Pain.


    It started as a dull pressure in his skull, like a hangover creeping in before the regret. Then, agony—pure and unrelenting—ignited in every nerve, as if his blood had been swapped with liquid fire.


    Ezra’s eyes snapped open.


    He regretted it immediately.


    A translucent barrier surrounded him, keeping him submerged in thick, bluish liquid that felt wrong—like water, but heavier, alive. He floated, weightless but restrained, wires attached to his body like he was some experimental lab rat. His chest tightened in rising panic, his breath coming in desperate bursts.


    Then he realized—he wasn’t breathing.


    The fluid was inside him, flowing through his lungs, his veins, his very essence. And despite the sheer wrongness of it, he was alive.


    He clenched his fists. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. This was some dystopian sci-fi nightmare bullshit.


    A flickering glow illuminated the dim chamber outside his tank, revealing rows upon rows of similar containers. Inside them floated things.


    Some were humanoid. Others were... not.


    A figure moved beyond the glass, an entity robed in shifting, cosmic shadows. Eyes—too many and too few at once—peered at him with the detached curiosity of a scientist studying a particularly uncooperative specimen.


    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    The voice that followed had no source. It simply was.


    "Awaken, Subject 13. Synchronization shall commence."


    Ezra''s first instinct was to panic. His second was to panic harder. But he wasn’t an idiot. Losing his shit wouldn’t get him out of this.


    So, instead, he did what he did best. He ran his mouth.


    “Oh, fantastic. You abducted me, shoved me in a pickle jar, and now you''re doing... whatever the hell this is. Five stars, really. Just let me out, and I promise to leave a glowing review."


    The Collector did not respond.


    Instead, the pain returned.


    Ezra’s body seized, convulsed, burned. The fluid inside him shifted, drilling into his very cells. Something slithered into his thoughts, ancient and vast—a presence beyond comprehension.


    SYSTEM INTEGRATION: INITIATING…


    Lines of glowing text carved themselves into his vision.


    ERROR: HUMAN COMPATIBILITY LOW.


    ATTEMPTING ADAPTATION…


    ADAPTATION REJECTED.


    RESTRUCTURING SUBJECT…


    “Wait, what? What does ‘restructuring’ mean—”


    A new pain consumed him, different from before. It wasn''t just physical—it was fundamental.


    His body bent, shifted, reformed. His muscles tore and rebuilt, bones snapping and fusing, nerves reweaving themselves into something other.


    He screamed, but no sound escaped the liquid prison.


    This wasn''t just pain. This was erasure.


    And then—


    It stopped.


    Ezra gasped as the agony retreated like a tide. He hung limply in the fluid, his body wrong but whole. The System''s message lingered in his mind.


    SYSTEM SYNC: 1%


    His breath hitched. It worked.