The walls of her world were white.

Too white.

They possessed a disquieting vibrancy, an almost palpable hum that resonated through her fingertips whenever she dared to touch them. It was a cold, insistent vibration, a thrumming with unseen, unknowable power that permeated the very fabric of her confinement. She had long since learned to avoid contact, the sensation leaving a residue of unease that lingered long after her hand was withdrawn.

The room itself was a study in stark minimalism, a suffocatingly small cube offering no reprieve from the oppressive whiteness. There were no windows to offer a glimpse of the world beyond, no doors that remained open long enough to invite curiosity or escape. Her only constant companion was a glowing panel embedded in the ceiling, its light as relentless and buzzing as the walls, a sterile illumination that banished even the faintest tendrils of shadow before they could coalesce. Eira missed shadows. She remembered the comforting dance they performed on the wall of her mother’s hut, the playful shapes she could conjure with the simple movements of her fingers. That was a memory from a life that felt impossibly distant now, a warmth extinguished by the cold reality of her present.

That was before the men in black came. Before their silent, swift intrusion into her world, their masked faces and gloved hands stealing her away from the familiar scent of woodsmoke and her mother’s gentle humming.

Before the silence descended, a heavy shroud that had suffocated her voice and clung to her like a second skin.

She sat cross-legged in the center of the unforgiving space, her small arms wrapped tightly around her drawn-up knees, her forehead pressed down against them in a posture of weary resignation. Tears no longer came. The wellspring had run dry in the initial days of her captivity, her throat raw and aching from the endless, desperate cries that had echoed unanswered within these very walls. Now, only a hollow ache remained, a vast emptiness where her fear and longing used to reside. Her voice, once a bright melody, now lay dormant, locked deep within her chest, a frightened bird unwilling to sing in this sterile cage.

A subtle shift rippled through the floor beneath her, a soft, almost imperceptible vibration that telegraphed an unwelcome arrival. It was a familiar tremor, a herald of intrusion that always tightened the knot of dread in her stomach.

She lifted her head just a fraction, a movement so minimal it wouldn’t invite the sharp reprimand she had learned to anticipate.

The door hissed open with a sigh of compressed air, and the guards entered.

Three of them this time.

An anomaly. A deviation from the established routine that sent a fresh wave of anxiety washing over her.

Usually, there were only two. Two silent figures in white, their presence a constant, looming threat.

They wore the same stark white as the walls, their forms blending into the oppressive environment, but their masks were a stark contrast – black, featureless coverings that transformed them into something predatory, like silent, watchful wolves. One of them held a long, glinting needle, its sharp point catching the sterile light. Another carried a heavy steel collar in his gloved hands, its cold, unyielding circle a tangible symbol of her captivity. The third… she deliberately kept her gaze averted from the third. His voice was the sharpest blade of them all, always laced with impatience and a simmering anger directed solely at her.

“Target is compliant,” the one with the needle stated, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. “Vitals steady.”

She hated that word. Target. It stripped her of her name, of her very being, reducing her to an object, a thing to be observed and manipulated.

The man with the collar took a deliberate step forward, the metal clinking softly in the silence. “Hold her still. Doctor wants it on today.”

“She won’t move,” the needle-man replied, his eyes flicking over her still form. “She hasn’t moved since yesterday.”

“I don’t care,” the third man snapped, his voice like the grating of cracked glass. “Get the damn collar on her before she kills someone again.”

Again.

The word hung in the air, a heavy accusation that always found its mark. Eira’s small hands clenched tighter around her knees, the pressure a futile attempt to contain the tremor that ran through her. Her heartbeat hammered against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat echoing loudly in the confines of her own ears. She hadn’t meant to. The memory flashed, unbidden and unwelcome, a searing brand on her mind. She had been so scared, so desperate for her mother, her screams ripping from her throat, raw and ragged. They were hurting her, their cold hands and sharp instruments invading her small body.

And then something inside her had fractured. Not like a bone, a clean break that could heal, but deeper, a rending of something fundamental. A warmth had bloomed within her, a terrifying, glowing power that surged outward. The air around her had shimmered and buckled. The thick, reinforced windows of the room where they first held her had spider-webbed and cracked. And the men… the men had simply fallen.

Their bodies had lain still and broken on the cold floor.

Their blood had been a shocking, visceral red against the sterile white.

She hadn’t uttered a single word since that day. The horror of what she had done had choked her voice, leaving her trapped in a silent prison of guilt and fear.

