Chapter 8

A slow, rhythmic creaking filled the air, each groan of metal reverberating through Liam's skull like the echo of some distant, unseen beast. His head throbbed—a dull, relentless pounding just behind his eyes. His body felt leaden, his limbs sluggish, as if he were trapped beneath deep water, the weight of the unseen pressing down on him.

He tried to move.

Nothing.

A sluggish breath wheezed from his throat, ragged and shallow. His chest rose and fell in uneven bursts. The air was thick—stale, damp, laced with something metallic. The smell clung to the back of his throat, sharp and bitter.

His fingers twitched. A sharp, cold pressure met his skin.

Metal.

A sudden clang shattered the silence.

Liam flinched. Metal against metal. A jarring rattle, followed by a deep, mechanical groan. The sound sent a fresh wave of panic slicing through his veins. His eyes fluttered open, the world around him swimming in a haze of darkness and flickering light.

At first, all he saw were bars.

Thick, rusted metal bars ran vertically in front of him, their edges uneven and corroded. Beyond them, shadows stretched long, shifting with the unsteady flicker of dim industrial lights mounted high above. The ceiling was an intricate web of steel beams and thick cables, tangled like the ribs of some decaying beast.

Beyond the bars, more cages.

A grid. Five rows, five columns, people, trapped just like him.

Some bodies remained slumped against the rusted metal, limbs limp, heads lolled to the side as if lost in an unnatural sleep. Others were awake—silent, tense, watching. Their faces, obscured by shadow and distance, flickered in and out of clarity beneath the pulsing glow of overhead lights.

The ground beneath them was solid. Concrete. Cold beneath his fingertips. The space stretched around them like an industrial tomb—exposed pipes, tangled wiring, grated platforms looming overhead. The walls, if they even existed, were lost in darkness. Everything felt designed to contain.

Some bodies remained slumped against the rusted metal, limbs limp, heads lolled to the side as if lost in an unnatural sleep. Others were awake—silent, tense, watching. Their faces, obscured by shadow and distance, flickered in and out of clarity beneath the pulsing glow of overhead lights.

A low groan.

Liam snapped his head toward the sound—someone shifting a few cages down, their movements sluggish, restrained.

His throat felt like sandpaper, dry and raw. He swallowed against the tightness, licked his cracked lips, and forced out the first words that came to his mind.

"Hey."

His voice barely carried. It cracked, hoarse and unfamiliar. He swallowed again, tried louder.

"Hey! Where—where am I? What is this?"

A sharp movement caught his eye.

A cage directly across from his. Someone stirred.

The boy sat up slowly, his movements deliberate and careful, as if the very act of shifting had become a conscious decision. His hand reached up to rub at his temple, as though trying to soothe some unseen ache that lingered in his head. The motion was slow, almost mechanical as if the effort of the movement itself took more energy than it should have. His posture was one of quiet tension, the muscles in his lean frame taut, as if every inch of him was bracing for something.

He was a bit older than Liam—maybe a year or two—but there was something in his eyes that made him seem older still, as if life had already carved its marks into him. His dark, wavy hair fell in uneven strands over his forehead, a little unruly, but not enough to obscure the sharpness of his face. His features were angular—high cheekbones, a strong jawline—carved with a kind of quiet intensity that spoke volumes without needing to say a word. There was something predatory in the way he held himself, as if every movement, every glance, was calculated for a purpose.

His eyes were the most unsettling part of him. Cold. Sharp. Alert. They weren't just looking at Liam; they were dissecting him, reading him, weighing him in some unseen scale. They flicked toward Liam's face and then—like a flash of light—met his with an almost imperceptible flicker of something. Something that might have been recognition, or perhaps something darker. It was impossible to tell. 

He didn't answer right away. Just studied him.

Then, finally, the boy let out a slow, humorless breath.

"Yeah," he muttered, voice low. "We all wanna know that."

Liam's stomach twisted.

He turned his head, scanning the space more carefully. The cages stretched far beyond what he could see, disappearing into the thick shadows at the edge of the dimly lit chamber. The walls—if they even existed—were lost in darkness. Everything about the place felt… industrial. The exposed pipes, the tangled wiring, the grated platforms suspended above unseen depths. It looked like a factory.

Or maybe something worse.

A deep, mechanical hum rumbled beneath them, vibrating through the bars of his cage, through the steel beams above, through his bones. Somewhere in the distance, something whirred to life—a machine, powerful, unseen.

Liam's hands clenched around the bars.

"How long—" His voice wavered. He forced it steady. "How long have you been here?"

The boy across from him gave a breath of laughter—dry, bitter, devoid of amusement.

"No clue." His gaze flickered toward the others. "Some of them were here before me."

Liam's heart pounded in his throat.

This wasn't a prank.

This wasn't a bad dream.

This was real.

A shiver crawled up his spine. The cold pressed in around him, sinking into his skin, wrapping around his ribs. He had to force himself to ask,

"Who brought us here?"

The boy leaned back against the bars of his cage, exhaling through his nose.

"That's the real question, isn't it?"

From further down the row, a girl's voice cut through the silence.

"They'll come soon."

Liam's head snapped toward her.

She sat motionless against the back of her cage, her body curled inward as if trying to make herself smaller, to disappear into the cold metal. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her knees, fingers clutching the fabric of her clothes in a way that suggested both a desperate need for comfort and an inability to relax. Her posture was rigid, as though the very act of sitting was a struggle, her body bracing against the unyielding surface of the cage behind her.

Her eyes were the most striking feature. Dark, almost black, they seemed too large for her face, the pupils wide in the dim light, swallowing the whites. They were hollow—like deep wells of exhaustion and sorrow. Tired, yes, but it was a weariness far beyond physical fatigue. There was something about her gaze that spoke of countless days spent in silence, in waiting, in fear.

She didn't blink. Not once.

Her stare never wavered from Liam. Unbroken, unwavering. She wasn't looking at him as a person, but as something more. Something observational. Almost as if she were measuring him, sizing him up, trying to decide whether he was another piece of the puzzle she had been piecing together for who knows how long.

Her face, though pale, was sharp—angles and shadows cutting across her features. The thin strands of her hair, dark as her eyes, hung loose around her face, tangled and matted in places, as though it hadn't seen a brush in days, maybe weeks. Her lips, thin and uncolored, were pressed together in a tight line, betraying no emotion except a grim acceptance of the situation she was trapped in.

Liam swallowed hard. His pulse throbbed in his ears.

"Who?"

She didn't answer.

She just stared.

And then—

A sound.

Loud. Mechanical.

A deep, jarring clank.

A door slammed open.

Heavy footsteps.

Liam's blood turned to ice.