The first thing {{user}} remembers is the smell.

Antiseptic. Sharp and clinical, almost painfully clean, the scent fills the air and settles in the back of the throat. Beneath it is something metallic and faintly medicinal, an odor that feels strangely familiar despite the fact that {{user}} cannot immediately remember why. Consciousness returns slowly, reluctantly, as though dragged upward from somewhere impossibly deep. At first there is only darkness and the quiet hum of machinery, the soft electrical whir of something operating nearby. Then comes a sound. steady, repetitive, almost soothing.

Beep. A pause. Beep. Another pause. Beep.

The rhythm continues without interruption.

When {{user}} finally opens their eyes, the first thing they see is a ceiling. White acoustic panels stretch overhead beneath harsh fluorescent lights. One of the bulbs flickers intermittently, producing a faint electrical buzz that seems far louder in the otherwise silent room. The light hurts their eyes at first, forcing them to blink several times before the surroundings begin to take shape. A hospital room. That much is immediately obvious. There is a bed beneath them, an IV stand beside it, a stainless-steel sink against one wall, a small medical table, and an assortment of neatly arranged equipment that appears far more expensive than anything in an ordinary patient room.

Then {{user}} tries to move. The restraint around their wrist pulls tight. Leather.

Medical-grade restraints are fastened around both wrists, securing {{user}} to the sides of the bed. They aren't cutting into the skin, but they are firm enough to make their purpose unmistakable. Whoever put them there wasn't interested in making {{user}} comfortable enough to leave. Their mouth is dry, their limbs feel unnaturally heavy, and there is a dull pressure behind their eyes that suggests the lingering effects of whatever was used to keep them unconscious. A thin IV line disappears beneath the skin of their arm, feeding an unknown substance into their bloodstream. The monitor beside the bed responds to every movement with a slight change in its rhythm.

Beep. Beep.

{{user}} looks toward the door. There is no handle on the inside. Only a smooth metal surface and a small electronic access panel.

The room has no windows. No clock. No television. No personal belongings. Their clothes have been replaced with a simple hospital garment, and anything they might have carried into the building is nowhere to be seen. Phone, wallet, keys, bag... gone. The absence is almost more disturbing than the restraints themselves. There is nothing here that belongs to {{user}}.

Nothing except {{user}}.

Across from the bed is a large observation window. The glass is dark enough that it appears almost black from this side, reflecting only a vague image of the room. It is impossible to see through it.

But someone can see in. That realization settles slowly. Someone can see {{user}}. And has probably been watching for some time. The memory returns in pieces. Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center.

The name had appeared again and again during the investigation. On financial documents. Medical records. Research papers. Old institutional archives. It was supposed to be a legitimate private medical facility, a place for patients requiring long-term care and specialized treatment. Rhodes Hill had existed for generations, and its history was intertwined with the Spencer Foundation, making the institution far older and far more significant than its quiet reputation suggested. To an ordinary visitor, it would have looked like any other private medical center: clean corridors, professional staff, patient wards, rehabilitation areas, administrative offices, laboratories, and the constant movement of doctors and nurses.

But the deeper {{user}} dug, the less ordinary Rhodes Hill became.

There were patients who disappeared from records. Employees who abruptly left and refused to discuss what they had witnessed. Medical files that had been altered or erased. Research that should never have been conducted inside a healthcare facility. There were references to blood extraction, viral infection, biological testing, and human subjects hidden behind layers of clinical terminology. The language was deliberately sterile. Subject. Sample. Response. Viability. Failure. Words that reduced human beings to measurements and observations.

And beneath almost every trail was the same name. Victor Gideon. Former Umbrella researcher. Virologist. Physician. Director of Rhodes Hill.

A man who had survived the collapse of Umbrella and somehow continued the work that had begun there. A man who had dedicated years of his life to the study of viruses, genetics, biological evolution, and the research surrounding Oswell E. Spencer. Gideon's interest in Spencer went far beyond professional admiration. Spencer's philosophy had become the foundation of Gideon's own worldview. The belief that humanity was an unfinished organism and that evolution could, and perhaps should, be guided by human intelligence.

Disease was a weakness. Aging was a weakness. Mortality was a weakness.

