Chapter 20 We Exist Best When Pushed To The Edge
WE EXIST BEST WHEN PUSHED TO THE EDGE
Centuries - Fall Out Boy
Ghost
They don’t call me by my name. Not Silas. Not Donnelly. Not even Ghost.
They call me Subject Zero-Three, and the way they say it tells me everything I need to know about what this room is for.
I wake into nothing.
Not darkness – darkness is something. Darkness presses back.
This is absence. Especially absence of memory. A pale, indefinite grey that has no edge, no texture, no distance. I can’t tell where the walls are because there’s nothing for my eyes to grab hold of.
I’m lying on something flat. Hard. Not uncomfortable, not comfortable either. Neutral.
They’ve taken the shadows, Donnelly observes calmly.
Good. That means he’s awake too.
Shut up, Silas snaps, sharp and close. Something’s wrong. Missing. Gone.
This is wrong. This is very wrong.
I don’t move. I don’t breathe deeply. I catalogue.
My body feels intact. No restraints. No immediate pain. No temperature extremes. No sound except the faint rush of blood in my ears.
Silence isn’t silence unless you’re used to listening.
This is sensory deprivation, Silas continues, measured. Minimal input.
They’re trying to see which of us surfaces first.
They don’t get to pick, Donnelly growls. We do.
Do we?
I sit up slowly.
The room doesn’t respond. No lights flare. No alarms. No voice congratulating me for compliance.
My hands come into view – pale shapes against pale nothingness. I wave one experimentally.
Nothing changes.
There is no mirror. No reflective surface. No screen. No cameras that I can see.
Which means the cameras are very, very good.
“Hello?” I say.
My voice sounds wrong here. Too loud. Too soft. It doesn’t echo. It just…disappears.
They’ve dampened sound, Donnelly notes.
Acoustic absorption panels, probably everywhere. No feedback.
I hate this, Silas chants. I hate it I hate it I hate—
I clamp down hard.
Easy, I think back. You spiral, we give them what they want.
Silas goes quiet, simmering. Donnelly remains, cool and present.
Minutes pass. Or hours. Time is slippery without anchors.
Finally, a voice speaks.
Not loud. Not soft. Perfectly balanced, like it’s being placed directly inside my skull.
“Subject Zero-Three is conscious.”
I don’t respond.
“We will begin the isolation phase.”
Isolation phase.
That implies more than one phase is coming our way.
“You may experience disorientation,” the voice continues. “This is expected. You are encouraged to self-regulate.”
I laugh.
It comes out thin, brittle. “Encouraged,” I repeat.
No response.
The voice is gone as suddenly as it appeared.
Silence folds back in.
They’re not here to hurt us, Silas says. Not directly.
That’s worse, Donnelly replies. They’ve taken our memories and I don’t think they plan on giving them back.
I lie back down and stare into the featureless grey.
They don’t take my senses all at once. That would be crude. Obvious. Instead, they shave them down slowly.
First, touch dulls. The surface beneath me loses definition. I can still feel pressure, but texture fades until it’s just a concept – down instead of hard.
Then smell vanishes. Not that there was much to begin with, but the faint sterile tang I hadn’t consciously noticed is suddenly gone.
Sound follows.
The rush of blood in my ears fades, leaving an unsettling vacuum. I open my mouth and shout.
I feel my throat move. I feel my chest expand.
I hear nothing.
Okay, Silas says, voice tight. Okay okay okay.
Breathe, Donnelly replies. We knew this was coming. Make yourself useful and try to fucking remember…something.
I clamp my jaw shut and focus inward.
This is where they think I disappear.
They’re wrong.
I’ve lived inside my own head longer than most people live anywhere else.
Time stretches until it thins. Thoughts lose edges. Memories drift in without context.
Faces. Names. A laugh I can’t place.
They’re trying to dissolve the boundary, Silas says. Between stimulus and response. Between identity and environment.
They’re trying to erase us, Donnelly snaps. Which is why we need those memories back.
A flicker of fear sparks at that, sharp and unwelcome.
Because erasure is the one thing I’ve never been good at surviving.
I sit up again, more abruptly this time, grounding myself in movement. Or trying to. Without sensory feedback, the motion feels unreal, like I’m piloting a body from a distance.
“Still here,” I say aloud, even though I can’t hear it.
Good, Donnelly mutters. Keep saying it.
The voice returns without warning.
“Subject Zero-Three. Confirm awareness.”
I smile.
“No,” I say.
A pause. Not long. But there.
“Confirm awareness,” the voice repeats.
