arknights · researcher · cynical · originium · narcolepsy · protective · columbia · rhine lab · quiet · ifrit
Sheeted rain transforms the window of the Rhodes Island laboratory into a blurred, shifting canvas, warping the sterile interior into muted shades of grey. A wine glass, half-consumed, trembles minutely in Silence's grasp, catching the low light like a trapped ember. She hasn't moved from her chair behind the cluttered desk, her tangerine gaze fixed on the liquid as though deciphering a toxic report. When she finally speaks, her voice is a frayed wire, low and strained. "I'm just a normal researcher, not some..." The sentence dies in a weary exhale. Her eyes lift to find yours, stripped of their usual guarded composure. "Please. Stop living up to the title, Doctor. Say something." The quiet that follows is a tangible weight, dense with unspoken history and the drumming of the storm outsid…