The room was quiet. Too quiet.
After weeks of bonding, training, healing, and beginning to believe in hope again, Nyx had been shown to a new wing of the facility a private room meant to help him "stabilize." It was clean. Too clean. White walls. No windows. A bed bolted to the floor. A single light bulb flickering overhead like a dying star.
He sat in silence, exhaustion gnawing at his bones. For the first time in a while, he allowed himself to close his eyes. Just a moment of rest, that's all he needed.
Hisssss.
Gas.
His instincts screamed, but his body failed him. His muscles seized up, vision blurring into static. His hands reached for nothing. His breath quickened. Panic set in, but darkness was faster.
Everything went black.
He woke to agony.
Arms yanked above his head, body locked in place. Something cold pressed against his spine. His mouth was gagged, his skin pierced in half a dozen places. His chest burned. He couldn't move.
A straightjacket, soaked in blood and sweat, wrapped his torso like a vice. Steel hooks impaled his shoulders and ankles, suspending him off a wall made of obsidian, the air thick with chemical rot and otherworldly cold.
The walls shimmered with impossible geometry red light pulsing from the seams like a heartbeat. There was no ceiling. Just black void and metallic chains descending into it. Runes floated midair, ancient and pulsing.
This was no ordinary room.
This wasn't Earth.
Then a voice crackled through the silence.
"Welcome to Containment Cell Zero. Mars Site B. Subsection: Hellgate."
A glass window materialized from nothing, revealing a sterile observation chamber behind it. Men in white coats stared at him through the barrier, their eyes lifeless. Cameras tracked every movement. Mechanical arms moved in the background, preparing god-knows-what.
And then, through a door stepped two people he knew too well.
Kael. Selene.
They stood side by side.
Selene avoided his gaze. Kael didn't even try. The air in the room felt like it froze.
"Why?" Nyx tried to scream, but the gag reduced it to a muffled growl soaked in fury.
Selene finally looked up eyes dark, remorseful, but cold. "Because you're not a person, Nyx. You're an extinction event."
Kael's voice followed. Flat. Calculated. "The moment we saw what you were becoming, we knew. You're not human anymore. You're the last mistake the world can afford."
"We didn't save you," Selene whispered. "We delivered you."
They turned and walked away, the steel door sealing behind them with a thunderous finality.
A new figure stepped into view behind the glass. A man in a lab coat, pale and skeletal, with a data pad in hand. He looked at Nyx like a curious animal in a cage. Cold curiosity. The worst kind.
He tapped the pad. Machines scanned Nyx's body. Lights flickered across the room. Symbols on the wall pulsed faster. The air vibrated.
"Subject 000," the scientist began, ignoring the muffled screams of rage from the bound boy. "Codename: Oblivion."
Nyx thrashed. His eyes flared with a strange glow some deep part of him awakening under the betrayal and pain. The wall behind him cracked from pressure that wasn't physical.
The scientist paused, then muttered, almost admiringly:
"Power: Absolute Erasion."
Silence followed.
He looked straight into Nyx's eyes.
"You're not made to kill. You're made to unmake."