Cerys stopped midway up the passage, palms braced on her knees, chest still hitching from the archive's stale air. Sweat rolled along her temples, stinging the cut above her brow. When Rodion's announcement vibrated through the visor's audio grille, the words sank like stones into water she was already struggling to keep her head above.
There was no friendly chime, no countdown. The torches lining the corridor guttered out as though snuffed by invisible fingers, plunging her into velvet-dark. Cold slid beneath her tunic; for a sliver of a second she almost called the test off. Then she straightened, let her heartbeat steady to a marching cadence, and gave a single nod the AI could log.
"Begin."
