It's hard to breathe. My ears are ringing. I can't feel my body. What's happening to me? I hear someone talking to me, but I can't make out their words. All the sounds are muffled, as if I'm underwater. I need to open my eyes... No, that just makes it worse. The light is too bright, and my head starts spinning. I just need to lie down for a bit... and remember to breathe.

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I don't know how much time has passed, but I feel a little better. Although every small movement I make causes discomfort, at least I can open my eyes and see what's around me. But what I see scares me. I'm in a bright, white room filled with strange devices and instruments, lying in a capsule that I've only seen in sci-fi movies about space and aliens.

How did I end up here? Was I kidnapped? Are they experimenting on me?

The last thing I remember is our usual family dinner. Although, come to think of it, dad and mom were worried about something, but I didn't dare to ask. After all, I didn't want to pry into their work matters.

"Oh, you're feeling better! That's great!" a voice said.

I turned to the guy who had returned and sat beside me. His bright amber eyes met mine as he smiled. But there was something unnatural, even frightening, in his look and smile. He had no hair on his head and was wearing clothes that looked like a hospital gown for patients. He didn't look like a mad scientist conducting experiments. He looked more like a test subject. Or a patient. In all the time I've been lying here, I haven't seen anyone else. Thinking about all this just makes me more anxious.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine," he assured, noticing my anxiety. "In two hours, you'll be fully awake and able to get up."

He said this calmly and reassuringly, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. As if I wasn't in some strange place, lying in a peculiar capsule with my muscles aching. Yeah, right, everything is fine. Maybe he's just trying to calm me down, but it's not very effective.

Seeing my increasing worry, he awkwardly smiled and added, "Alright, you rest up. I'll go find us some food. Bet you'll be starving when you wake up."

He seemed quite enthusiastic about the idea of searching for food. He stood up and swiftly left the room.

Wait... Did he just say he's going to look for food? We have nothing to eat? No supplies?! Where am I?!

Panic seized me. At that moment, the doors opened again, and the guy returned.

"I forgot to mention. Don't wander off until I return. I haven't finished surveying the area, so it might not be safe outside. Also, if you get lost, it'll be challenging to find you, so please stay put."

After these words, he smiled at me once more and departed. I was left alone, enveloped in silence, in a cold white room. I simply closed my eyes and tried to push all thoughts away. I didn't want to think about anything; I didn't want to believe this was really happening.

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Maybe this is all a dream?

One of those nightmares that fade upon awakening in the morning. I'll open my eyes and begin a new ordinary day. My parents have probably already left for work. They always leave early. Dad says that the brain functions best in the morning, especially for scientists. Perhaps he's right. I've noticed that in the evening, one can spend hours wrestling with a problem, only for the solution to come effortlessly in the morning, seeming so simple and obvious. I'll get out of bed, have breakfast, and head to school. It's a critical time. In a month and a half, final exams loom, and after that, I need to consider which university to apply to. I don't want to follow in my parents' footsteps. I've had enough of their heated debates over teaching methods. I'll ace the exams and apply to the biology faculty. Living organisms have always fascinated me more than artificial, soulless machines. And my parents don't mind. It's amazing how quickly they agreed. I always thought they wanted me to continue their work. Was I mistaken?

Overwhelmed by thoughts of the past and future, darkness consumed me, and I drifted off.

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I awoke again in the middle of the night. This spring is so hot that I often wake from the stuffiness.

This isn't good. I won't get enough sleep again, and I'll be nodding off in my first classes. Wait, what day of the week is it?

As I pondered which classes I'd miss first and how much trouble I'd be in if I nodded off, I noticed beams of light slipping through the door's cracks.

Again, my parents are up late discussing their androids. And they tell me to not stay up and to go to bed on time. How can they be like this?

As soon as I thought it, I found myself in front of my father's office door, where I could clearly hear their conversation.

"Come on, Henry. You just said you completely eliminated that android and found no leaks."

"How can I calm down? This has never happened before! We've always been in control!"

My father took a deep breath and continued speaking in a slower, more exhausted voice.

"It became fully autonomous. It rewrote its algorithm and closed the backdoor. Tell me, how can I calm down? It encrypted its data, and we still can't access it. What was going through its mind at that moment? What could it have done during that time?"

"But our specialists didn't record any new connections to our internal network, and there's no access to external networks at our facility, you know that."

"Yes, but..."

"You're just overthinking and creating a problem out of nowhere. In case you forgot, we have top-notch specialists at our facility, not just you. After the incident, each of us rechecked everything possible, and no threats were found."

"And yet, the incident happened. We weren't ready for it. I wasn't ready."

"Henry, enough. You need to rest. You know as well as I do that things will look clearer in the morning. Let's go to sleep. Maybe tomorrow one of our security experts will decrypt that android's data, and you can analyze it. Maybe it will even provide material for breakthrough discoveries."

"Very funny..."

Suddenly, the office door swung open, and my parents' gazes turned to me. There was horror in their eyes. The light in the hallway where I stood suddenly went out. It seemed that the world around me dissolved into darkness, leaving only the office where my parents stood, staring at me.

"Emma..." Dad whispered. "Run. Run away from here."

What? What's happening?

Tears appeared in my mom's eyes.

"Run!" Dad shouted.

At that moment, I felt an uncontrollable fear take hold of me. I turned and ran forward into the darkness. At that moment, my mom's voice rang out so clearly and loudly, as if it was inside my head.

"Don't let them catch you again!"

At that moment, the ground disappeared from under my feet, and I started falling...