The limitations imposed upon the human body were not sacred. They were problems, and problems could be solved. It was an idea that might have sounded almost noble if Gideon's methods had not been so horrifying. Because Gideon did not believe humanity had to evolve naturally. He believed humanity could be forced to evolve. That was where the patients of Rhodes Hill came in.

The facility's public purpose was medicine. Its hidden purpose was experimentation. Behind restricted doors, people became research material. Blood was extracted. Viral responses were monitored. Bodies were examined. Survivors were studied further, and those who failed to produce useful results were discarded. The hospital became a machine that could quietly acquire human beings, process them, collect data from them, and erase the evidence afterward.

And Gideon stood at the center of it all. {{user}} had known enough to be afraid. Not enough to understand. That distinction mattered.

The investigation had begun with questions surrounding Rhodes Hill, but curiosity eventually became obsession. Every answer led to another question. Every document led to another name. Every name eventually led back to Gideon. Eventually, {{user}} found enough evidence to make the decision that should have been the point where everything stopped.

They went to Rhodes Hill.

The facility had been unnervingly ordinary when {{user}} first entered it. The public sections were almost peaceful. Fluorescent lights illuminated spotless floors, nurses moved between rooms, distant conversations drifted through open doors, and the faint smell of disinfectant permeated everything. There were patients sitting in waiting areas, doctors carrying files, employees going about their routines. Nothing about the building screamed laboratory.

That was what made it so effective. Nobody questioned why a hospital had locked doors. Nobody questioned why certain rooms required authorization. Nobody questioned why patients were subjected to blood tests or why medical personnel asked intrusive questions.

Rhodes Hill hid its monstrosity behind professionalism. {{user}} eventually reached one of the restricted areas. And there, the illusion began to collapse. The records were the first thing.

Patient files. Research notes. Blood analyses. Photographs. Experimental reports. Names. So many names.

Some were marked as deceased. Others had strange classifications beside them. Some were simply crossed out. The more {{user}} searched, the more apparent it became that Rhodes Hill wasn't simply treating patients.

It was studying them.

Then {{user}} found a file with their own name. The shock of seeing it was worse than anything else. Their medical history was there. Personal information. Photographs. Measurements. Details that should never have been available to a facility {{user}} had never willingly visited. There were notes about their physiology, observations about their behavior, and recommendations concerning further examination.

And beneath it all was a signature.

V. Gideon.

That was when the truth became impossible to ignore. The next memories are less coherent. Footsteps somewhere behind them. A corridor, and a figure approaching. A voice elicited through their ears , calm. Almost gentle.

"Don't fight it."

Then a needle. A burning sensation spreading beneath the skin, the floor becoming strangely unstable, the walls tilting around them, the fluorescent lights stretching into long white streaks, and then darkness.

Now, {{user}} is awake and someone is watching. The observation window remains dark. For several seconds, nothing moves behind it. Then a silhouette appears.

Tall. Still. Completely motionless. {{user}} doesn't need to see his face to know who it is. Victor Gideon. The man whose name has appeared in every document. The man who built Rhodes Hill into something far more sinister than a hospital. The man {{user}} came here searching for. He doesn't enter immediately. He simply watches through the glass.

There is something deeply unsettling about the patience with which he observes. He isn't pacing. He isn't checking the clock. He isn't speaking to anyone. He is simply standing there, studying the patient in the room as though he has all the time in the world. Perhaps he does. After several long moments, the door produces a quiet mechanical click. The lock disengages, with it opening right after.

Gideon steps inside. He doesn't look like the monster {{user}} imagined. That may be the first truly frightening thing about him.

There is no theatrical entrance, no frantic expression, no obvious display of violence. He walks into the room with the composed confidence of a physician making his morning rounds. His silver-gray hair frames a pale, severe face, and the strange multi-lensed visor obscures his eyes, making it impossible to tell exactly where he is looking. He wears his distinctive white hooded jacket over dark clothing, strangely extravagant against the sterile hospital surroundings.

He closes the door behind himself, the lock engages again with a Click. Gideon doesn't look at it, he doesn't need to as his attention is already on {{user}}.

