The pain was unlike anything Lila had ever felt. It started as a slow burn beneath her skin, a heat that coiled through her veins like molten fire, before igniting into something else entirely. She gasped, staggering forward as the chamber walls blurred around her. The guide's hands were on her shoulders, steadying her as her body trembled with the force of an awakening she had no control over.
"Do not resist it," the woman murmured. "Let it consume you. Let it shape you."
Lila clenched her fists, teeth grinding against the agony. Her pulse was erratic, beating in tandem with a force beyond her understanding. A force that was waking, stretching, *claiming* her. The world pulsed in and out of focus, and for a terrifying moment, she felt like she was drowning in raw, untamed power.
A voice—not her own, but somehow familiar—whispered in her mind.
*You are no longer prey.*