Now they were here again, their intentions clear. They wanted to place something else on her, something cold and heavy that would encircle her neck. Her chest tightened, a suffocating band of anxiety constricting her breath.

“Don’t,” she whispered, the sound barely a breath, a fragile plea that seemed to dissolve in the oppressive silence of the room.

The men froze, their movements arrested by the unexpected sound.

The one with the needle looked at her, a flicker of surprise in his eyes visible above the edge of his mask. “Did she just—?”

“She hasn’t spoken in weeks,” the collar-holder said, his surprise quickly replaced by a grim determination as he continued his approach.

Eira scooted back, a small, desperate movement across the smooth floor. Just a little. She didn’t want to scream again. The memory of the still bodies and the spreading stain of red was a constant, terrifying specter. She didn’t want anyone else to die because of her.

“Stay still, Subject Seven,” the glass-voice man ordered, his tone sharp and unforgiving.

Subject Seven.

Not Eira.

Never Eira. That name belonged to a time before the white walls, before the silence, before the terror.

Her eyes welled up, the familiar sting of unshed tears. But she blinked them back fiercely. Crying brought punishment. The sharp, agonizing bite of the shock cuffs, the suffocating darkness of the punishment room – she couldn’t bear it again.

The man reached down, his gloved hand closing around her thin arm.

She flinched, a small, involuntary jerk that spoke volumes of her fear.

“Hold. Her. Still.” The command was laced with impatience, the cracked-glass voice rising in pitch.

His grip tightened on her wrist, the pressure sending a jolt of panic through her.

Eira screamed.

It wasn’t a sound born of vocal cords and breath. It was a shatter. A high, shrieking, agonizing noise that seemed to tear the very air apart, a sound so unnatural it bordered on the inhuman. The air in the small room cracked and vibrated violently. The walls trembled, the humming intensifying to a deafening roar. The glowing panel on the ceiling exploded in a shower of white-hot sparks and falling debris.

The guards didn’t even have time to register surprise, let alone scream back.

They simply fell.

One slammed against the wall with a sickening thud, his body slumping to the floor, the black mask askew, revealing a smear of blood blooming on the white tiles beneath his head. Another dropped in place, his limbs twitching erratically, the steel collar clattering uselessly beside his outstretched hand. The third – the one with the glass voice – was thrown backward with brutal force, his body hitting the closed door with a sickening crack before sliding down in a silent, broken heap.

An unnatural silence descended upon the room, a stark contrast to the violent eruption that had just occurred. It wasn’t a peaceful quiet, but a hollow, eerie void pregnant with the aftermath of destruction.

Eira remained curled up in the center of the room, her small hands clutching her throat as if to contain the terrible power that had just escaped, her body trembling violently with the residual force of what she had done. Again.

Her breath hitched in her chest, a ragged, painful sound.

Her ears rang with a high-pitched whine.

A thin trickle of blood dripped from her nose, staining her pale skin.

The door creaked open, the mechanism reacting automatically to the sudden disruption of power.

Outside, the sounds of frantic movement grew louder. More guards were running, their heavy boots pounding on the sterile floor. Sirens began to wail, their red lights flashing erratically against the stark white of the corridor walls.

“Initiate lockdown on Containment Room 3B!” a distorted voice barked through a distant intercom.

“Subject Seven is active!” another voice yelled, laced with panic.

“Do not engage without sound barriers!” a third voice warned urgently.

Eira sat frozen, a small, trembling figure amidst the carnage.

More footsteps approached, closer now.

More shouting, urgent and panicked.

A woman in a sleek black coat with silver trim stepped into the ravaged room. Her polished boots clicked sharply against the blood-splattered tiles. Her dark hair was pulled back in a severe style, and her eyes, sharp and assessing, were hidden behind the cool detachment of red-tinted glasses.

Dr. Lyselle.

Head of Research.

The one who issued the cold, clinical orders regarding Eira’s tests. The one who had once stated, with chilling certainty, “This subject is the key to sonic warfare evolution.”

She knelt beside one of the fallen guards, her movements precise and unhurried, and checked his pulse with detached professionalism. Then, she stood up, brushing a speck of unseen dust from her immaculate coat.

“Well,” she said, her voice remarkably calm amidst the chaos. “We’ll have to refine the muzzle.”

