Yuri sat on the bed, leaning against the frame, staring up at the white ceiling.
The door stood wide open now.For the first time since he woke here… he was free to walk out.
Yet he didn't move.
He found a strange, twisted comfort in the plain white room that had kept him prisoner. The same walls that suffocated him… now felt like the only thing keeping him from falling apart.
The throbbing pain in his head was gone at last—something he believed he longed for desperately.
But the silence that followed was a thousand times worse.
It was the quiet of a sinking ship.The quiet of an empty chest.The quiet of a man who didn't know who he was.
A firm voice snapped him back.
"Yuri Saint."
He turned his head toward the doorway.She was there.Anisa.Standing with her usual unshakable posture—arms at her sides, eyes sharp enough to pierce bone. She stepped into the room slowly, deliberately, and sat opposite him on the bed.
"How are you feeling? Have there been any peculiar changes?" she asked.
Her voice was steady. Too steady.Not a hint of concern in her eyes—only observation, calculation, study.
Yuri hesitated.Looking down at his feet, blank expression, chest hollow.
He gave a small shake of his head.
"No."
Anisa studied him longer than she needed to—gaze unreadable.
"Something bothering you?" she asked. The tone was slightly curious… but clearly strategic. She wasn't comforting him. She was wondering if he was becoming unstable.
Yuri opened his mouth—stopped.Forced down the lump in his throat, attempted to breathe.
"YURI SAINT—"
His sudden tone made Anisa blink—just once, barely—but it was enough to show she hadn't expected it.
"Excuse me?"
"You keep calling me that… that name…"He clenched his jaw."It provokes something in me. Something I can't understand."
Confusion bent his voice—then instantly, violently, snapped into rage.
"I hate it. I hate it so deeply."
Anisa stared.Her posture didn't change, but something sharpened behind her eyes.Interest. Real interest. He had finally said something she didn't expect.
"I see."She rose to her feet slowly."I will make sure to report on that—"
A pause.
She looked down.
Yuri had grabbed her hand.Not tightly.Not forcefully.But desperately.
"What do you think you're—"
"Please…"He cut her off."Just stay. Just for a while. Please."
The words escaped him like a dying breath.
Without hesitation… Anisa pulled her hand away.Not violently—But with a cold, surgical disgust.
Her gaze shifted downward—A look that froze Yuri's blood in place.
Disgust.Anger.Something dark.
Yuri's eyes widened.His heart dropped into his stomach so fast he felt sick.
"I'm… sorry…"
She didn't answer.
She turned her back and walked out the door.
Yuri didn't follow.Couldn't.
His entire body trembled.A sharp, radiating pain exploded in his chest—not physical, not something he could fight. Something deeper. Something he didn't even have the language for.
His breath grew shallow—fast—uneven.His fingers shook uncontrollably.
Panic.But no tears.Even though he needed them, even though something inside him begged to break—he didn't know how.
He lifted his trembling hands to his face and held them there, trying to steady a heart that refused to obey him.
But what Yuri didn't know—What he couldn't know—Was what happened on the other side of the doorway.
Pressed against the wall… stood Anisa.
Fist clenched.Shoulders rigid.
Her breath shaking in quiet waves she couldn't control.
She slid down the wall slowly, knees folding beneath her, one hand clasped over her mouth in a desperate attempt to suffocate the sound—
But it was useless.
Her body trembled.Her composure shattered.
And behind the wall, hidden from the boy who didn't know his own name—
Anisa began to cry.