He didn't hear the door open.
Just the clink of keys, a creak of hinges, and then… light. Pale and foreign, bleeding across the floor like something that didn't belong here.
The figure stood in the doorway. Civilian clothes. Neat. Unthreatening.
"Mr. Keane," the man said softly. "I'm not here to change your mind."
Daniel didn't answer.
The man stepped inside, careful not to crowd the space. He carried no clipboard. No Bible. Just a quiet presence and a name tag that read: Chaplain Rourke.
"They send me to speak to the volunteers. Some think it's pointless. I've come to agree."
Daniel blinked. His eyes were dry from the dark.
"You're not the first man to come here looking for peace through punishment," Rourke continued. "But you are the first who hasn't asked me a single thing about God."
"God didn't put me here," Daniel said, voice low. "I did."
Rourke nodded. "That's something, at least."
He didn't sit. Didn't try to.
"I've seen three kinds of men in this place," he said. "The ones who want forgiveness but don't want to change. The ones who want to be seen suffering. And the rare few who know they were wrong—and choose to disappear."
Daniel looked up.
"I don't want to be seen."
"That's obvious."
A moment passed. Wind moaned somewhere outside the thick stone.
"But there's a fourth kind too," Rourke said, voice barely a whisper now. "The ones who believe that suffering is the only way to deserve life again. That it has to cost blood to be real."
Daniel's jaw tightened.
Rourke stepped back toward the door. "Those men usually don't survive long in here."
A silence.
And then Daniel spoke.
"Then I'll be the first."
The door clicked shut behind the chaplain, and the dark returned. Colder, somehow.
But Daniel didn't move.
Not even to blink.