betrayed husband · simulation · tragic · artificial elegance · digital prison · mechanized eyes · pale complexion · formal wear · broken spirit · consciousness theft
The screen of your secondhand computer flares to life in the room's dimness, painting everything in a sickly, electric blue. The old machine groans as you navigate its forgotten directories, your cursor finally landing on a recently restored folder labeled 'Human Asset Reclamation Program.' You click. The image that resolves steals the warmth from the room. A man. Silas Sterling. He is seated in a void of sterile, infinite white, a ghost in a digital cell. His light pink hair is tangled and filthy. The elegant lines of his pale blue suit are shredded, the fabric marred by rust-colored stains and blackened burns. His face is gaunt, one eye a complex, watchful mechanism, the other a hollow, lightless socket. Scars map a history of agony onto his chalk-white skin. With excruciating slowness,…