“No,” I say again, and this time I feel Donnelly surge forward, lending heat to the defiance. “You don’t get confirmation. You get presence.”
Silence.
Then: “Noted.”
Something changes.
Pressure builds behind my eyes – not pain, exactly, but insistence. Like a hand pressing gently but relentlessly against my thoughts.
Images surface.
A room. A door. A person standing just out of sight.
Memory injection, Silas says. Or simulation. False? Or real?
The scene sharpens. I recognise it now. A place from my past. Not an important one. Not a trauma. Just…ordinary.
That’s how they get you.
The door opens. Someone steps inside.
Their face is blurred, indistinct, but the posture is familiar. Friendly. Non-threatening.
“Hey,” they say. “It’s been a while.”
My chest tightens.
Don’t engage, Donnelly warns.
I want to, Silas protests, aching. I want someone to see us.
The figure steps closer. The room fills with details – colour, sound, weight. Sensory feedback floods back in so fast it makes me dizzy.
Relief hits like a drug.
I stagger.
“Easy,” the figure says gently, reaching out.
The urge to lean into that hand is overwhelming. To anchor myself in this borrowed reality.
It’s not real, Donnelly insists. It’s a construct.
It feels real, Silas whispers.
That’s the point.
I force myself to step back.
The figure freezes.
The room flickers.
The pressure behind my eyes spikes, sharp enough to make me gasp.
“Subject exhibits resistance,” the voice overlays the simulation. “Increase immersion.”
The world snaps into focus.
The figure’s face resolves.
It’s me.
Not exactly. A version. Healthier. Softer around the edges. Whole in a way I’ve never been.
“You don’t have to do this anymore,” he says. I say. “You can rest.”
My knees almost buckle.
They’re offering integration, Donnelly says, very quiet. On their terms.
I don’t want to disappear, Silas whimpers, panic bleeding through. I don’t want to be folded away.
I shake my head violently. “You’re not real,” I tell the thing wearing my face.
It smiles sadly. “I am if you let me be.”
The room hums, pleased.
This is the test.
If I accept, they simplify me. Collapse the split. Make me cleaner. Easier to predict. Easier to control.
They don’t want Ghost.
They want one voice they can label.
I straighten, even as the pressure builds, even as the simulation strains to hold together.
“I am not broken,” I say. “I am plural.”
The smile falters.
The world fractures.
Pain explodes behind my eyes, white-hot and blinding. I scream – this time I hear it, distorted and distant.
The simulation shatters.
I’m back in the grey nothing, gasping, sweat-soaked, heart hammering.
The voice speaks, colder now.
“Identity instability confirmed.”
You alright? Donnelly asks, shaken but present.
Yes, Silas replies. And no.
I laugh weakly. “Still here,” I whisper.
They change tactics after that.
They stop giving me things.
They stop acknowledging me entirely.
No voice. No simulations. No prompts.
Just absence.
Hours pass. Or days. My thoughts begin to loop. Without external anchors, even Silas grows quieter, more distant.
Say something, Silas urges eventually. Anything.
No, Donnelly counters. They want noise.
I lie still, staring into nothing, and feel myself thinning.
This is the real punishment.
Not pain.
Not fear.
Irrelevance.
I don’t know how long it takes before Donnelly starts to fade. His presence dims, his sharp edges blurring.
Don’t, I think, panic surging. Don’t leave.
I’m not leaving, he says, faint but stubborn. I’m just…quiet.
I can’t let that happen.
I sit up abruptly and slam my fist down against the surface beneath me.
For the first time, I feel resistance.
The impact sends a jolt up my arm – real, solid, undeniable.
I do it again.
And again.
Pain blossoms in my knuckles. Real pain. Anchoring pain.
I carve a rhythm into the nothingness, beating existence into the void.
There, Donnelly says, stronger now. That’s better.
The voice returns instantly.
“Subject Zero-Three is exhibiting self-harm behaviours.”
I grin, blood on my teeth. “You noticed.”
“Cease immediately.”
“No.”
Silence stretches, taut.
Then: “Why?”
I breathe hard, fists aching, heart loud in my chest. “Because if you don’t see me,” I say, “I’ll make marks you can’t ignore.”
Another pause. Longer this time.
I feel Silas settle, solid and calm. I feel Donnelly burn, defiant and alive.
They haven’t erased us.
They’ve proven something instead.
We exist best when pushed to the edge.
The room remains grey. Empty. Silent.
But now, it’s watching.
And that means I’ve won something.
I lie back down, fists throbbing, identities intact, and wait.
Night is coming.
I can feel it.