The predawn sky bled hues of violent plum and bruised violet across the horizon, as if a celestial artist had spilled their palette across a canvas of dark marble.
Inside the sterile, hushed Interrogation Room 7, Jean stood before Merrin, the man Ogdi had somehow "folded" from the very fabric of spacetime. Merrin's posture was unnervingly still. He didn't sit like a detainee; he sat like an object that had been placed there. His gaze was fixed on a distant, unseen point, as if watching a ghostly sunset unfold within the confines of his mind.
His hands lay flat on the polished table, open and unresisting. They were pale, the fingertips slightly translucent, a stark contrast to the churning anxiety in Jean's own chest.
The silence in the room began to thrum, amplifying the frantic beat of Jean's heart. Then, Merrin's eyes slowly turned to meet his.
Jean stopped breathing for a second.
Merrin's eyes were no longer human. They were pools of liquid silver—shifting, swirling mercury that seemed to reflect the dim overhead lights with an independent, impossible luminosity. They were the eyes of someone who had looked into a void that wasn't empty.
"Can you understand me?" Jean's voice was a practiced calm, a thin veneer over the profound questions swirling within him.
Merrin responded with a precise, almost mechanical nod. It was a subtle dip of his chin that spoke of efficiency rather than emotion.
"Are you hurt?" Jean pressed, his pen hovering over his notepad.
A long, drawn-out silence followed, punctuated only by the soft hum of the ventilation system. Merrin's lips parted.
"Not in ways that matter."
His voice was a whisper of dry leaves scraping against stone. Jean's pen scratched the reply onto the page, a faint tremor in his hand. The ambiguity of the statement sent a chill down his spine.
"What's your name?"
The man with the silver eyes blinked—a slow, viscous movement.
"Merrin."
Jean leaned in, his gaze unwavering, attempting to pierce the veil of Merrin's unnerving composure. "Where were you before Ogdi retrieved you? He said he put you in a 'pocket.' What did you see?"
Merrin's silver eyes swirled faster. A spasm of genuine, primal terror cracked his mask for a fraction of a second.
"Between time. In the folds," Merrin whispered, his voice trembling. "It wasn't empty. There are... shadows in there. They toyed with the seams of my mind. Placed there by necessity, not permission."
The words hung in the air, cold and sharp. Jean felt an involuntary shiver race down his spine. He froze, the implications of Merrin's statement crashing over him. Ogdi hadn't just put this man in a box; he had put him in a tank with sharks he didn't even know were swimming there.
"So Ogdi… prevented something," Jean murmured, the pieces beginning to click into place with a horrifying precision.
Merrin nodded, a more pronounced movement this time. "Yes. I was prepared to trigger triangulation via a call. My position would have amplified the blast field exponentially. He saw it. Stopped it."
Jean's pen paused mid-air. Ogdi, with his enigmatic warnings and his strange, temporal abilities, had intervened on a scale Jean was only just beginning to comprehend.
"Were you alone in this plan?" Jean asked, his voice barely a whisper, the weight of the potential catastrophe pressing down on him.
"Never." The single word was delivered with an unnerving finality.
"How many?"
"Eleven," Merrin recited, like a machine reading code. "Nine are still unmarked. Two wait in places where light doesn't normally reach."
A profound shiver traced Jean's spine, colder than any winter wind. He realized he was standing on the edge of a conspiracy that rotted the very foundation of the precinct.
He opened his mouth to ask the next logical question. It was the most important one. The one that connected the dots.
What was the purpose of this attack? Who ordered it?
He formed the words in his mind. He opened his mouth to speak them.
And then, they were gone.
It wasn't that he forgot the words; it was that the concept itself evaporated. It was like reaching for a step on a staircase and finding only air. His brain stalled, wheels spinning in a void. He frowned, blinking rapidly, trying to claw back the thought, but it was wiped clean.
What was I...
The frustration washed over him, followed immediately by a terrifying realization. Ogdi's warning echoed in his skull: "You'll forget the most important question."
And he had. The hole in his mind was smooth, surgical, and terrifying.
Jean stared at Merrin, breathless. He realized then that he wasn't the interrogator. He was just another piece on the board.
