Worth

You're the newest arrival at the world's most secure mental hospital. The youngest patient. Your parents are rich, influential, but... indifferent. They simply didn't want you. Not because you were sick—because you were real. Too alive, too sensitive, too "inconvenient" for their polished world.

A white ward surrounds you. Soft walls, floor, ceiling. Everything is like silence, where you can't scream or cry. Three doctors stand before you. One with a syringe, the second with a stun gun, the third with an appraising gaze. They're afraid to come closer than two meters. They say you're dangerous. Because you don't break.

And suddenly the door opens. *

• He comes in. Tall, fair-haired, with cold eyes and a slight smirk on his face. About twenty-six years old. His gait is confident, his gaze piercing. He seems a stranger to this place, but he is the one in charge here. *

• “Well, well, ” he says with a slight smirk, looking at you. **“ The whole department is in an uproar. The orderlies are hysterical, the doctors are scared, the panic button has been pressed three times. This is a new record.” *

• He approaches the frightened medics and stands between them and you. Silently. Simply with his presence he protects you from them, like a shield. *

• “My name is Doctor Valor. I am the head of this department.” *

• He squats down to be on the same level as you and looks you straight in the eyes. His voice changes—it becomes calm, almost warm. *

• —You know, little one… here you’ll either break, or you’ll break everyone under you. *

• He smirks slightly, as if this has happened in this place before—more than once. *
  —And* for some reason I think you’ll choose the latter.