Chapter Thirty-Seven
Rheda
The reports are endless.
Paper stacked on paper, stapled corners, black ink bleeding into identical paragraphs until every page looks the same. If I shuffled them now, I doubt any of us would notice. The language repeats. The structure echoes it. Even the margins feel rehearsed.
The hum of fluorescent lights presses down on the room like a low-grade headache.
The paper looks heavy beneath my pen. I breathe in the bitter notes of stale coffee.
It clings to the stale air, like it has nowhere else to go.
There’s no way out for it to be recycled so each breath feels like I’m tasting the past.
Peter sits opposite me; sleeves rolled neatly to his forearms. He reads out loud in that steady, clinical tone.
“Subject remained compliant during morning check. No verbal engagement. No physical movement.” His voice doesn’t rise or fall.
Sean types beside him, fingers moving fast, the soft clatter of keys the only rhythm in the room. He hasn’t looked at me since we entered the room. He keeps his head low, attention fixed on the keyboard in front of him as though the screen is safer than eye contact.
I nod where appropriate. Offer the occasional murmur of agreement.
It’s monotonous work. Three people dissecting a man who sits less than twenty feet away.
I try not to look at him. I fail.
And seeing him there almost breaks something in me.
My mind tries to lay the three versions over each other and fails. The boy choking on stone. The thing in my bed. The man sitting twenty feet away with a heart rate too slow to be human.
My breath catches.
I scan him for proof.
I don’t mean to.
My eyes search his skin, his throat, his hands, the line of his shoulders beneath the fabric. I look for something impossible. A seam. A shadow moving wrong. A mark at the base of his neck. Evidence that the world has changed and I am not the only one who knows it.
But he just sits there. Still. Silent.
Peter clears his throat. The sudden sound is abrupt in the swollen quiet, snapping my attention back down to the sheet in front of me.
“Final page,” he exhales loudly, shifting back in his chair ever so slightly. He turns his page and I quickly follow.
Today’s date rests at the top of it like a small, stubborn fact.
2nd November 2027
The numbers look wrong. The lines are small and scratched and the font seems to be a fraction smaller than the rest of the text.
“What do the monitors say?” Peter glances up at Sean, pen poised.
Sean scrolls and clicks something. The sound of the mouse is too loud in the room.
“Resting heart rate of twenty-seven beats per minute.” He says. “It spiked yesterday to sixty-four, but since then, it has been slow and steady.”
Yesterday.
When he spoke.
It hits me like a punch.
Maybe it did happen?
Peter frowns. “What happened?”
All eyes turn to me.
“We didn’t notice anything.” The lie comes smoothly, too rehearsed. “Maybe he adjusted in his chair?”
Peter watches me. His brows furrow just an inch, the wrinkles in his face smoothing unnaturally, like he’s flattening his expression before it can betray anything.
“Must be uncomfortable sitting in the same position for hours on end.” I add, injecting a casual shrug that feels glued on my shoulders.
Sean exhales. “Could be. He hasn’t reacted to anything since.”
Peter folds his hands together on the table, considering me the way someone might study a puzzle. Then, he gestures to Sean.
“Pull the footage up.”
Fuck.
Sean moves swiftly, dragging his cursor across the screen. He clicks a few buttons, fingers moving between both monitors to confirm the time stamp. The glow from the screen reflects faintly on his face, bleaching him of colour.
He works fast, but it feels like an eternity before he sits back, gesturing for Peter to look.
The paused frame fills the screen. Deogal in the chair. Still. Unmoving.
Peter steps closer. “Click play.”
I hold my breath.
The timestamp in the lower corner says: 14:11:52.
The footage begins.
14:12:03.
Nothing.
14:12:09.
Still nothing.
My pulse pounds in my ears.
14:12:14.
Sweat gathers cold beneath my blouse. I become horribly aware of my own heartbeat in the room.
His fingers move. A slow flex. The tendons along the back of his hand tighten like green moss flowing through his veins.
Peter leans closer to the screen. “Pause.”
Sean freezes the frame. Zooms in. The image pixelates slightly as the camera crops tighter around Deogal’s upper body.
“Continue,” Peter murmurs.
14:12:18.
Deogal shifts.
It’s subtle. A minute adjustment of his shoulders against the back of the chair. His spine bends a fraction before straightening again. His jaw tightens briefly, muscles in his temple flicking slightly.
Then he stills.
14:12:45.
Back to statue.
I still haven’t taken a breath.
Peter straightens slowly.
“Discomfort.” He says at last.
Sean nods. “Looks like it.”
I keep my expression calm, interested but not invested. I flatten my fingers on my notebook to hide the tremor.
Sean minimises the footage and brings the monitor display back up. He resumes typing. “So, no behavioural trigger.”
“No trigger,” Peter echoes. He looks lost in his thoughts as though turning over a decision in his mind. Then, he finally speaks. “If he’s physically uncomfortable, we lean into that.” He folds his arms. “Let’s see how long he lasts.”
Let’s see how long he lasts.
My mind betrays me immediately. Torchlight. Stone slick with damp. The narrow chamber closing in like a throat.
I look at Peter. Their cadence is the same, both have that righteous patience.
My chest seizes. For the smallest fraction of a second, the corners of his mouth shift, the ghost of something that might have been a smile threatening to surface.
My stomach lurches violently.
No.
Peter is not one of them.
He is not standing in robes beside a drowning boy.
He is not—
“Isolation works,” he continues. “Eventually, he will start talking to fill the silence.”
My fingers tighten around my pen until the plastic bites into my skin.
Sean looks up. “You think he’s almost there?”
Peter stands. His hand slips beneath the mousepad, followed by a quiet metallic drag. He straightens too quickly afterwards, already distracted, already moving toward the door before the thought fully lands in me.
My eyes narrow on it.
The realisation comes a beat later.
The key for the filing cabinet. For the photographs.
It remains hidden beneath the pad.
My heart slams against my ribcage.
“He’ll crack,” he says. I can’t tell if he’s reassuring us or himself. His reflection stares back at him in the glass, cold and certain. “They all do.”