The light hummed like something dying.
A single flickering neon hung crooked above her, pulsing weakly, drowning the room in sickly flashes of white and shadow.
Each tremor of light carved the world into fragments: metal, stains, shadows.
The air stank of rust, gasoline, and damp earth. It was heavy, wet, alive.
Clara woke with a violent pulse behind her eyes. Her head throbbed where he had hit her.
The concrete floor was cold beneath her palms, her breath uneven, the taste of blood thick on her tongue.
She tried to sit up. The world spun, then steadied. Around her, the space was small: a garage, maybe, or a basement.
Cement floor, mold spreading along the walls like veins.
A broken pipe dripped water in steady rhythm.
Somewhere, a refrigerator buzzed faintly, out of tune.
On a worktable by the wall lay an array of objects: knives, tape, pliers. But what made her stomach twist wasn't the steel, it was the glass jar filled with strands of hair. Blonde, black, brown.
The flickering light made them shimmer like drowned threads.
Photographs covered the wall above the table. Smiling faces, women of different ages, printed poorly, cut unevenly.
Some had their eyes scratched out, others their mouths slashed with a black marker.
A few had thick black crosses drawn over them.
Her chest tightened. The dripping sound grew louder. Tic. Tic. Tic.
Then… A voice. Soft. Male. Close.
"You're awake."
He stood by the wall, head tilted, hands hanging loose at his sides. In the dim light, his face kept changing, one blink he looked almost human, the next a hollow shell.
His eyes glistened, black and endless.
Clara swallowed.
She reached for the familiar warmth inside her, the link. Adrian.
Nothing.
Just a faint echo, distant, like a whisper behind a locked door. Each time she tried to reach him, pain flared at the base of her skull.
"Do you want to scream, doctor?" the killer asked calmly. "It won't help. No one hears me here. No one ever has."
He walked toward the table, fingers grazing the blade of a knife, then pulled back as if the touch burned him.
"You know what he said to me? The man from your clinic." His voice cracked with something like laughter. "Rinaldi. He said, we listen here."
A smirk.
"Lies. They only listen to what's useful. I wasn't useful."
Clara's voice trembled, but she forced it steady. "You were," she said softly. "You still are."
A twitch. His expression curdled into disgust.
"Don't use those words on me. Don't lie. You people… you learn pity the way you learn grammar. You speak it, but you don't mean it."
He stepped closer. The smell of oil and metal clung to him.
"You know what my father said when I cried?" His tone dropped lower, almost a whisper. "He said breathing was a privilege. You breathe because I allow it."
A bitter laugh. "And when I didn't deserve it, he took it away. With his hands. That's how you stop breath, it's easy."
The walls seemed to move inward.
Clara stared back at him.
"What did they make you believe?" she asked quietly.
He blinked.
"When you're a child," he said, "you learn to disappear. The plate breaks, it's your fault. The dog runs away, it's your fault. Every sound, every crack, every scream… your fault. So you get small. You crawl into silence. But silence doesn't want you. It spits you out."
He took a shuddering breath. "And one day, you understand. If you can't disappear, they will. Then finally… they listen. Everyone listens. On the news. In the sirens. In whispers."
He looked at her.
"Now they all listen."
Clara felt the sting of tears, but blinked them away. "I'm listening," she said. "Right now."
He smiled. It was a cruel, twisted thing.
"No. You're fixing. That's what you do. You mend broken things. But I'm not broken, doctor. I'm the noise between the cracks. The part you can't fix."
The light flickered, and for a heartbeat, Clara saw something else: a corridor, white walls, the number 3B, and the shadow of Adrian reflected in the glass.
Her heart clenched. She reached for him through the fog of pain.
But the moment she tried to open her mind, the killer's voice tore through her head, full of static: It's your fault. It's your fault. It's your fault.
"Stop it," he hissed. His hands clutched his temples. "Stop trying to crawl in. You've got dirty hands. They all do. You take and take and call it help."
Clara raised her palms.
"I'm trying to breathe with you. That's all. Let me help you leave this place. The neon, the noise, the jar… I can take you somewhere quieter."
He tilted his head again, smiling, and the smile was terrible.
"You sound just like him," he said. "Rinaldi."
His tone trembled. "He promised me silence. Said he could turn off the voices. Then he cut them open and filled them with wires."
He lifted his hand. It shook.
"He made me his experiment. And when I stopped screaming… he called me a success."
The name sent a sharp pain through Clara's head. Her breath caught. So it was true, he had been one of Rinaldi's patients.
She saw it all in flashes: the room, the straps, the white light on a child's face. The same flickering bulb above her now.
The same voice saying we listen here.
She took a step forward, softly.
"I know what he did to you. He did it to others too. But we can end it. We can…"
"End it?" He barked out a laugh that sounded like breaking glass. "You can't end something that never ends. I am the end."
The knife on the table trembled as his hand brushed past it.
Clara felt the link to Adrian flicker again, weak, faint, but there.
Adrian, please… I can't hold him much longer…
The pain shot through her spine. No answer.
Still, she tried. She reached again, not with force, but with breath.
She found herself in a corridor that wasn't real.
Wallpaper peeled from the walls. A television buzzed white noise. A child sat on the floor, scratching a word into the linoleum with a fork.
I will be quiet.
Clara knelt beside him, even though she knew he couldn't see her.
"You don't have to write it," she whispered. "I'll give it to you."
A door slammed open. A tall man filled the hallway, a belt in his hand, the buckle gleaming.
The sound came first, the sharp hiss through air, then the light, bright as pain.
Clara lifted her arms.
"Look at me," she said to the boy. "Breathe with me. One, two. One, two."
The boy hesitated. Then, trembling, he did.
The sound faded, just slightly. The light dimmed.
In the real world, the killer staggered backward, gripping his head.
"Stop… stop it!" he shouted. His voice cracked in two.
"You can stop," Clara said gently. "You don't have to be what he made you. Just breathe."
For a second, just a second, his face changed. Something fragile passed across it, like a child blinking in sunlight.
Then rage tore it apart.
His hand shot forward, hitting her in the stomach. The air left her lungs.
Another blow: sharp, controlled, deliberate.
She fell to her knees, gasping, eyes swimming with light.
"Don't touch my soul with your clean hands," he snarled. "You don't heal. You invade."
She tasted iron. Still, she whispered, "Please…"
"Shut up."
He grabbed her by the hair, jerking her head back until she saw the ceiling spin.
"You're not here to talk. You're here to end."
The world tilted. Her thoughts blurred.
She thought of 3B. Of the glass. Of Adrian's eyes the first time she saw him.
Of recognition: real, pure, terrifying.
"Don't do this," she breathed. "Not like this."
He hesitated for a moment. Then spat.
"Stop telling me who I am."
He let go. She fell sideways. The next thing she felt was a blow to the back of her skull, sharp, blinding.
Light exploded. Then darkness. When the neon blinked back to life, everything slowed.
The killer bent down, grabbed her by the arms, and began to drag her across the floor.
Her heels scraped against the concrete.
The sound was small, pitiful.
Through the haze, she saw something, a metallic reflection on the half-open door.
A shimmer.
Two eyes, impossibly blue, watching her.
A hallucination, maybe. But it was enough.
If you see me, I see you, she thought.
If I lose you, I'll find you.
The door opened. Cold air swept in. He pulled her outside.
Behind them, the neon gave one last flicker and went out.
For the first time since she woke up, Clara wasn't afraid anymore.