The first thing Elian noticed that morning was the water.

  The clinic had three small tanks in the back—part of an experiment he'd been running quietly for months. One was a control, pulled directly from the town line. The others were filtered through different methods he was tinkering with: one chemical, one mineral-based. None had ever produced what he was seeing now.

  He blinked. Stared. Took a closer look, his brow furrowing in disbelief.

  The control tank was blue. A vivid, crystalline blue that seemed to shimmer and dance in the early morning light. Clear, clean—like water was supposed to look in pictures, not in the dusty, arid confines of Avenridge. For a moment, he thought maybe the tank had glitched, some malfunction causing a strange optical illusion. He called over the Kade twins, who were helping him sort bandages in exchange for pastries from Moozy's bakery down the street.

  "Did either of you mess with the tanks?" Elian asked, his voice ced with a mix of curiosity and concern.

  "Nope," Vik replied, not looking up from the pile of gauze he was folding.

  Sol, however, leaned in closer, squinting at the tank. "Why would we do that? You'd scold us for contamination." He offered a small, sheepish grin.

  Which was true. Elian was meticulous about maintaining the integrity of his experiments, and the twins knew better than to tamper with his work.

  Still, the sight of that impossibly blue water nagged at him. He drained the tank, refilled it from the tap himself, and there it was again. Blue. Not just cleaner than his filters, cleaner than anything he'd seen on the moon since arriving years ago. A quick diagnostic scan confirmed what his eyes were telling him: the water was chemically safe, biologically perfect.

  He didn't walk to the sheriff's office—he ran, his boots pounding against the dusty street in a frantic rhythm.

  The Nezien brothers, those two cantankerous old souls, watched him go from their usual spot in front of The Rook tavern, clicking bottle caps between their gnarled fingers like the universe's own metronome. They exchanged a knowing gnce, a silent conversation passing between them, and said nothing.

  Inside the sheriff's office, Gavin was hunched over his desk, putting together a report on the test petty theft that had pgued the town. Dane, meanwhile, was cleaning a sidearm with the kind of quiet tension that usually meant his brain was chewing on something, working through a problem or puzzle that refused to be solved.

  Both men looked up when Elian burst through the door, his chest heaving from the sprint.

  "You need to come with me. Now," he said, his voice urgent but controlled.

  Dane raised a brow, his expression a mix of curiosity and wariness. "What happened?"

  "I'll expin on the way. Just now." Elian's tone left no room for argument.

  Curious and half-expecting some new disaster to have befallen their sleepy town, Dane and Gavin followed the doctor out into the street, their boots kicking up small clouds of dust in their wake.

  Elian led them into the clinic's back room, where the tanks stood in their usual spot against the far wall. He pointed at the control tank, still filled with that impossible blue water, and said nothing, allowing the sight to speak for itself.

  Dane leaned over, peering inside the tank with a furrowed brow. Gavin scratched his head, his cybernetic fingers making a soft whirring sound.

  "Wait," Dane said after a moment, his voice tinged with disbelief. "That's... from the town supply?"

  "I refilled it myself," Elian confirmed with a nod.

  Gavin squinted, as if trying to reconcile what he was seeing with his own memories. "Didn't we—wasn't it green, like... always?"

  "It was." Elian's voice was soft, almost reverent.

  Dane's expression hardened, his jaw clenching as a single name fell from his lips like a heavy stone. "Virelli."

  That name again. Cold. Distant. A specter from the past that still haunted the present.

  He exhaled slowly, then muttered under his breath, "Well... we better go see a terrorist about clean water."

  Elian shot him a sharp look, "This time of day, she's probably in her storm shelter."

  Behind them, the Kade twins, who'd trailed after the group, drawn by the commotion, exchanged a wide-eyed gnce.

  "Storm shelter?" one whispered, barely audible.

  The other's eyes lit up, a grin already forming. "Think we can see it?"

  None of the men heard them leave, their attention wholly consumed by the impossible sight before them and the implications it carried.

  It didn't take the boys too long to get to Mia's nd. They knew a shortcut, taking the old mining road that snaked through the western outskirts. The Kade twins tripped the arms, but Mia didn't wake. Asrell, still recovering, barely noticed either. Neither stirred, the illness having dulled their senses to the warning sounds that would normally have them both bolting upright.

  "Bet it's locked," one twin said, a mischievous glint in his eye.

  "Nah, look—the panel's exposed," the other replied, pointing to the half-hidden maintenance node.

  It was. Just slightly. A maintenance node, half-hidden under gravel and an old tarp, beckoned to them like a tempting secret.

  "Should we...?" The first twin hesitated, a flicker of doubt crossing his face.

