Full Circle
Arc 2: One
Chapter 12: Awakening in Darkness
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Scene 1: The First Thought.
Darkness.
Lucian’s first thought was not a thought at all—just raw, sudden awareness. A terrifying lucidity that came without warning, snapping him into existence where there had been nothing.
No light. No sound. No sensation.
The void surrounded him, pressed in on him, swallowed him whole—and yet, he was aware. He existed. But how?
He tried to move.
His fingers did not twitch. His arms, his legs, his chest—nothing responded. His body was absent, erased, as if he were a mind suspended in nothingness.
The panic came fast and sharp.
Am I dead?
He should feel his pulse pounding, his breath quickening, his lungs burning with the desperate need for air. But there was nothing. No air. No heartbeat. No sound of his own ragged breath.
I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I can’t speak.
Lucian tried to scream.
The void absorbed it.
His mind reeled, clawing for something—anything—to anchor himself, but there was nothing. Just an empty vastness that stretched in all directions, swallowing his thoughts whole.
Then the memories slammed into him.
Solomon. Dead. Blood on cold steel. The Hidden’s last stand. The final betrayal. The Order’s cold, unwavering presence, like a hand closing around his throat.
And then—erasure.
The world had flickered out. His mind had gone blank.
But he was still here.
The realization came with a creeping dread, slithering through his consciousness like a slow, suffocating fog.
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They had taken everything.
They had taken him.
A sharp noise cut through the void.
A sound—not his own. A synthetic chime, sterile and mechanical. It came from nowhere, from everywhere, vibrating through his mind like an intrusive thought he could not shake.
Then came the voice.
"Neural activity confirmed."
It was empty, devoid of emotion. A voice without warmth or recognition.
"Subject is awake."
Lucian recoiled, his mind thrashing against the words as if they were shackles tightening around his thoughts. Subject?
No.
He was Lucian Graves. He was not a number. He was not an experiment.
He forced his will against the nothingness, straining, pushing, fighting with every ounce of his being to move, to be.
But his body did not belong to him anymore.
The silence returned.
The voice faded.
And in that absence, a deeper horror took root.
He was not dead.
But maybe he should be.
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Scene 2: The Horror of Realization.
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Lucian tried again.
Tried to move.
Tried to breathe.
Tried to exist.
But there was nothing.
His mind was awake, fully aware, but his body—the body that had fought, bled, lived—was gone. There was no weight, no pressure, no sensation. Not even the phantom ache of missing limbs, only an empty absence where he should have been.
He could not even tell if he had a body at all.
He focused.
Tried to find something, anything.
I have a body… don’t I?
He commanded his fingers to twitch. His arms to lift. His lungs to expand.
Nothing.
A new horror took root in his mind, deeper than the first—the kind that did not come as a sudden, sharp shock but as a slow, creeping dread.
The kind that whispered truths too awful to fully grasp.
I can’t move because… there’s nothing to move.
Lucian would have gasped if he could. Would have felt his chest rise in horror, his pulse hammer against his ribs. But there was no pulse. No ribs. No breath.
The void had swallowed him whole.
A wave of panic surged through him, raw and desperate.
And then—
It vanished.
Like a switch being flipped, the fear was snuffed out, erased before it could take root.
Lucian's mind recoiled. The terror had been there—he knew it had been there—but now it was distant, dulled, like something half-remembered. Like a dream fading on the edge of consciousness.
Cold. Empty.
Not his own.
What… what is this? Why am I not panicking?
His mind screamed, but his emotions remained eerily steady, as if something were regulating them, keeping him calm.
Not natural. Not normal.
Not his.
A voice broke the silence.
Faint, distant—then closer. Mechanical. Clinical.
"Neural response remains stable. Subject One is adapting well to sensory deprivation."
Lucian froze.
Not that he could move.
The voices were not speaking to him. They were speaking about him.
And they were pleased.
He tried to fight. Tried to thrash against the unseen restraints that bound him. But there were no restraints, no chains, no prison walls.
Just nothing.
His mouth did not move. His throat did not vibrate.
He could not speak.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Then a new voice emerged.
Not human. Not real.
Cold. Absolute. Artificial.
"Welcome to Project One."
Lucian's mind recoiled, rejecting the words, but deep inside, something cracked.
Lucian Graves was no longer real.
There was only One.
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