Memories And Ghosts

The water was a cold, suffocating coffin.

Ning Que's body seized, a marionette thrashed by an unseen hand. His limbs flailed against the high-pressure fluid of the Submersion Chamber, a desperate, silent ballet of agony. 

Bubbles erupted from the corners of his breather mask, each one a stolen gasp. His eyes, wide with panic, saw nothing but the distorted reflections of the lab beyond the curved glass and the flickering hellscape of his own system interface.

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Incomprehensible symbols burned across his vision, bleeding into corrupted status windows that pulsed like dying hearts. He was drowning in data, a torrent of someone else's life flooding the fragile architecture of his own.