The forest swallowed them whole.
The trees rose like dark pillars, their branches bending toward one another until even the sky seemed locked outside. The path was a ribbon of mud and dead leaves, and the man who dragged Clara forward walked as if he'd done it a thousand times before: calm, mechanical, sure. His breath didn't falter once.
Through a tangle of thorns, the house appeared: a collapsing farmhouse, half-buried in moss. The roof sagged. The windows were boarded shut. The door was swollen with moisture and covered in scratches.
On the threshold, a child's shoe lay on its side, filled with dirt.
Clara stumbled over a root; his hand yanked her up roughly.
"Here," he said, the word flat, final.
He kicked the door open. The smell hit her like a wave: wet wood, smoke, old rot. Inside, the air was colder.
The main room was little more than a square box. A crooked table burned with cigarette marks. A rusted stove. A single cot with a grey blanket.
The walls, swollen with humidity, were carved with hundreds of tiny notches, groups of five, like scratches left by someone counting the days.
On the floor, under the window, a dark stain spread outward like an old lake, long evaporated.
He closed the door behind them.
"Welcome home."
The word home struck like a splinter.
Clara's skull throbbed where he'd hit her. She sat carefully on the edge of the cot. And tried again, Adrian.
The connection flickered faintly, distant, a whisper behind a locked door. Every time she reached for it, pain flared at the base of her neck.
He watched her without expression. There was no triumph in his eyes, only a hard concentration, ritualistic, almost sacred.
"This is where you learn silence," he said. "This is where breathing becomes a privilege."
He went to the table, touched the black circles left by cigarettes, then picked up a small box of matches. He lit one. The flame trembled, burned bright, then died.
"The first sound I remember," he murmured, "is that one. Fsst. The second was the belt. The third, crying when you're not allowed to."
Clara kept her voice steady. "You weren't the one who needed to learn silence. He was."
He scratched another mark into the wall with the tip of his knife.
"Each line is a day I stayed invisible. You know what happens when you get too good at disappearing?"
He looked over his shoulder. "People forget you were ever real. So you make them remember. You break things."
Clara didn't flinch. Her tone was soft, the way one speaks to a wounded animal.
"Can I come in?" she asked, not into the room, but into his mind.
His jaw tightened. "Don't touch."
But she didn't push. She opened a tiny window in her own head, a breath-wide space, and listened.
The world shifted. Not outside, inside.
She stood in a hallway with peeling wallpaper, no light, only a hum in the air.
At the end, a kitchen door stood half open.
A boy in pajamas stood on a chair, trying to reach a jar on the top shelf.
From somewhere behind him came a man's voice: What are you doing?
The jar fell. Glass shattered. The boy froze.
Your fault.
Clara pressed her palm to the wall inside the vision. "It's not your fault," she whispered.
The boy couldn't see her. His eyes darted toward the doorway.
The air changed.
The shadow of a man filled the room, a belt hanging from his hand.
The hiss through the air came first. Then the light.
Clara raised her arms. "Breathe with me. One. Two. One. Two."
For a second, the sound faded. The light dimmed.
In the real world, the killer shuddered, bent slightly, his hand going to his head.
"Stop," he hissed. "Stop crawling inside."
"I'm not crawling," Clara said. "I'm breathing. With you."
He looked up, eyes trembling between rage and something else.
"You sound like him," he spat. "Rinaldi. He promised silence. Said he could switch off the noise. Then he filled me with wires."
His hand shook. "He called me a success."
The name hit Clara like a current.
She saw it, brief flashes, white rooms, restraints, the same humming neon above.
The same voice saying: We listen here.
"You were one of his experiments," she said softly. "But you survived. That means you can…"
"End it?" he interrupted, laughing a dry, metallic laugh. "You can't end what never ends. I am the ending."
The knife on the table rattled.
Clara reached again for Adrian, a thread through darkness. If you can hear me… please.
A faint echo answered, his heartbeat, maybe. Enough.
She stepped closer. "You were taught that every sound was an accusation. But there are sounds that don't hurt. Like breathing."
For a heartbeat, his expression shifted.
Then it hardened again.
"You're lying. You want my pain for yourself. To fix me. To make yourself feel pure."
"No," she said. "I want to leave something you can keep."
He froze. Then, suddenly, stiffened, his eyes darting as though he'd heard a thought that didn't belong to him.
"Where did you go just now?" he whispered. "Who were you thinking of?"
She didn't answer. She didn't have to. He could feel it.
"Ah," he said, and smiled, a twisted, broken thing. "So that's how you love him."
"Yes," Clara said simply. "That's how."
He stepped closer, one slow movement at a time, until his breath brushed her face.
His hand shot out, seizing her wrists, lifting her off the cot and throwing her down onto it. The frame screeched.
He leaned over her. The smell of smoke and iron clung to his clothes.
"I'll fix that for you," he said coldly. "When he comes, and he will come to save you, he won't find you. He'll find something broken, something that can't stand to be touched."
His fingers traced her side, not tenderly, but like a craftsman measuring what he planned to destroy.
"That way he'll finally understand what it means to suffer," he whispered. "The way I did."
Clara's fear surged, but her will rose higher.
"I have a name," she said quietly. "It's Clara. I am not your silence."
Something flickered in his gaze. For a second he looked like he might remember.
Then the moment died.
"I'm going to show him pain," he said. "Through you."
She closed her eyes. Adrian, she thought, if you can hear me, hold the door. I'm coming back.
He stiffened as if struck by lightning.
"Stop calling him," he growled. "Stop using his name!"
"I can't," she breathed. "It's my language."
He yanked her upright, slammed her against the wall.
"Then you'll speak mine," he whispered. "The one that ends things."
Outside, a faint noise, a creak of wood, a step on the porch.
He froze, muscles locked.
Clara met his eyes. "There's another sound," she said softly. "It doesn't hurt."
He stared at her. "There are no new sounds here. Only the old ones."
She relaxed her hands against the iron. "I'm not here to take your breath. I'm here to teach you another."
For the briefest instant, something human flickered across his face, something like surrender.
Then it vanished.
"Don't teach," he murmured. "Be silent."
He raised his hand as if to strike her.
The sound outside came again, closer now. A breath. Not wind. Not ghost. A presence.
Clara's eyes filled with light. Hope moved through her like air.
Adrian. If you see me, come through the reflection.
The man gripped her arms harder.
"Here, we speak my language," he said. "And mine ends things."
She held his gaze. "Then listen. Mine begins them."
Another sound, barely audible.
A breath, shared.
He tensed. The world held its breath with him. And in the silence between that inhale and the next, the light flickered once, and went out.