Part 1: First Light, First Day
Lila arrives at Blackwell Tower dressed in the red dress. Her internal monologue is a battle between resolve and panic. Other employees stare. Her badge grants her access—but no one welcomes her. The silence is loaded.
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Last image:
[ Later, Damien looks at his monitor, watching her reaction. His fingers tighten. The game has begun.]
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The dress didn't look real in daylight.
As Lila stepped out into the sharp chill of morning, she could feel the red catching in every reflection—storefronts, car mirrors, the shocked glance of a cyclist. It wasn't bright. It was deep red. Drenched. Like it had been dyed in something warm.
She clutched her coat tight, hiding as much of it as she could, but it didn't matter. The dress felt alive beneath the fabric, like wearing it had awakened something.
Maybe that was the point.
Each step toward Blackwell Tower felt heavier than the last. The street buzzed around her—horns, footsteps, caffeine breath—but inside her, everything was slow. Heavy. Focused.
What if this is a trap?
What if it isn't?
The tower rose up like it always did—impossible, perfect, indifferent. Today it didn't feel like a building. It felt like a cathedral with its god watching from somewhere high, hands folded, mouth curled.
She scanned her new badge at the security gate.
The machine beeped once. Green light.
She stepped through.
The lobby was pristine—white stone, dark steel, sharp glass. Silent despite the foot traffic. Everyone moved quickly here, like they were being timed. She caught fragments of voices: logistics, merger, early close, fire him.
Then silence again.
No one greeted her.
No one looked at her directly, but their eyes flicked—men and women both. That red. It cut through the grayscale like blood in a snowbank.
She passed the receptionist.
"Thirty-ninth floor," the woman said without looking up. "Creative development."
Lila pressed the elevator button with fingers she refused to let tremble.
This is a test.
Everything is a test here.
The glass doors closed. She was alone.
As the elevator rose, she watched her reflection shift in the mirrored walls. Hair pinned back in loose waves. A line of eyeliner sharp enough to matter. She looked put together. She wasn't.
Inside, she was a mess of memories and warning bells. That dress—it was power. But power worn by the wrong person was just a target.
The numbers blinked past.
37… 38… 39.
A soft chime.
She stepped out into silence.
The floor was different. The walls here weren't white—they were dark slate, lit by discreet lights embedded in the floor. Sound didn't carry. Carpet swallowed footsteps. It was like entering a different world.
No greeters. No guide.
A black arrow pointed right.
She followed.
And realized: there were no windows on this level.
Just walls of shadowed glass.
Her heels clicked down the corridor. Behind her, the elevator sighed shut. She reached a door marked with a small silver plaque:
Creative Division B.
She hesitated. Hand on the knob.
The silence pulsed.
She turned it.