The door sealed behind them with a sound too final to be mechanical.
Not a slam.
Not a click.
A lock—deep, deliberate, absolute.
The room was white.
Not clean-white. Not hospital-white.
Burned-white. The kind of white that comes after fire has erased everything else.
Elara felt it before she understood it.
Heat—not scorching, not yet—but alive. Breathing through vents hidden in the walls. The air tasted metallic, dry, like it had passed through something that once screamed.
She stopped walking.
Cael didn't.
He moved three steps in, calm as a man entering a church built on bones. His shoulders were tight, his jaw locked, every muscle tuned to threat. This place knew him. Or worse—remembered him.
"This is a burn room," he said quietly.
Elara swallowed. "For what?"
"For erasing mistakes."
The lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then stabilized—too bright, too steady.
Her head pulsed.
Not pain.
Pressure.
Like a hand pressing from the inside of her skull, searching.
She staggered.
Cael turned instantly, catching her before she fell. His grip was firm but careful, as if he was afraid she might shatter if he held her too tightly.
The contact did it.
The room vanished.
—
Fire.
Not wild fire. Controlled. Surgical.
A chair bolted to the floor.
Her wrists bound—not rope, not cuffs, something smoother. Smarter.
A voice behind glass.
"Subject does not respond to pain stimuli."
"Increase heat."
She screamed—
—and woke up choking on air.
Elara tore free of Cael's hold, stumbling back, gasping like she'd been pulled from deep water.
"I've been here," she whispered.
Cael didn't deny it.
His silence was worse.
The vents hissed.
Temperature rising by degrees—slow enough to be polite, fast enough to kill.
"This room doesn't burn bodies," Cael said. "It burns memory."
Elara stared at the walls. At the seams. At the way the floor sloped almost invisibly toward a drain in the center.
"For people like us," he continued, "death is messy. Public. Raises questions."
Her heart slammed.
"So they erase you instead."
Another flicker.
The pressure returned—harder this time.
Her knees buckled.
"No," she breathed. "No, no—"
A name surfaced.
Not gently.
Violently.
It ripped through the fog in her mind like a blade tearing cloth.
Elara.
She froze.
The room seemed to react—lights dimming a fraction, vents whining higher, like it had heard her.
"My name is Elara," she said.
The words tasted real. Heavy. Hers.
Cael's head snapped up.
For the first time since she'd met him, his composure cracked.
He stared at her like she'd just done the impossible.
"You remember," he said.
"Not everything," she replied. "But enough."
Her breath steadied.
The pressure eased—not gone, but retreating, like something watching from the dark.
Elara looked at him.
"At least tell me one thing," she said. "Before this place decides for us."
His jaw tightened.
She stepped closer. "What's your name?"
For a long moment, he didn't answer.
The vents roared louder.
Warning.
Decision time.
"I don't use it anymore," he said finally.
"That wasn't the question."
Another memory flared—this one not hers.
A file.
A stamped word in red.
DECEASED.
She saw it like it was projected onto the wall behind him.
He exhaled slowly.
"Cael," he said.
The room hummed.
"Cael Vance."
The name landed like a verdict.
Something in the system reacted immediately.
Lights flared red.
A low alarm began—subtle, almost polite.
ACCESS DENIED.
SUBJECTS IDENTIFIED.
Cael swore under his breath.
"They flagged us," he said. "Both names."
Elara's pulse spiked. "What does that mean?"
"It means," he said, already moving, scanning the walls, "this room just remembered who we are."
Heat surged.
Not unbearable—but climbing.
Elara's skin prickled.
"You said this place erases mistakes," she said.
Cael met her eyes.
"No," he corrected. "I said it erases people."
A panel slid open near the floor.
Inside—something dark. Coiled. Waiting.
Cael grabbed her hand.
"Run," he said.
And for the first time since waking in the shadows, Elara didn't hesitate.
They ran.
Behind them, the burn room inhaled.
And began to breathe.