A man in heavy body armor, his face grim, handed her a thin tablet. She glanced at the screen, her expression unreadable, then looked towards Eira – who still hadn’t moved, her knees locked to her chest, her wide, terrified eyes fixed on the scene of destruction.

“She responded to fear,” Lyselle observed, her voice thoughtful. “Full amplitude. Crude, but effective.”

The soldier beside her looked visibly shaken. “Ma’am, she’s seven. She just—she just—”

“She just neutralized three adult men with a scream,” Lyselle interrupted, her gaze unwavering. “Imagine what she’ll do when she learns control.”

The doctor crouched down in front of Eira, her presence radiating an unsettling blend of scientific curiosity and cold authority. Eira recoiled instinctively, flinching away from the proximity.

But Lyselle didn’t touch her. She merely watched her for a long, silent moment, her red-tinted glasses obscuring the depths of her gaze. Then, she spoke softly, her tone almost gentle.

“You’re not broken, little one. You’re beautiful.”

Eira’s small chin trembled, a fragile tremor of something she couldn’t name.

Lyselle’s gaze hardened, the fleeting softness vanishing.

“And we’ll make sure the world sees what kind of beauty lives in destruction.”

The doctor stood, her movements decisive.

“Prep a new room,” she commanded the surrounding soldiers. “Deeper underground. No windows. Triple soundproofing. And bring in the null collar.”

Eira said nothing.

She couldn’t.

The scream had taken more than just the lives of the guards. It had stolen her voice, leaving her trapped in a silent aftermath.

Not just the sound.

The will.

As the soldiers moved with grim efficiency, dragging the lifeless bodies away and beginning the sterile process of cleaning the blood from the floor, she sat there, unmoving, in the center of the white-turned-red room – no longer just a girl caught in a nightmare.

Only a ghost.

Only the Phantom.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

They didn’t let her walk after that.

The indignity of it stung, a fresh wound added to the countless others she carried. She was wheeled down long, echoing corridors, strapped to a cold metal cart, her thin wrists bound in soft leather cuffs that offered no real restraint, her ankles locked together with a silent click. Not because she fought. Eira offered no resistance. She remained unnervingly still, her gaze fixed on some unseen point in the distance, barely blinking, her breathing shallow and quiet.

They were afraid of her.

But not with the simple fear that adults used to weave into bedtime stories, tales of shadowy creatures lurking in the dark.

This was a different breed of fear, a primal unease that emanated from the unknown, the uncontrollable.

They looked at her the way one might regard a ticking bomb, its mechanism inscrutable, its potential for devastation terrifyingly real.

Dr. Lyselle walked ahead of the cart, her polished heels clicking a sharp, rhythmic counterpoint to the hushed whispers of the guards trailing behind. The soldiers carried weapons she had never seen before, sleek devices loaded with something they called “sonic dampeners.” They handled them with nervous precision, the faint clicks of adjustments and whispered codes a constant reminder of the volatile cargo they escorted.

The hallway grew progressively darker the farther they descended. The sterile white walls gave way to a dull, grey concrete. The fluorescent lights dimmed, casting long, distorted shadows. The air grew heavy, thick with a silence that felt less like the absence of sound and more like a tangible pressure.

They passed doors marked with impersonal numbers instead of names. Some had small, reinforced viewing panels, offering fleeting glimpses into other sterile cells. Others were sealed completely, impenetrable and ominous.

“Subject Twelve – Neuropathic Flame.”

“Subject Five – Accelerated Regeneration.”

“Subject Eight – Soundwave Echo.”

The labels were whispered by the guards, fragments of a terrifying puzzle she didn’t want to complete. But none of the doors opened. None of the other children, if that’s what they were, peered out. Only she was being moved today, deeper into the heart of this cold, unforgiving place.

When they finally stopped, the room was… different.

The walls weren’t white anymore. They were a deep, absorbing black, like polished obsidian. They didn’t hum with that unsettling energy. Instead, they seemed to swallow every sound, every breath, every faint flutter of her heartbeat, creating an oppressive vacuum.

The wheels of the cart squeaked to a halt.

Eira’s skin prickled with a sudden, visceral unease.

She didn’t want to go in. This place felt wrong, even more isolating than the white room.

The guards unfastened the restraints. One of them flinched visibly when her hand twitched slightly. The other kept a wide berth, his eyes darting nervously towards her as if expecting her to erupt in another destructive wave at any moment.

Dr. Lyselle turned to her, her voice eerily calm in the suffocating silence.

