where is she? What did you do to her?!"
"Preparation protocols initiating. Please remain still."
"No! I want answers! Where is—"
A panel slid open in the wall.
From it, a thin mechanical arm extended, holding a syringe filled with cloudy fluid. Cael didn't have time to fight.
The needle sank into his neck.
He gasped—more in surprise than pain—but already, his limbs felt strange. Not numb. Not heavy. Just... drifting.
The voice returned. "Detoxification and decontamination procedures commencing."
The world tilted sideways. He stumbled backward, the light flaring in his eyes.
Within seconds, he couldn't move. Could barely think. His muscles dissolved into water. His knees gave out, and he collapsed back onto the bed.
A warm sensation spread through his spine, up into the base of his skull.
He was floating.
He was sinking.
He was—
Gone.
The next thing he knew, hands were on him. Not rough. Not kind. Just efficient. Cold water blasted his skin. Brushes scrubbed his body, harsh and unrelenting. Something stung—disinfectant, he realized, forced into every cut, every scrape. He wanted to scream, but his jaw wouldn't obey.
Gloved fingers ran through his hair, clipping it short. A blade scraped his skin clean. Every part of him, stripped.
Stripped of dirt.
Stripped of identity.
Stripped of choice.
He was a canvas now. A shell is being shaped.
They bathed him in light that smelled of chemicals and ozone. His eyes burned. His mouth tasted like ash. Somewhere between consciousness and stupor, he heard another scream—high and thin—and then a splash.
More bodies were being cleaned.
More recruits. Or victims.
When they were done, he lay naked under a white heat lamp. The air around him buzzed like a living thing. Drones clicked past overhead, scanning him in bursts of red light. His pulse, his breath, his temperature—measured. Noted. Compared.
He was data now.
Eventually, someone dressed him again.
Same uniform. Same color. Same shimmer.
And when they were finished, they left.
No words.
No faces.
Just the silence of something ancient pretending to be new.
A hiss. Another door.
He stood alone—bare, reborn, and not by choice.
The only thing that remained of who he used to be was the name beating inside his chest like a secret.
Cael.
Cael.
Cael.
A shadow moved.
He turned, swaying.
A girl stood on the threshold. Tall. Poised. Dark braid falling like a whip over one shoulder. Her expression was unreadable. Eyes cool. Assessing.
She wore the same uniform, but her shoulders carried it differently. With command. With expectation. A crest across her chest caught the light—a stylized helm.
Knight-class.
"You're awake," she said. Her voice was smooth but held no warmth. "Good. You didn't die."
Cael coughed. Tried to sit up. Everything hurt.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Elara," she said. "Knight-class. Black team."
He stared. The name meant nothing.
"What is this? Where are we?"
She tilted her head. "You really don't know?"
"No! I don't even know how I got here!"
"You were chosen," she said. "Like the rest of us."
"Chosen for what?"
She pointed.
To his neck.
To the mark.
"For the board."