Chapter 21
Static-Too Loud
Killian Klebs
Where is she? is the first thing I think about when I’m jolted awake by a door slamming shut. I take a deep breath and open my eyes wider, taking in the dim lit room. But first, I listen. A hum—low, irregular—not loud, just misplaced.
Everything slowly comes into view as my eyes adjust to the room.
Walls are padded. The chair I’m sitting in is bolted, and the restraints biting my skin are tight.
There’s no smell. Which is odd. Usually it smells of bleach—sterile cleaning formulas but there’s nothing.
The humming above me shifts and becomes a tone.
High… then low. Two tones… out of sync, making my jaw tighten.
“No,” I say. My words coming out are controlled and measured.
The sound though—ignored me. Of course it does.
This isn’t meant to respond but to disrupt.
The tones multiply. Three. Five. Seven—overlapping into layers then clashing.
I grit my teeth as my fingers twitch against the restraints, but I halt my movements.
Control. Everything is control. “Identify the pattern," I whisper. That's the key. There’s always a pattern. Always a structure beneath the chaos. I listen… only harder this time—focusing on the sounds. One tone spikes as another drops. They should align but they don’t. That’s wrong.
They’re not supposed to. The lights flicker—in time with nothing.
My breathing hitches. That's new. I don’t lose rhythm. Not ever.
The tone gets louder—not the volume, but in density.
Too many. Too close. Too fast. “Stop!” I groan, but nothing does as the sound drills in through my thoughts instead of my ears.
Interupting—breaking. I try to isolate one, just fucking one.
But every time I find it—it shifts. Moves.
Disappears into something else. My pulse rises, and I grit my teeth.
Unacceptable. I inhale slowly, counting.
One—a sharp crack of static. Two—a distorted voice cuts through.
Three—laughter. Layers, too many… all wrong.
My head tilts as a shiver crawls up my spine.
“They’re overlapping frequencies,” I say.
Now that makes sense. It has too. Everything has to.
My chair vibrates subtly and the tones sync with it then break again.
My teeth clench. “They’re trying to scramble cognition,” I say.
Yes, that’s it. That’s the method. Disruption of pattern recognition.
Interface. Noise as a weapon. Good. Now I understand it. Which means—I can beat it.
The tones spike all at once. Sharp and piercing, causing my vision to blur.
Fuck! That was unexpected. I blink and the room flickers.
Not just the lights but the edges, the walls, the space itself.
My stomach twists and then I freeze. Giggling—all I hear is her giggles beyond the tones.
My thoughts stutter. As screams—high pitch screams force through me, making me grit my teeth and shudder.
Fuck. She’s hurting. Someone is hurting my Canvas.
I thrash against the bolted chair, and the leather straps bite into my skin making me clench my jaw.
I try to focus—focus on her voice—her screams. I need to find her—my constant.
So, I inhale through my nose and let it out through my mouth.
Just when I think I’ve found her the high tone cuts through it—shreds my focus, destroying the rhythm.
“No!” I yell as the sounds crack, making the tones surge louder, faster.
My head jerks wildly. I try to isolate it, but I can’t.
I can’t separate anything. Then it hits me.
The realization that there is no pattern.
They removed it. They built the chaos on purpose.
No structure—no logic, therefore no fucking solution.
My chest tightens as I try to figure out what to do.
The thought lands like an impact, hard and fast. I don’t know what to do, then the sound spikes and everything collapses inward.
My vision tunnels, only seeing her face smiling at me as my thoughts scatter like roaches.
I try to grab one to hold it but it slips, just like everything else.
I’m not observing anymore. I’m reacting. I don’t react. This is not me. My head drops forward as my breathing breaks. The noise fills everything. No space left for correction or error. No room to think or control. My fingers curl into the metal arm rest, and I scream into the void.
My chest heaves as sweat drips down my brow.
Unrefined. Uncontrolled. Messy. I force my head up to look straight ahead—at nothing.
“This isn’t efficient,” I say, then pause as the faintest of smiles pulls at my lips.
Unstable. “But it is effective,” I grow,l and the noise surges again, causing my body to convulse.
I scream from the pain rushing through my body—through my ears, but then I feel it…
Blood drips, but the noise hits again, almost deafening that I throw my head back and roar in pain.