  "I just wanna see her face when she needs someone to break her out," he said with a mischievous grin. The second twin gave an answering grin, his eyes alight with anticipation. Neither knew that the door was more lifeline than lock.

  A few presses, a flick of a pocket knife, and a quick smash with a rock, the panel sparked and the storm shelter's internal systems groaned. In the quiet of the desert, they could hear the shelter powering down with a finality that echoed through the stillness.

  Inside, Mia stirred, her body jolting awake as the familiar hum of the shelter's power abruptly ceased. She blinked once, slowly, confused by the sudden stillness. No air. No light. No hum of power. A sense of dread crept up her spine, icy tendrils of fear wrapping around her heart.

  She reached the door, her hands fumbling in the darkness. Nothing. It wouldn't open, no matter how hard she pushed or pulled. Trapped.

  Asrell was slow in her mind—thick, sluggish. "Mia... what is this?" The symbiote's voice was ced with concern, sensing Mia's rising panic.

  She turned toward the vent, desperate for a breath of fresh air. No breeze. Her hands started to shake, tremors of terror rippling through her body.

  "No. No no no no no—"

  Her voice rose, a crescendo of fear. So did the panic, cwing its way up her throat, constricting her lungs.

  Darkness. Laughter. Metal walls. The memory of the bcksite smmed into her all at once, a tidal wave of trauma crashing over her. She was back there, trapped, alone, helpless.

  But it wasn't the pit this time—it was worse.

  The silence. That terrible, suffocating silence. Not the quiet of sleep, or the stillness of breath, but the kind that made your body sound louder—the rush of blood in your ears, the drip of it down your spine. The sound of skin trying to clot. Of muscles spasming on jagged stone.

  They had thrown her there like garbage, thinking she was already gone. Her back had been raw, torn open from shes she took, believing it would buy her freedom. The promise of seeing her parents, but it was all a lie.

  The walls of that chamber had teeth. She couldn't lean, couldn't rest—only exist in the dark with her pain, hour after hour. And when the silence became too loud to bear, when her own heartbeat became the sound of a prison bell tolling, she did the only thing she could: She broke her own mind open.

  She begged for it to stop. She screamed with no one to hear. And when begging didn't work, she bashed her head against the wall until she stopped feeling anything at all.

  That was the moment the girl named Mia Virelli died.

  And now, trapped again—no air, no light—her hands shaking and blood dripping— She was right back there.

  "No—let me out—LET ME OUT!"

  She screamed, fists pounding against the sealed door with frantic desperation. Her knuckles split open, blood smearing the unyielding metal. Her voice cracked, raw and ragged, torn from the depths of her soul. Her heart thundered like it might rip through her chest, a wild animal desperate to escape its cage.

  Outside, the twins backed up, stunned by the visceral reaction they had unleashed.

  "Was that—?" one whispered, his face drained of color.

  "She's screaming. Oh stars, she's screaming," the other breathed, his eyes wide with horror.

  The first twin turned pale, reality crashing down upon them. "We didn't mean—go get help! Now!"

  Dane and Gavin were nearly to her nd when the Kade twins came running up to the truck, their faces flushed and eyes wide with panic.

  "It was a joke! We didn't mean—we didn't know she'd scream like that!" Vik gasped, clutching a stitch in his side.

  Dane grabbed him firmly by the shoulders, his expression thunderous. "What the hell did you do?"

  Sol spoke up, voice trembling. "She's stuck! We locked her in the shelter—on accident—we just wanted to mess with her a little!"

  Dane released Vik and took off at a sprint towards the sealed shelter door, Gavin right on his heels. The door was shut tight, unmoving, no matter how hard Dane smmed his weight against it. He tried the access panel, but it was completely fried, sparking feebly. Gavin swore under his breath, deftly yanking off the cover panel to expose the wiring underneath.

  "She's not responding," he muttered grimly. "No air flow. Dane—"

  "Back up!" Dane barked, already turning to run back towards his truck.

  He grabbed the high-powered pulse-crowbar from the truck bed and raced back, smming the charged edge into the seam of the door. Sparks flew in all directions as the metal groaned in protest. Dane pried relentlessly while Gavin shoved his cybernetic arm between the slowly widening gap, pulling with all his might.

  Finally, the doors opened just enough for a sliver of daylight to pierce the darkness within. Mia's limp form colpsed forward into the light, tumbling out onto the hard ground.

  Blood streaked her hands from where she had pounded against the unyielding metal. Her lips were pale, tinged with blue, and her face glistened with a sickly sheen of cold sweat. Her body barely moved with the faint rise and fall of shallow breaths.

  Without a moment's hesitation, Dane scooped her up into his arms. "Move!" he growled, already turning to rush back towards the town with Mia cradled against his chest.

