Cycle Unknown
Subject ID: 32A
Condition: Instability Detected
Sleep doesn't come here. Not really. You don't drift off—you fall.
Hard and sudden, like the floor drops out beneath you and your brain forgets how to scream.
This time, I opened my eyes and the room was dark.
That shouldn't have been possible. The lights don't turn off. Not in here.
But the cot was gone. So was Elias. The walls stretched out endlessly, shifting like fog. My breath came in quick gasps, but I couldn't hear them. Everything felt... muffled. Like I was screaming underwater.
And then I heard the voice.
Not the system voice. Not the calm synthetic female tone that welcomed me to my prison.
This one was male. Gravelly. Familiar.
"Jonah... you did this."
I spun, but there was no one there. Just the line again—the black one on the floor. Only now, it was red. Wet. Pulsing.
I backed away.
"You leaked the names. You wanted truth? You buried people with it."
No. No, I never named sources. I protected them. I—
Didn't I?
"You think you're the hero. But how many died because of what you wrote?"
A shape formed in the fog. Thin. Shaking. A man in a lab coat, eyes hollowed out, mouth barely able to speak.
"They found me because of you."
My heart was hammering now. I wanted to run, but my legs were stuck. Glued to the shifting, bleeding line beneath me.
"Please," I whispered, "I didn't know... I didn't mean—"
The man reached for me, fingers trembling, burnt along the knuckles. "You don't get to forget."
He lunged.
I screamed—and then I was back.
Back on the cot, drenched in sweat. Elias was snoring softly, turned toward the wall like nothing had happened.
But the floor was still wet.
Just a little.
Just enough to see it.
A red fingerprint beneath my foot.
And when I looked at the far wall, three words had been scratched in:
"DID YOU FORGET?"