Tears leak out of my eyes while my mind begs to be set free…
for the noise to stop. It’s too loud. The pitch is too sharp.
It’s like a thousand needles stabbing my ear drums, shredding the tissue into nothing.
Finally, it slows, and my head lolls to the side.
I take a deep breath and, with eyes unfocused, I listen—not for pattern, but for endurance, but most of all for her.
They’re not trying to break my body, instead they are attacking my clarity, the one thing I rely on.
If they succeed, I won’t be precise anymore.
I’ll be something far more dangerous. So, I sit back and let the noise rush through me, letting it take over until I hear it. Her.
“Killian… where are you? I’m scared. I can’t find you,” her voice whispers.
“I’m here, my perfect Canvas. I’m right here,” I whisper as the tone shifts again. I try to focus on Lolli but the pitch changes the minute I try as if it’s watching me think—like it knows where I’m about to land, only to rip it away before I get there.
“Killian… please answer me. I need you. Please. It hurts so fucking bad,” she cries out, and I grit my teeth.
“I’m with you. Just follow my voice,” I whisper, but nothing. I need to adapt. They built this room for me. This isn’t general disruption; it's tailored and engineered for precision. The lights snap off, and I’m sent into total darkness. The sound remains, but her giggle amplifies.
I thrash against the leather, making the metal chair shift a little. Good. The bolts are loosening, but the sounds increase, and without sight, I have nothing to anchor to, nothing to map.
A voice cuts through the static. Clear—too clear.
“Killian,” it sings, and I freeze. It’s familiar, and I tilt my head.
“Repeat,” I say as my words crack.
“Killian,” it says again, only closer this time. Right behind my ear. My fingers twitch on instinct. I hate that.
“Source?” I demand, but then another voice.
“Doctor.”
I gasp. No. They wouldn’t. They couldn’t. That voice—belongs in a different room from a different time. Controlled. Clean. Perfect. Not fucking here. Never fucking here.
“They’re using my memory,” I say. Auditory recall.
Familiar stimuli to destabilize cognitive grounding.
Idiots. But the sound spikes, cutting through my thoughts, destroying it before it finishes forming.
My head jerks, and I growl. “That’s inefficient,” I snap loudly.
My chair vibrates harder as the restraints pull against my wrists, causing my muscles to tense.
I force them to relax, but the voices layer in now.
Not just one. Many. Calling my name. Calling me “doctor.” Then a voice cuts in, and I go still.
“You missed something,” it says, and I shake my head. No. I don’t miss things. I don’t— “You missed something,” it repeats, and my pulse spikes again.
“That’s incorrect,” I say as the word incorrect feels too—heavy.
“You always think you see everything,” the voice says, but only closer now. I can feel its breath caressing my neck as the sound crawls into me. “But you don’t,” It states.
No. That’s not—I catalog everything. I observe everything. I correct fucking everything. That’s what I do.
The sound surges, overwhelming me once again as everything collapses inward, and my thoughts scatter into fragments like puzzle pieces.
I reach for one but lose it. Another—gone.
The pattern isn’t just gone. It’s impossible.
They didn’t remove order, they replaced it with contradiction.
Nothing aligns. Nothing resolves. Nothing finishes.
My head drops forward as I hear her giggles again.
The noise fills the space behind my eyes, building pressure—not pain…
just overload. I can’t process fast enough or filter anything anymore.
My hands clench and the restraints bite into my wrists, except I don’t feel it.
I don’t feel anything except—everything. All. At. Once.
“Stop!” I spit. It’s not a command it’s a fucking request. The voices laugh but they are distorted and layered.
“You can’t fix this,” it says, and my head lifts slowly.
“No,” I whisper. Because even now—even here—there is one thing they haven’t taken. Me. The thought stabilizes me but barely. I inhale. Not steady or controlled but intentional. “They removed structure,” I whisper. “But I don’t need theirs.”
The noise surges, only angrier, sharper, which means its reacting and if its reacting, then it's not perfect. My lips twitch then tilt slowly—crooked. “I’ll build my own,” I growl. The words feel unstable leaving my lips, but it’s enough for now.
I lay my head back with half-lidded eyes and take a deep breath. I don’t search for the pattern or try to solve anything, I just endure—adapt and survive. The only thing getting me through this is her—my Canvas—My Lolli-Gag.