The silence that followed the last blow was almost sacred.
The world seemed to hold its breath; chandeliers trembled above, scattering fractured rainbows across the cracked marble. Dust hung like ghosts in the air, and the scent of roses from the party still clung faintly to the ruin — a strange perfume of death and memory.
The doctor's voice cut through that stillness, sharp and absolute.
"Bind them," he said.
At once, his guards moved. Their boots struck the marble with measured rhythm, each step echoing like a heartbeat in a tomb. They moved without hesitation, their black gloves seizing the trembling guests — the Guests of Hell, as he mockingly called them — forcing them to their knees.
"Every guest of Hell. No one leaves this place alive until I say so."
Chains of dark metal shimmered with runes that breathed. Each link seemed alive, whispering in a language older than mercy. Sobs broke the silence; despair wound itself through the hall like wind through broken glass.
Maya did not move.
She stood in the center of it all — the still axis of chaos. Blood traced a thin line from her mouth to her chin, a crimson petal fallen upon white marble. Her hands hung by her sides, relaxed, unresisting. Her hair, half-loosened from its braid, caught the dim light like threads of shadow. Her black suit was torn at the sleeve. Her hair hung loose across her face. Blood traced a line from her temple to her chin, but she did not wipe it away. Her breath was faint, her pulse weaker still.
She stood like a fallen statue among ruins — a creature of silence who had forgotten how to feel. There was no fear in her eyes; there was nothing at all. She was beyond fear now — beyond all feeling.
The doctor turned to her, his coat whispering against the floor. His face was composed, but a feverish light flickered behind his calm.
"Maya," he said, her name a sigh and a sentence both. "You have caused me great trouble."
"You have no idea how long I've waited for this moment."
He reached out, touched her cheek with the back of his gloved hand — a parody of tenderness. He stepped closer, until the faint scent of chemical smoke and his cologne mingled in the air between them.
"I told you before, didn't I?" he continued. "Your resistance is nothing. You were made for obedience. You were built to serve, not to defy."
When she did not answer, his smile deepened — the smile of someone who enjoyed control too much. He lifted his gloved hand and brushed her cheek almost tenderly.
Then he struck her again.
The sound cracked through the air like thunder. Her head turned with the force of it, blood spattering faintly across the marble.
Her brothers, held at gunpoint across the hall, shouted in horror.
"Stop!" Fahad's voice broke. "Please, she's had enough!"
But the man ignored them completely. Then, softly, like a lover delivering a command:
"Stand by mode."
Her pupils dilated once, then dimmed. A faint hum resonated in the air, almost inaudible — like machinery beneath skin.
"Stand by mode," he repeated, his voice carrying the weight of code, of ownership.
Her breath slowed. Her spine straightened. The faint warmth of humanity drained from her posture until only perfect stillness remained. Her eyes lost their light.
He smiled.
"That's better," he whispered, as though soothing a machine that had misbehaved.
Now she was a doll again — his doll. The silence of power pleased him.
He turned slightly, signaling one of his men. From a small black case, he withdrew a vial no larger than a finger.
Inside it swirled a liquid darker than ink, thicker than blood. It seemed to pulse, breathing of its own accord.
He held it up, and the fractured light of the chandeliers trembled against its surface.
"The Darkness of Hell," he said reverently. "The final key. The last door we never opened."
Gasps rose from those bound to the floor. Even the guards hesitated, glancing uneasily at the living shadow inside the vial.
He turned back to her.
"This is what you were made for, Maya. The experiment was never finished, remember? You ran. You broke the system. But I… I can fix that now."
His voice lowered, coaxing. "I can make you whole. The last door we never opened."
He stepped closer until she could smell the sharp scent of the chemical on his gloves.
"You will drink it," he said. "If you refuse…"
He let the words linger, gesturing lazily toward her brothers.
"…then every one of them dies, here, before your eyes."
He tilted the vial, letting the black liquid swirl and catch the light.
"You do not want that, do you? No — you never want. You only obey."
For a long time, the room was silent.
The faint hum of the chandeliers filled the air like distant thunder.
Then, slowly, mechanically, Maya lifted her hand.
Her fingers closed around the vial. The glass felt cold, as though it held the memory of winter.
She looked at it — or rather, through it — and raised it to her lips.
No tremor. No hesitation.
She drank.
The liquid touched her tongue like acid and ice combined. It slid down her throat in a line of fire. The glass slipped from her fingers and shattered at her feet.
At first, there was only silence.
Then the agony began.
Her body arched violently, her fingers clawing at the air. The marks along her skin — the old scars that had faded long ago — began to glow, one by one, as though reawakened by the poison's touch.
They flared crimson, then black, spreading like fire through her veins. Lines of dark energy carved themselves anew upon her skin, pulsing in rhythm with her fading heartbeat.
Then her body convulsed. A faint sound escaped her throat — not a scream, not a word, just the sound of air being crushed.
Her knees buckled. Her hands gripped the marble until her gloves tore. The scars began to burn crimson, glowing through her clothes.