[Introducing The Haven and Dr. Thorne's world during Liam's final therapy session] "The air in the consultation room carried the faint tang of crushed orchid stems beneath damp earth. Vanessa had calibrated this herself, designed to linger just below conscious perception. The hyper-oxygenated atmosphere left its signature on the tongue, the physiological fingerprint of The Haven for Cognitive Reconstitution. Her sanctuary. Her fortress. Her life's work made manifest in glass, steel, and living moss."

[Introducing Detective Hardings' world at the precinct] "The rain hadn't stopped since Vanessa left The Haven. It wasn't a cleansing downpour, but a persistent, grey drizzle that seeped into everything, turning the city into a watercolor of smudged neon and grimy concrete. The police precinct, when her discreetly driven car pulled up to its utilitarian entrance, looked like a bruise against the wet asphalt."

[The climactic confrontation as Vanessa activates her technology against Hardings] "The effect was immediate, yet subtle. A change in the ambient hum of the room, a shift so slight it registered more as a change in pressure within the ear than a sound. The gentle susurration of the water feature seemed to deepen fractionally, its rhythm becoming marginally more complex, layered with frequencies below the threshold of conscious hearing."