“This is your new home, Subject Seven.”

Eira didn’t move.

Didn’t look at her.

Didn’t even blink.

She had learned a crucial lesson in her captivity: the quieter she was, the more control she seemed to possess. The more they believed they were safe, the less they interfered.

Lyselle crouched beside her, her voice dropping to a low, almost conspiratorial whisper.

“We’re not here to hurt you, Eira.”

Her name.

The sound of it, spoken after so long, was like a physical blow. It resonated deep within her, a forgotten melody stirring in the silence. Her head snapped up, her eyes finally focusing on the woman’s face.

“You remember it, don’t you?” Lyselle asked, a hint of something unreadable in her tone. “You’re not a ghost, no matter what they say. You’re a girl. A very special one.”

Eira stared at her, her throat tight with a multitude of unspoken questions.

She wanted to ask Why? Why me? Why this endless, terrifying confinement?

But the words remained trapped, choked by the fear that still held her captive.

Lyselle reached into the pocket of her black coat and pulled out something small and familiar.

A ribbon.

Faded pink.

Frayed at the edges.

Eira’s heart lurched, a painful spasm in her chest.

That was hers. Her mother had tied it in her hair every morning, a splash of color against her dark locks. She used to say it made her look like the sunrise.

“How…” she croaked, her voice raspy and unused. “Where—”

“I found it when we collected you,” Lyselle said softly, her gaze fixed on the ribbon in her hand. “I kept it. Thought it might comfort you.”

She held it out, the faded pink a stark contrast to her gloved fingers.

Eira didn’t take it. The gesture felt like a cruel mockery, a reminder of the life that had been so violently stolen.

Lyselle didn’t push. Her expression remained impassive.

Instead, she stood and motioned towards the black room, her voice regaining its clinical edge. “This place is built just for you. It’ll keep everyone safe until you’re ready.”

Ready?

Ready for what? To be a weapon? To be feared?

A hand touched her shoulder lightly, a fleeting, almost hesitant touch. “Come along, Eira.”

That was the last time anyone within those walls called her by her real name.

The transition to the new room was a descent into absolute sensory deprivation. Gone was the unsettling hum of the white walls, replaced by a deadening silence that pressed against her eardrums. The black walls, matte and seemingly infinite, absorbed every stray photon, creating a void that made it difficult to discern where the planes of the room even met. There was no furniture, no focal point to anchor her gaze. Only the thick, yielding padding of the floor offered a modicum of physical comfort, though even that felt strangely isolating, muffling the slightest shuffle of her body.

The silence was the most profound change. In the white room, despite the lack of conversation, there had been the constant, low thrum of the walls and the ceiling panel. Here, there was nothing. It was a silence so complete it felt like a physical weight, pressing down on her thoughts, making them feel distant and unreal. She tried to speak, a desperate urge to break the oppressive stillness. Just a single word, a fragile lifeline to the memory of her mother. “Mama,” she whispered, the sound a dry rasp in her throat. But the word died in the air, absorbed by the unforgiving blackness. It didn’t echo, didn’t carry, didn’t even seem to truly exist once it left her lips. It vanished as if it had never been uttered.

Like her.

The days that followed bled into one another, marked only by the silent arrival of sustenance. A small panel in the wall would slide open with a soft hiss, revealing a tray of bland, nutrient paste or tasteless liquid. Hands, always gloved in a sterile white that offered no hint of the person behind them, would push the tray inward, then retract just as silently. There were no words exchanged, no acknowledging glances, no human connection whatsoever. The hands were impersonal, efficient, and permeated with a palpable sense of fear, a subtle tremor sometimes visible in their movements as they placed the tray down. They treated her as a dangerous object to be handled with extreme caution, their fear a constant, unspoken barrier.

Then came the collar. She hadn’t seen it beforehand, hadn’t been warned. The panel opened, and instead of food, two of the white-clad figures were there. One held the cold steel ring, the other a device that hummed faintly. They approached her with a grim determination, their movements swift and practiced. There was no struggle, no point in resisting. She simply sat, her eyes fixed on the unyielding metal as they positioned it around her neck. The locking mechanism clicked shut with a soft hiss, accompanied by a faint blue light that pulsed briefly before fading. She didn’t know what it did, what intricate technology was woven into its smooth surface. All she felt was a sudden, profound heaviness, a leaden weight settling in her chest and radiating outwards. It was as if something vital within her had been leashed, her very essence tethered to this cold, unfeeling device.

