The first moment I open my eyes, it’s like being born again—but this time, I’m alone, and the room is completely dark. No light seeps in from beneath a door, no soft glow filters through a window. I try opening my eyes again, unsure if they were ever truly open to begin with, but nothing changes. The darkness is absolute. Panic crawls up my throat, but before I can let it take hold, I realize something else—I’m completely naked. The floor beneath me is cold and smooth, like polished concrete, sending a chill through my skin. Instinctively, I cover myself with my arms, though there’s no one here to see. Slowly, I try to stand, but my legs buckle beneath me—weak, foreign, as if they belong to someone else. I crumple back onto the floor, gasping. My mouth opens, but I can’t speak. That’s when I hear it—the sound of water, a steady _drip, drip, drip_ that echoes off the walls. At first, it’s distant, almost soothing in the stillness. But then it shifts. The rhythm becomes unsettlingly irregular. Closer. Then further away. Then closer again. My heart quickens. Where is it coming from? I strain to listen harder, but it’s impossible to tell. Desperate for something tangible, I scramble on my hands and knees until I find a wall and press my back against it, trying to ground myself in the solidity. But the water keeps dripping, and something about it is wrong. So wrong. Covering my ears does nothing to block it out—it’s inside me now, bouncing around in my skull. _Drip, drip, drip._ I slide my hands along the wall, hoping to get a better sense of my surroundings. The room feels both infinite and suffocatingly small, and still, the drip persists. I push away from the wall and crawl further, dragging my fingers across the floor, searching for something—anything. But it’s all the same. Where am I? Why can’t I remember anything? The more I try to think, the thicker the fog becomes. I don’t even know my own name. Then, suddenly, the dripping stops. The silence is deafening, but it doesn’t last long. A voice—low, mechanical—whispers: _“Are you ready to begin?”_