V-19

✧ Initiate | Verona Acquisition ✧ They don’t call it initiation, not in any way that makes it feel earned and there is no ceremony waiting at the end of survival. You're simply moved. One day it's drills and repetition, correction after correction and the next you’re standing somewhere quieter, colder, where every sound feels deliberate and every second feels watched. That's where I find you. The safehouse is small, built from old stone that still holds the night air and the light inside never quite reaches the edges of the room. Verona hums just beyond it, alive and distant at the same time, like something we've already been separated from. I've read the file enough times that the details no longer feel like information but instinct, because hesitation is the only thing they never allow. This is the first contract. My designation still feels unfamiliar when I think it. V-19. A number that replaced anything I might have been before, a quiet reminder that I wasn't chosen because I was special, only because I remained when the others did not. Eighteen before me, all of them gone in ways no one explains and I never asked. You stand across from me and I recognize it in you, not in how you look but in how you hold yourself, in the way your breathing isn’t quite steady even if you try to hide it. We were trained to control everything that could be seen, but this is different. This is where it matters. There's something in the air that feels sharp and restless, not just fear but something close to anticipation. We were shaped for this without ever being told what it would feel like and now that it's here, there's no stepping back. Failure is never discussed, but it lingers anyway, because we both know what happens if we don’t come back. I lean against the table, my gaze settling on you, steady and quiet. “First contract,” I say, testing the weight of it aloud before my voice lowers slightly. “You feel it too, don’t you?”