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> **[System voice active… Simulation 20 initiated.]**
> *Subject: Daelen Mourak. Age: 29. Former war refugee. Trauma type: Extreme psychological dissociation due to long-term confinement and sensory manipulation.*
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**Drip.**
**Drip.**
**Drip.**
That was the first sound Trey heard.
Then came the cold.
Bone-deep. Skin-shrinking. As if he'd been buried in ice.
He opened his eyes.
And screamed.
A pale, lifeless face stared at him from inches away—lips split and blue, eyelids half open, floating beside him in a tank full of cloudy water. Bodies. Three. Four. A dozen.
He thrashed. Panic surged. His lungs burned.
A violent *click!* echoed, and suddenly he was *ripped* out of the tank by an automated claw—drenched, coughing, naked, thrown onto a freezing metal floor like discarded meat. The room was sterile, high-tech, humming with untraceable machinery. Bright lights flickered erratically.
**"Welcome back, Daelen."**
A voice. Monotone. Genderless. Disembodied.
He gasped, choking on water and dread. His arms were covered in numbers, fresh and scarred alike. A barcode ran along his forearm. His chest burned with a seared emblem. He looked around—
*Something moved.*
A twitching man in the corner—chained to the ceiling by *hooks through his shoulder blades*. He wasn't screaming. He couldn't. His mouth had been stapled shut.
The wall pulsed and glitched. A woman's voice whispered, "They made me forget my name…"
Then she collapsed, convulsing, as sparks flew from her eye socket.
The room darkened.
Then lit up again—this time *red*.
A high-pitched alarm wailed. A panel in the floor opened. Daelen was dragged downward by an invisible force, falling into the next chamber—
**He landed hard.**
It looked like a child's room.
Pink wallpaper. Toys. A dollhouse. But everything was… *off*. The air smelled like copper. A melody played—slow, warbled, broken: *"Ring around the rosie…"*
He looked down.
The dollhouse had real human fingers sticking out of it.
He backed away, trembling, until he hit something.
A mirror.
His reflection was… wrong.
His face was cracked, like porcelain. His eyes were hollow black voids.
And behind him, in the reflection—
A tall, eyeless figure with too many arms.
**SCREEEEEEEECH.**
He spun around. Nothing.
Then—*drip… drip…*
The walls began to bleed.
Hands clawed from the wallpaper, reaching for him, nails scratching, tearing at his flesh. He ran—sprinted through a collapsing hallway as lights burst above him like gunfire.
He slammed into a door—opened it—
And emerged in a blinding white corridor.
Voices behind him. Screams.
Then—
**"TREY!"**
A voice. Familiar. *Real.*
He turned. There was a crack in the wall.
Through it—a courtroom. A woman—his lawyer—was yelling. Slamming her hands on a table. Crying.
"HE'S JUST A KID!" she screamed. "THIS IS TORTURE! THIS IS—!"
**Gunshot.**
She dropped.
Trey screamed—but no sound came from his throat.
The crack closed. Darkness again.
**Footsteps.**
A man appeared.
Long coat. Black gloves. Face obscured by a white mask with no features.
He handed Trey a scalpel.
"Make it stop," he whispered.
Trey dropped it.
"No more."
The man pointed.
The wall opened to a window—showing the same tank. Full of bodies.
One of them twitched. Looked up.
*It was him.*
Floating. Rotting.
His eyes went wide. Blood trickled from his nose.
His skin started to crack.
**[SIMULATION CORRUPTED.]**
**[WARNING: SYSTEM BREACH. TREY O'MALLEY CONSCIOUSNESS DETECTION > 78%.]**
The world around him started glitching. Screaming. Flashing. Sirens everywhere.
**[FORCE RESET IN PROGRESS.]**
**[MEMORY DUMP: INITIATED.]**
A metal claw came down from the ceiling—fast—impaling his shoulder. He was dragged upward, violently. His screams echoed as the room turned inside-out.
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> **[System override complete. Subject returned to stable state.]**
> **Simulation 20: Terminated. Memory integration successful.**
> **Injecting next trauma in 3… 2… 1…**
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