  Gavin was right behind him, barking urgently into his radio. "Elian, incoming—code red! Patient unconscious, possible respiratory failure, traumatic exposure."

  "I'm ready," came the doctor's calm, assured response.

  They burst through the doors of the clinic a minute ter, the Kade twins trailing miserably behind, sobbing uncontrolbly.

  Elian met them with gloves already on, his face taut with focus as he swiftly assessed the situation. "On the table. Dane—what happened?"

  "Boys thought it'd be funny to lock her in the shelter," Dane ground out, his voice ced with barely restrained fury. "Shut off all the power."

  Elian's expression hardened into a mask of cold anger. "Out," he said ftly, jerking his head towards the waiting area.

  The twins didn't move, rooted to the spot as tears streamed down their faces.

  "Sit. Quietly," Elian repeated, his tone brooking no argument.

  For the first time, they obeyed without a word.

  Elian's hands moved with practiced efficiency, his brow furrowed in intense concentration. Dane hovered nearby, passing instruments and supplies as needed, his jaw clenched tightly. Gavin stood vigil, his cybernetic enhancements whirring faintly as he handed tools to the doctor. The small room was thick with tension, the air heavy with unspoken fears.

  Mia y motionless on the examination table, her breathing shallow and uneven, her pulse fading. Her body wasn't responding the way it should, her vitals slipping despite Elian's efforts. A sheen of sweat glistened on her brow, her face etched with pain.

  "Where's Asrell?" Elian muttered under his breath, his voice strained. "Why isn't he healing her?"

  Dane blinked, his brow furrowing in confusion. "Who?"

  "Elian," Gavin spoke up, his tone ced with concern. "Who's Asrell?"

  Elian didn't answer, his focus was solely on trying to determine why Asrell wasn't responding. Gently turning Mia onto her side, he took a pair of medical shears and cut off her sleep top. Without sparing a gnce at Dane and Gavin, he knew there was no helping keeping her modesty; he parted the clothing to expose her back, specifically the top of her spine, where he knew Asrell was nestled. There was just barely a faint glow from Asrell's bioluminescence, a stark contrast to the normally bright illumination.

  Behind him, a sharp intake of breath could be heard as both w enforcers id eyes on the state of her back. It was covered in scars, clearly from a whip, and they were deep. Dane's mind whirled because he had read her file. Her punishment was supposed to be 25 shes, just 25! And in those kinds of punishments, the wounds were meant to be healed right after. But the mapwork of scars on her back was the worst he had ever seen.

  Elian's gaze flickered towards them, his expression grave. "She has a symbiote. From the bcksite. It heals her by feeding on her emotions."

  Dane stared at the doctor, his eyes widening in realization, the pieces falling into pce. Gavin swore softly under his breath, his grip tightening on the instrument tray.

  In the doorway, one of the Nezien brothers appeared, silent as ever, his weathered face impassive. He stepped inside, holding a pulse baton in his gnarled hand. "Shock him," he said, his voice a low rasp. "Lowest setting."

  Elian didn't hesitate. With a deft movement, he pressed the baton against the base of Mia's spine and clicked the activation switch.

  Mia's body jolted, her back arching involuntarily. A second ter, she gasped, and a voice not hers echoed out, resonating with an otherworldly timbre: "What happened?!"

  The men recoiled, their faces etched with surprise and trepidation. Asrell was awake—and he was pissed.

  Elian kept working, his movements steady despite the tension. "You've been offline."

  "I was poisoned," Asrell said through Mia's lips, his words ced with strain. "Toxin. Transferred. I... didn't know."

  "Shock trauma," Elian muttered, his eyes narrowing. "Sensory deprivation. PTSD trigger."

  Asrell growled, the sound rumbling deep in Mia's chest. "Who did this?"

  Elian's gaze flicked towards the twins, who stood huddled in the corner, their faces streaked with tears. "Two young citizens. It was a mistake, a bad one. They thought it was a prank."

  Asrell cursed in Vassrellian, the alien words sharp and guttural. Dane didn't need a transtor to know it was serious, the weight of the symbiote's fury palpable.

  "Dane," Elian said, his voice sharp and commanding. "Out. Take them. Now."

  Dane obeyed without hesitation, grabbing the boys firmly by their arms and ushering them out of the clinic. Gavin followed, his footsteps heavy, locking the twins in the cell at the station. The boys were broken open, afraid not just of punishment, but of the gravity of what they'd done, the consequences they had set in motion.

  Back in the clinic, Elian ran the full-body scan, his expression grim. And as the results flickered across the screen, he saw everything – the truth id bare, the depth of Mia's ordeal unveiled.