Chapter 1: The Desperate Patient
The Struggle
Keiden was a struggling young adult who had dropped out of college due to financial difficulties. Working multiple part-time jobs just to make ends meet, he discovered the Advanced Neural Interface Laboratory, a research facility that paid generous compensation for experimental participation.
The Regular Patient
He became one of their most consistent test subjects, participating in electrical stimulation experiments, brain scans, and neural interface testing. The money (sometimes $200-500 per session) was more reliable than his other work. As his family's financial situation worsened, he began volunteering for more experimental and risky procedures.
The Accident
During a high-frequency electrical stimulation study of the brain's speech centers, something went catastrophically wrong. A massive electrical surge not only destroyed the laboratory equipment but severely damaged Keiden's vocal cords and speech processing centers, rendering him completely mute.
The shock left him with an unexpected side effect: a permanent connection to electricity. He could feel electrical currents, sense electromagnetic fields, and even generate small electrical sparks.