He woke to darkness. Absolute. Unbroken. Except for the neon lines.

  They pulsed from his body, stretching into the void, glowing in colors both familiar and strange—brighter than anything found in nature, yet impossible to name. They had been there since he arrived. However long ago that was.

  Days? Weeks? He couldn’t tell.

  All he knew was that each time he woke, he felt weaker.

  Figures moved through the blackness—shadows wrapped in robes, silent and deliberate. They never spoke. Never acknowledged him. Only checked the lines, adjusting something just beyond his vision.

  He had tried to speak. To ask. To beg. To scream. But each time, only a hoarse, broken sound escaped his lips.

  Was he alone? Or did the echoes belong to others, just as lost?

  His mind wavered between awareness and exhaustion, the weight of his body pressing him into stillness. His thoughts drifted like mist, grasping at memories that refused to take shape.

  How did I get here?

  What is happening to me?

  No answer came. Only the hum of the neon lines. The steady pull of something draining him. A quiet, unshakable certainty settled in his chest.

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  This wasn’t over.

  I have to get out.

  Somewhere amid the endless hours, something changes.

  Sound.

  A struggle—muffled grunts, scuffling feet—then silence.

  Two robed figures emerge from the darkness, dragging a limp body between them.

  The robed figures drop her without ceremony. A dull thud. A sharp exhale.

  She’s older, smartly dressed in a dark blue robe lined with gold, though it hangs looser now, rumpled from an unseen struggle. Her neatly coiled gray bun has come undone in places, stray wisps escaping as if trying to resist confinement.

  Her limbs barely twitch. But her fingers—they move. Tighten. Clutching something small and silver. A thin chain, its charm hidden in her fist.

  She does not open her eyes. But even in unconsciousness, she refuses to let go.

  He sees them only briefly before the figures pick her up and vanish into the shadows on the opposite side of the room.

  A commotion follows. Sharp, frantic movements. Then stillness.

  And then—the lines.

  New ones. Slow at first, faint threads of neon weaving into the void. But they spread, brighten, pulse. Soon, they glow even stronger than the ones tethered to him. The figures in robes step away, leaving their burden behind without a second glance.

  He forces himself to stay alert, **watching, waiting—**but exhaustion wins. He drifts.

  When he wakes—how much later? Minutes? Hours? Time is meaningless in this neon hell.

  Then—a voice. Female. Older than his, stronger than he feels.

  “Hello? Is anyone there? Where am I?”

  He tries to answer, but his voice—unused for what feels like centuries—refuses to obey. Or maybe, unlike the rest of him, it has already escaped.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, he takes comfort in that. At least some part of him is free.