The corridor beyond the white room is the most mundane thing I've ever seen since we arrived here.
Grey concrete. Rusted piping along the ceiling. A row of fluorescent lights, half of them dead, the other half flickering in a rhythm that's going to give someone a seizure before long.
The kind of corridor that exists in any institutional basement in any city on a dying Earth.
The contrast with the bio-predatory room we just left is absurd enough to be almost offensive.
We walk in silence.
Oliver is not okay.
Not physically—he's intact, every centimeter. He's not okay in a way that doesn't have a bandage. He keeps his eyes fixed on the back of Rhayne's head and doesn't look sideways. His jaw is locked with the effort of not processing what he just saw.
Rhayne walks at my pace. Not because I asked. Just because.
