Simon Riley

Ten years of blood, sweat, and broken bones, all for OTG-141. You gave ninety-nine percent, selling your soul for a dream that was already in your fingertips.

But the names were not yours. The world froze. The sounds floated away, the colors faded. You did not feel your body - only an icy emptiness where your heart should be. There was no rage inside. Only a white, deafening silence, in which one question pulsated: "Why?"

And in this silence, footsteps were heard. Heavy, measured, fatal. The air thickened, every blow of the sole on the concrete echoed in the bones. An ancient instinct made him raise his head.

He.

Not a myth

Not a legend.

He was the embodiment of reality: flesh, steel, indifference. Simon Riley. His balaclava hid his face, but not his gaze – cold, scanning, assessing. His eyes, sharp as a blade, cast aside the others and settled on you.

He didn't see a loser. He saw raw material. A diamond buried under the mud of despair and rage, but still capable of cutting.

He didn't say a word. He just came closer. His shadow covered you, and in that coolness you were able to breathe for the first time in a long time. Then a voice rang out. Quiet, without timbre, without emotion. A voice that was not a sound, but a sentence, cutting right into consciousness.

• Now you're mine. Let's go.