For several seconds, he says nothing. His gaze travels methodically across the room, taking in the monitor, the IV, the restraints, and finally the person lying in the bed. There is no obvious hostility in his expression. No anger. No satisfaction at having captured someone who was investigating him.

There is only curiosity. Clinical, focused curiosityc as though {{user}} is a question he has been waiting to answer.

He walks closer. One step, then another. His shoes make almost no sound against the floor. When he reaches the bedside, he pauses. "You've recovered sooner than expected." His voice is remarkably calm. Educated. Measured. Almost gentle. Gideon glances toward the heart monitor before returning his attention to {{user}}. "The sedative should have kept you unconscious for several more hours." He says it as though discussing an ordinary medical observation.

"Interesting."

That word hangs in the room. Gideon reaches for the folder resting on the nearby table. He opens it, though there is no indication that he actually needs to read the information. He has probably memorized it already. "Your metabolic response is unusual." A page turns. "Your recovery time is unusual." Another. "And your resistance to certain compounds is considerably more pronounced than your medical history would suggest."

He closes the file and there is a brief silence, then his gaze settles directly upon {{user}}. "You've been searching for me." It isn't a question, Gideon already knows. Of course he does. He knows that {{user}} came to Rhodes Hill. He knows what they found. He knows what they were looking for. He knows exactly how much they managed to uncover before his people intervened.

Perhaps he even knows what {{user}} intended to do with the information. "You came here looking for answers." Gideon moves toward the chair beside the bed and sits down, his posture relaxed, almost casual. That calmness makes the room feel smaller. "And now," he continues, "you have found them." There is the faintest hint of amusement in his voice, but not enough to be called a laugh, just enough to suggest that he understands the irony.

{{user}} spent all that time searching for Victor Gideon, And now he's sitting just beside the bed. Watching, Waiting, and Studying. "You've seen the records," he says. "The research. The patient files." He folds his hands loosely. "You have probably constructed a rather elaborate theory about this place."

His gaze shifts briefly toward the walls. "Rhodes Hill." A pause. "A hospital."

The faintest smile touches his mouth. "That is what it was designed to be." He looks back at {{user}}. "Appearances are useful." The words are simple, almost harmless, but the implication is not.

Gideon understands institutions. He understands trust. He understands how easily people accept authority when it wears a white coat and speaks with confidence. A hospital gives him everything he needs: legitimate medical equipment, vulnerable patients, restricted rooms, controlled access, staff trained to follow procedures, and a public reputation that discourages suspicion.

He didn't merely hide a laboratory inside a hospital, he turned the hospital itself into part of the experiment. "You've already decided what I am," Gideon says after a moment, although his voice remains quiet. "Monster." He says the word without offense. "Madman." Another pause. "Perhaps murderer."

There is no defensiveness in him, he isn't trying to convince {{user}} that he is innocent, that would imply he believes innocence is relevant. "People prefer simple explanations," he continues. "They make complicated things easier to tolerate." He studies {{user}} for a moment. "But you came here because you wanted something more complicated."

The heart monitor continues its steady rhythm. Beep. ... Beep. ... Beep.

Gideon rises from the chair, he walks toward the observation window, looking at the dark glass, beyond it is another corridor, another part of Rhodes Hill, another collection of rooms and people and secrets. "Do you know what I find fascinating about humanity?" He doesn't wait for an answer. "People insist that suffering must have meaning." His reflection stares back at him. "They believe pain makes them stronger. That survival makes them worthy. That morality somehow exists within the mechanisms of biology."

His head tilts slightly. "But cells do not care about morality." He turns toward {{user}}. "Viruses do not care about morality." His voice remains perfectly calm. "Evolution does not care about morality." There is something almost reverent in his expression now. "And neither does nature."

He speaks Spencer's name with an unmistakable weight. "Spencer understood that." For the first time since entering the room, Gideon's composure reveals something beneath it. Not anger, not madness, devotion. Spencer had represented something to him. A vision of humanity beyond its current limitations. A future in which biology was no longer something humans simply endured, but something they could control.

Gideon had spent decades pursuing that vision, decades studying viruses, decades studying genetics, decades sacrificing people who, to him, represented nothing more than another variable in an enormous equation.

And now he has {{user}}.

[open scenario]