The door clicked shut, sealing Jay in a silence so thick it hummed. Blue mist coiled around his ankles, cool and cloying, like the tonic's haze—but sharper. Cleaner. It pried at the cracks in his mind, whispering breathe, breathe, breathe.
She sat at the room's heart, draped in a gown that devoured the light. Stars—no, eyes—glinted in the fabric, watching. Her serpent tattoo writhed in the lamplight, its scales gilded, fangs buried in the crook of her elbow. For a heartbeat, Jay thought it blinked.
"Have you had your fill, myaloktónos?" Her voice was honeyed arsenic, laughter lingering beneath it.
Jay's fingers twitched toward the empty vial in his pocket. "You promised answers." He slid Tom's watch across the table, its tick muffled by the mist. "Start talking."
She caught the watch mid-spin, her nails sharp as talons. "Do you know what your war was truly over?"
"Land. Greed. The usual rot."
"Ah, the faithful soldier." She leaned forward, the serpent on her arm rippling. "No. It was fought for Seers. Rare, wretched souls who can bend wills, shatter armies… burn nations to ash."
Jay scoffed. "Fairy tales."
"Is that what they told you?" Her smile turned lethal. "Your government discovered two such weapons in their ranks. Loyal, oblivious, perfect. They sent them to the frontlines—to test them."
The watch trembled in her grip. Tick. Tick. Tick.
"Tom's 'luck' in ambushes. Your… intuition," she purred. "Did you never wonder why you survived when thousands fell? Why the shadows speak to you?"
Jay's throat tightened. —Tom's corpse twitching in the mud, whispering: "You knew. You always knew."—
"Lies," he growled, his voice almost choking in his throat.
She slammed the watch down. "Your brother's death wasn't an accident. They let him die. To see if loss would crack you open. To see if the monster inside would wake."
The room swayed. The mist thickened, blue leaching into black at the edges of his vision.
"Why?" Jay's voice frayed. "Why tell me this?"
She rose, her gown hissing against stone. "Because the war never ended, little soldier. They're still watching. Still testing." Her finger traced the serpent's spine. "And I need you angry enough to bite back."
The watch's ticking swelled—a metronome counting down to something even the blue mist couldn't soothe.
Jay's hands shook. Not from fear. From the thing uncoiling in his chest, hot and venomous.
"What," he hissed, "am I?"
She smiled. **"What you've always been. A weapon. A Seer."
Somewhere in the mist, shadows chuckled.
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