The urge to scream, to unleash the terror and frustration that had been building within her, was almost unbearable. But the memory of the shattered glass, the still bodies, the horrifying stain of blood, was a powerful deterrent. Screaming had consequences. Screaming meant someone would die. And so, she swallowed the scream, forcing it back down into the silent abyss within her.

Instead, she sat.

And sat.

And sat.

The black room became her universe, a silent, lightless void where time lost all meaning. She existed in a state of suspended animation, a prisoner of her own power and the fear it had engendered. She waited. For what, she didn’t know. Perhaps for an end. Perhaps for a change. Perhaps for nothing at all.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Time became a fragmented, unreliable measure, marked only by the infrequent intrusions into her darkness. Some days, the door would hiss open, and silent figures would escort her to blindingly white rooms filled with the cold gleam of metal and the incessant blinking of complex machinery. Wires would be attached to her temples, to her limbs, their touch cold and clinical. People in white coats, their faces impassive, would observe her from behind thick glass panels, their voices tinny and distorted through unseen speakers. Sometimes, they would issue commands, their voices devoid of warmth or empathy, asking her to make sounds, any sound.

She refused. Her silence was her only weapon, her only act of defiance in this sterile prison.

Other times, the interactions were more invasive. Sharp pinpricks on her skin, the cold slide of instruments, the probing touch that made her flinch despite her attempts to remain still. They showed her images on screens – flashes of bright light, jarring noises, scenes designed to elicit a reaction, to provoke a display of her destructive power. They tried to scare her, to break through the wall of silence and fear she had built around herself.

She wouldn’t let them. Her teeth would clamp down on her tongue until the metallic tang of blood filled her mouth. Her small fists would clench so tightly her knuckles turned white. The screams remained trapped inside her head, silent but deafening in their intensity.

They documented her reactions in their sterile reports, their words cold and detached.

“Resistant.”

“Emotionally locked.”

“A failed prototype.”

The labels meant nothing to her. They were just more sounds that faded into the blackness of her confinement.

She didn’t care what they called her, what conclusions they drew. As long as her silence ensured that no one else suffered the same fate as those first guards. That was her silent vow, her constant, unwavering purpose in this desolate existence.

But as the years crawled by, marked by the subtle, almost imperceptible growth of her own body, it became harder to maintain the fragile control. Her powers, dormant but never truly extinguished, seemed to be evolving, deepening, pressing against her chest like turbulent waves contained within an increasingly fragile glass jar. The silence she clung to became a heavier burden, a constant effort to suppress the volatile energy that thrummed beneath her skin.

On what they likely considered her eighth birthday – a day that passed unacknowledged and indistinguishable from any other – she screamed in her sleep. It wasn’t a conscious act, but a raw, primal release of the pent-up power and terror that haunted her dreams. The sound, though muffled by the padded walls, was enough to shatter the reinforced camera that constantly monitored her, its lens cracking and imploding in a shower of glass shards.

The punishment was swift and brutal. They dragged her from her room and plunged her into the blackout tank – a sensory deprivation chamber that amplified the already profound silence and darkness of her existence. Ten hours in a void where she couldn’t hear her own breathing, where even her thoughts seemed to dissolve into the suffocating nothingness, buried in a silent, internal sandstorm.

On her ninth birthday, her silent rebellion took a different form. She refused to eat. The bland paste turned to ash in her mouth, a symbol of her continued captivity. They didn’t negotiate, didn’t plead. They simply forced tubes down her throat, the cold, invasive intrusion a stark reminder of her utter powerlessness.

After that, the days and the years blurred together. The passage of time lost its significance. She stopped counting the silent meals, the sterile examinations, the endless, suffocating darkness.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Then, one night – or perhaps it was just another indistinguishable period of darkness, maybe three years later, maybe five – she felt a faint, unfamiliar tremor beneath her fingertips as they rested on the padded floor. The walls. The hum was back, a distant, almost imperceptible vibration that resonated through the very structure of her prison.

A tremor.

Something had shifted in the sterile, unchanging landscape of her confinement.

The door to her cell hadn’t opened in what felt like an eternity, perhaps two weeks. Her throat was parched, her skin dry and itchy from dehydration. Her lips were cracked and sore. A terrifying thought began to take root in the desolate landscape of her mind: had they forgotten her? Or had she finally been deemed useless, marked for disposal in some silent, unseen manner?

