The warehouse did not just house darkness; it breathed it. It was a thick, cloying atmosphere that smelled of engine oil, ancient dust, and the metallic tang of oxidizing iron. The single lightbulb suspended from the vaulted ceiling hummed with a low-frequency buzz, a sound that grated on Diya's raw nerves like a serrated blade. Every few seconds, the bulb would flicker, plunging the room into a rhythmic, strobe-like void before snapping back to a sickly, jaundiced yellow.

Diya was no longer in the wooden chair where they had first thrown her. She had been moved to the center of the room, to a relic of a bed-a rusted iron frame that groaned under her slightest movement. Her wrists were splayed wide, lashed to the headboard with thick hemp rope. The fibers were coarse and unrefined, biting into the delicate skin of her wrists with every panicked pulse. She could feel the friction burns starting to weep, a sticky warmth that signaled the rope was already drawing blood.