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Morning came without sunrise.

The room had no windows, no way to mark the passage of time except for the digital clock on one of the monitors. Victoria had tried to sleep again after Aster left, but rest felt impossible in this place where even the air tasted artificial, filtered and recycled until it lost any trace of the outside world.

The door opened precisely at eight o'clock. A different nurse entered, this one male and equally silent. He brought breakfast on a tray, the food arranged with the kind of precision that suggested it had been calculated rather than cooked. Protein portions, vitamin supplements, a smoothie in an unmarked bottle.

"Can I have my phone?" Victoria asked as he set the tray on the rolling table.

He did not respond, just finished his task and left. The door sealed behind him with that same soft hiss, and Victoria heard something that made her blood run cold.

A lock engaging.

Subtle, almost inaudible, but unmistakable. The soft click of metal sliding into place, sealing her inside.

Do not panic, she told herself, forcing her breathing to slow and steady. This is probably standard procedure. Patient safety. They do not want you wandering around a research facility in the middle of the night.

But the rationalization felt thin, transparent as glass.

Victoria pushed the table aside and went to the door. Smooth white surface, no handle on this side, no visible mechanism to open it from within. She pressed her palm against it, searching for a sensor or button. Nothing happened. The door remained sealed, solid and unyielding.

She was locked in.

Victoria spent the next hour testing every surface in the room. The walls were seamless, the monitors built into recessed panels she could not access. Even the bathroom, a small attached space with the same clinical white aesthetic, had no exterior windows or emergency exits. Everything was designed to keep her contained, to prevent escape.

When Aster returned at noon, she was sitting on the bed with her arms crossed, fury replacing fear like fire burning through ice.

"I want to leave."

"Tori, you just got here. We have not even run half the tests yet." He set his tablet on the counter, his expression puzzled rather than concerned, like she had said something confusing instead of demanding her freedom. "I know it is not as comfortable as your hotel, but this is necessary for your health."

"The door locks from the outside. I cannot call anyone. You took my phone, my tablet, everything." She stood, forcing herself to match his height even though he had inches on her. "I am not a patient, Aster. I am a prisoner."

"That is dramatic, even for you." His laugh was soft, dismissive, the sound of someone humoring a child's tantrum. "The lock is a standard security measure. You are Victoria Alston. Do you know how much your safety is worth? The Institute has protocols for high-profile guests."

"Then let me call my own doctor. Let me talk to Eira."

"Your sister is being briefed by your management team. She knows you are safe." Aster picked up his tablet again, swiping through screens with casual efficiency. "As for outside doctors, I am your doctor. Have been since we were kids, remember? I have always looked out for you."

The reminder landed exactly as he intended.

Aster had been there through everything, from childhood scraped knees to her first panic attack before a major audition. He had held her hand through her mother's funeral, helped her navigate the early days of fame when everything felt overwhelming. He was her oldest friend, the one person who had known her before the world decided who she should be.

So why does this feel wrong?

"I just want to know what is happening to me." Victoria softened her tone, trying a different approach. "The vision I had, it felt so real. What if it is not just exhaustion?"

"Then we will figure it out together." Aster's smile returned, warm and reassuring in a way that should have comforted her but somehow did not. "But you have to trust me, Tori. Trust the science. Everything we do here is for your benefit."

He left shortly after, and the door hissed shut behind him with that terrible finality. Locked in again, sealed away like something dangerous that needed to be contained.

Victoria returned to the bed and picked at her calculated lunch, each bite tasting like compliance, like surrender. Outside her sterile prison, she could hear footsteps in the hallway, muffled voices discussing readings and protocols. She was not a person here. She was a subject, a specimen to be studied and contained.

And somewhere in the back of her mind, a memory that was not hers whispered that she had been imprisoned before, in a different life, in a different kind of prison. But that time, she had been a queen with power enough to break worlds

This time, she was just a girl in a locked room, and the walls were closing in.