Location: Mirage Detention Facility – Cell 13
Time: Unknown
Arya's eyes fluttered open to white light.
Too bright.
Too silent.
Too clean.
Her wrists were chained above her. Feet off the ground. Her back ached. Her pulse was slow, uneven. Her skin prickled.
> What… what did they inject?
The door creaked. A man entered, blurry at first.
Agent Viren's cold voice floated through the haze.
"Round two. You lasted longer than I expected. Let's fix that."
A sharp stab to her arm.
Everything started spinning.
---
FLASH —
She was twelve again. Sitting with Vashti under a rusting jungle gym behind Rainbow International.
Vashti was scribbling something furiously in her notebook. Arya peeked.
> "Vashti Dhiman ♥ Shabd Heer"
And under that, "Future Neurosurgeon. No plan B."
Arya smirked in the memory. "You're such a simp."
Little Vashti growled, "Shut up or I'll use my pen like a scalpel on your face."
Arya laughed. "You're insane."
And Vashti, with her usual fire, had replied—
> "Good. Because only insane people change the world."
---
FLASH —
Another memory.
Dark hallway. Vashti standing between Arya and two guards.
Bleeding, shaking—but smiling like war.
"You don't touch her," Vashti had said.
"I break hands. Especially ones that try to hurt the people I love."
Arya had cried that day.
Not from pain.
But because someone finally protected her.
---
Back to the Present
Arya jerked in her chains. She was sobbing now.
Not because of the torture.
Not the serum.
But because she remembered why she defected.
Because of a 5-foot-tall firestorm who once told her,
> "You're not built to be someone's weapon, Arya. You're built to rewrite the damn manual."
The door opened again. Another dose. Another attempt to erase her.
But now Arya smiled.
They couldn't erase what burned brighter than their chemicals.
They couldn't erase Vashti.
---
Meanwhile – Abandoned Safehouse
Vashti jolted awake from a nightmare. Her chest rising rapidly. Sweat slicked her forehead.
"Shabd…" she whispered, "She's breaking. They're trying to erase her."
Shabd turned to her, dead serious.
"Then let's go get her back—before they turn her into something she'll never forgive herself for."
---