Enzo's POV
Cold, that was the first thing I felt. Not the chill of a gentle breeze or the creeping cold of an air-conditioned room, but the kind that seeped into your bones, the kind that lived in the walls and floors and never let go.
My eyes fluttered open slowly, my mind struggling to connect to the rest of me, sluggish and heavy as if I'd been underwater for too long.
The ceiling above me was low and made of rough, unfinished concrete, stained with dark smudges that looked far too much like dried soot or old blood.
A single bare bulb swung from a cord in the middle of the room, casting long, twitching shadows across cracked walls.
The air was thick so thick that every breath was laced with the acrid tang of gunpowder, smoke, and something else I couldn't name, something sharp and metallic like the scent of a battlefield long after the fighting was over.
It burned my throat and made my stomach turn.
