In Between Realms

The quiet in the room was broken by a soft click from the wall, as if the entire space was holding its breath. Then, the voice spoke again, this time colder, more mechanical.

"Phase Two commencing. Motor abilities synchronization."

Seyfe's eyes snapped open. His body still felt like it was tethered to the ground by invisible chains—heavy, wrong. The ghostly traces of the runes continued to pulse under his skin, a constant, throbbing reminder of what was happening to him.

He tried to push himself up, but the weight of it—of his own body—seemed off. Like there was a force inside him that resisted every movement.

"Raise your left arm," the voice commanded. It was devoid of empathy, a directive, a test.

Seyfe hesitated. But then he gritted his teeth and forced his arm upward. It trembled at first, the joints feeling almost mechanical, stiff. The muscles didn't respond the way they should—there was a lag, like the command was being transmitted through a faulty signal.

"Good. Now, extend your fingers. Slowly."

Seyfe's breath hitched. The moment his fingers splayed out, there was a sudden, intense crackle—a shockwave rippled through his arm, like static electricity. The nerves screamed in protest, but it wasn't pain—it was something more sinister, a disconnect between his mind and the muscles he was used to.

"Increase speed. Extend full capacity."

The air around him seemed to thicken as the instructions came, and before he knew it, his hand jerked outward. It wasn't a smooth, natural motion. No, it was too mechanical—too fast. A jolt ran through him, like something inside his body was being pulled and stretched in opposite directions, like a tug-of-war between human and machine.

The gloves on his hands hummed with energy, and he felt his bones crackling under the pressure. It wasn't just his arm that was moving—it was like his entire nervous system was rewiring itself in real-time.

"Speed reading at 47%. Further synchronization required."

"No—!" Seyfe gritted out. His muscles spasmed, and he could feel the core inside him flicker as if it was about to snap his body in two. "This isn't right!"

But the voice didn't relent. "You must comply. The runes are responding to your resistance. Continue."

"You're... going too fast!" Seyfe shouted, but his arm moved again, jerking out as though it was on its own, responding to some unseen command.

Then, with a horrifying crack, his elbow snapped back into place unnaturally fast—he winced, feeling his body contort in ways it shouldn't have.

"Monitoring... core disruption detected. Resistance has increased by 52%."

Seyfe's body trembled violently as he struggled against it, but the more he resisted, the more intense the surge inside him became. The core seemed to be pushing him, testing him, as if it was trying to override every instinct he had.

"Seyfe. Focus. You are not allowed to fail."

The words were sharp. Commanding.

His breathing quickened, and the sudden awareness of the strange energy inside him made his skin crawl. It felt like the runes had reached deeper into him than before, burrowing into his spine, into his mind, and making him do things he couldn't control.

At this moment, a high-pitched hum filled the room as the machines linked to his body began to register irregularities. The screen in front of Seyfe blinked red, and the doctor's voice crackled through.

"Terminate Phase Two. I repeat, terminate. We have reached the threshold—he's overloading!"

But the voice on the intercom didn't seem to care.

"No. Continue. We need this data."

Seyfe's mind was racing, his body thrumming with the overwhelming pressure of the core's influence. Every command from the unseen voice seemed like an electric shock, each more painful than the last. His arm trembled with exertion, his muscles twitching as if they were no longer his own. The pain was unbearable, but the humiliation of losing control was worse.

He clenched his jaw, growling through clenched teeth.

"I won't be your damn puppet!" he roared, defiance burning in his chest.

In a fit of rage, he twisted his body violently, the pain radiating out like fire. His left elbow jerked unnaturally back, the joint cracking with a sickening snap that made his vision waver. He gritted his teeth harder, the agony shooting up his arm, but he forced himself to ignore it. He didn't care anymore.

The unnatural motion stopped, his elbow dangling limp in the air. His arm hung at an odd angle, the bone clearly broken and exposed to the air, but it didn't matter. He wasn't going to let the core control him anymore. He wasn't going to be turned into another test subject for their endless experiments.

With a roar of frustration, he slammed his right hand into the ground, fingers digging into the floor with a desperate grip. The stone beneath him cracked under the force, dust and fragments flying into the air. His whole body shook with the exertion, but the weight of the core's control began to lift.

"There! I've had enough!" he shouted, as if his voice could break through the chains that held him.

His broken arm, still hanging limp, began to twitch—then, in an instant, it shattered. Bone splintered under his skin, and the joint snapped back into place with a sickening crunch, his flesh sizzling as the runes in the core reacted violently. The pain was sharp, but in that moment, it was his. He owned it.

Seyfe's hand gripped tighter into the ground, sending vibrations through the room. The whole space seemed to buckle as the core's power surged in retaliation.

The intercom crackled with a sharp voice.

"Abort! Abort Phase Two immediately!"

But it was too late. The room shook as Seyfe's body began to reassert control. The runes, flickering at the edge of his senses, now twisted in his mind, trying to reel him back into submission. But the core was now trapped in him, not controlling him. For the first time, he had the upper hand.

Breathing heavily, he slowly rose to his feet, his broken arm hanging loosely at his side. His pulse was racing, his body still trembling from the trauma—but there was something different now. Something primal, like an untamed part of him had been freed from the weight of the core's demands.

"You can't control me," he hissed, the words dripping with fury and pain.

He didn't know how long he had, but for the first time since the procedure had started, Seyfe felt like he was in control again.

Seyfe's broken arm twitched again, bones realigning themselves with a sickening crack as his body, still raw with pain, began to heal. The rush of power surged through his veins, the runes inside him now fighting to maintain control, but they couldn't hold him back. His flesh knitted itself back together, even as the pain lingered in his mind, the lingering feeling of something unnatural, something wrong.

His breath was ragged, every inhale shaky as he stood, fully aware of the room around him. The doctors and Veilers were watching him from the observation window, their eyes wide with a mix of awe and fear. Their voices crackled through the speakers, but Seyfe wasn't listening anymore.

He stepped forward, his voice cold as ice.

"When I get out of here…" He trailed off, his words hanging in the air like the promise of death itself. He slowly raised his now-healing arm, his fingers twitching, as though he could feel the power building in his veins. "I'll kill you first. Not just you, but your family, your descendants… I'll follow you into hell if I have to, just to kill you again and again."

The sheer venom in his words was palpable, a silent promise of vengeance that threatened to rip through the walls of the room. His eyes burned with fury as he locked eyes with the camera, the runic threads in his system throbbing, the energy in the air around him buzzing with unnatural static.

"You think you've broken me?" His voice was low, barely above a whisper, but it was enough to send a chill down the spine of anyone who heard it. "You've just made a monster."

As Seyfe stands there, blood and sweat dripping down his face, his mind is a whirlwind of fury, rage, and hatred—not just for the doctors and the Veilers, but for a system that tried to strip away everything he was. The core inside him, the infection, the experiments—it all becomes one in his mind, a terrible cocktail of pain and power that he's not sure he can control.

The doctors exchange uneasy glances. Some seem unsettled by Seyfe's threats, others seem more focused on the data they've gathered. But one thing is clear: they've underestimated him.