She thought she might die in this black void, alone and forgotten.

Then, the world outside her silent prison erupted.

An explosion, a muffled but undeniable concussive force, rattled the very foundations of the facility somewhere above. Dust rained down from the ventilation shafts, a fine grey powder coating the black floor. The emergency lights flickered erratically, casting distorted shadows that danced and writhed on the walls. Sirens howled in the distance, their mournful wail a stark contrast to the absolute silence of her room. Red lights pulsed through the narrow gap beneath her door.

A distorted voice blared through a distant intercom: “Intrusion detected in Lab Level Two.”

Another voice, sharper and more urgent: “All personnel report to containment sectors.”

For the first time in what felt like an immeasurable span of time, Eira stood up. Her legs were thin and weak, unused to supporting her weight, and they trembled precariously. But they held.

The ceiling above her cracked, a jagged line spider-webbing across the black surface. But this was different from the day she had screamed. This wasn’t her doing. This was an external force, violent and uncontrolled.

A deep rumble vibrated through the floor, followed by a heavy, muffled thud that shook the very air in her cell.

And then –

The door to her black prison exploded inward, ripped from its frame with a violent screech of tearing metal.

Smoke billowed into the room, thick and acrid, obscuring everything in a grey haze.

Through the swirling smoke emerged a silhouette.

Broad shoulders, a figure of unexpected strength in this sterile environment. A weapon was held in one hand, its dark metal glinting in the flickering emergency lights. A mask concealed his face, rendering him an enigma.

A man.

A soldier? Her mind struggled to categorize him. The white uniforms of her captors were absent.

No. His clothes were torn and stained, his armor a mismatched collection of scavenged pieces.

Not Concord. The symbol of her confinement.

Not a guard.

A rebel. An outsider in this sterile world.

He raised his weapon, the barrel pointing directly at her shrouded form – then he paused. His gaze, visible even through the smoke and the mask, landed on her.

She blinked slowly, her eyes adjusting to the sudden intrusion of light and shadow.

He stared back, his posture shifting slightly, a flicker of something unreadable in his stance.

Not at her collar, the symbol of her suppression.

Not at her thin frame, a testament to her prolonged confinement.

But at her.

Eyes met across the smoke-filled space.

And for the first time in what felt like an eternity, someone didn’t flinch at the sight of her. There was no immediate recoil, no flash of fear in his gaze. Only a strange, intense focus.

He took a cautious step forward, his hand slowly lowering the weapon.

“You’re her,” he said, his voice rough, like the grinding of gravel mixed with a deep undercurrent of regret. “You’re the Phantom.”

She didn’t answer. The sound of his voice, the first she had heard directed at her in years, was disorienting.

Didn’t move. Years of enforced stillness were hard to break.

Didn’t trust him. Every interaction within these walls had been a source of pain or manipulation.

He knelt down gently, his movements surprisingly tender despite his rough appearance. He reached for her slowly, carefully, his approach reminiscent of someone attempting to soothe a wounded animal.

“You’re not what they said,” he whispered, his voice surprisingly soft now, the gravelly edge softened by a note of something akin to pity. “You’re just a girl.”

Her lips parted slightly, a silent plea forming within her.

Her voice tried to rise, a forgotten muscle struggling to remember its function.

But it stayed locked, trapped behind years of disuse and fear.

He saw it. The raw, untamed pain that flickered in her eyes.

“It’s okay,” he said, his gaze understanding. “You don’t have to speak.”

His attention shifted to the collar around her neck. He lifted it gently, his fingers tracing the smooth metal, studying the intricate locking mechanism. Then, with a quiet efficiency that spoke of experience, he pulled a small collection of metal tools from a pouch hidden within his tattered clothing. His hands were deft and quiet as he worked, manipulating the tiny instruments with practiced ease. It was clear he had done this before.

A soft hiss escaped the collar, followed by a faint click.

Then, the heavy steel ring fell away, clattering softly against the padded floor.

And for the first time since she was seven years old, Eira Vale took a real breath. Her lungs expanded, drawing in the smoke-tinged air, a sensation so profound it almost made her dizzy.

Unchained.

Free.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

That was the second time the scream came.

But this one was silent.

Not a single sound escaped her lips. Her vocal cords remained still, unused.

But inside?

Inside, her soul was roaring. A silent, visceral cry of release, of confusion, of a fragile, nascent hope flickering in the darkness. The phantom scream of a caged bird finally seeing an open sky.