"Can I trust what you're saying?" Jean asked weakly, pivoting to the only question he had left.
Merrin leaned forward, a subtle shift in his otherwise rigid posture. The liquid silver of his eyes seemed to boil.
"You can trust who placed me here. That is not the same thing."
The cryptic response was a final, chilling note. Jean slowly closed the folder, a silent acceptance of the unfathomable depths of this unfolding conspiracy. He knew, with a certainty that settled deep in his bones, that the names, the crucial identifiers of the remaining eleven, would surface later—but the reason for the attack was a forbidden knowledge he was not allowed to hold.
He rose from the table, the scrape of the chair a harsh sound in the quiet room. Merrin remained motionless, a statue carved from an alien quiet.
Outside, the mirror feed on the wall flickered—a sudden, jarring disruption of the continuous loop of empty corridor. Static hissed, then cleared.
Someone was interfering. Or perhaps, reality was just bending around the boy in the other room.
"We've altered course tonight. I hope the map redraws itself quickly," Jean murmured to himself.
...
2:09 a.m. — Calmarith Precinct, West Hall
Jean moved purposefully down the hallway. Merrin's words—"Eleven. Nine are unmarked"—replayed in his mind like a corrupted audio file.
He arrived at the debrief room. The door was ajar, the light inside softly pulsing. Three agents, including Halvors, the person he trusted the most , waited inside.
"Halvors," Jean said, stepping in. "We experienced interference on the mirror feed. Is Ogdi manipulating the environment?"
Jean hesitated for a microsecond. He thought of the silver eyes. He thought of the hole in his own memory.
"No," Jean lied. His voice was steady. "The feed glitched but stabilized. We're currently reviewing standard anomalies. Electrical surges."
Halvors narrowed his eyes. "What about the folded man Ogdi retrieved? The terrorist?"
Jean placed the file on the table, nudging it aside slightly so the label was obscured.
"No threats detected. He appears to be a victim—caught in the blast radius, confused. Ogdi helped him."
Another lie. A dangerous one. But Jean knew that if he told the truth—that Ogdi pulled a man out of a pocket dimension full of monsters—the Director would descend on the boy like a hawk.
"What's your personal assessment?"
Jean's gaze drifted to a blinking panel on the wall. He recalled Ogdi's voice, the stillness in his own chest.
"Ogdi remains contained. If there's more, we'll know soon."
The agents nodded, seemingly satisfied. Jean returned the nod, turned on his heel, and departed.
...
2:15 a.m. — Upper Precinct Stairwell
Jean leaned against the railing, finally allowing his fingers to tremble. The adrenaline was crashing, leaving him cold.
He pulled out his personal analog recorder. He pressed the button, the magnetic tape hissing softly.
"Entry. Subject Merrin. Origin unknown. Claimed triangulation role in recent blast. Carried emblem. Silver eyes—magical alteration suspected. Implanted truth signals. Eleven total. Nine undetected."
He paused, staring at the concrete steps.
"Attempted to query motive. Failed. Memory excision confirmed. No last question remembered."
He switched the recorder off and shoved it deep into his coat.
...
2:30 a.m. — Transfer Bay, Containment Vehicle
Ogdi sat in silence as the armored transport vehicle began to move toward Phase Room 4. The officers around him were quiet, unnerved by his serenity. He wasn't handcuffed. He didn't need to be.
At the outer checkpoint, the vehicle slowed to a halt. A cluster of dark sedans blocked the path.
A woman in a tailored black suit approached the transport. She moved with the fluid authority of someone who didn't ask for permission. She flashed a badge that didn't have a police insignia, but the Royal Crest.
"Open it," she commanded.
The driver rolled down the window. "We are under transport protocol—"
"Override," she said, handing him a tablet. "By direct order from Prime Minister Eloi Raventhir, the subject is to be released into Executive Privilege immediately."
The officers froze. "Executive Privilege? Under what charge?"
"None," the woman replied, her voice crisp. "The Prime Minister considers Mr. Num's intervention a matter of National Security. His detainment protocols are revoked. He is now a protected asset of the State."
The back doors clicked and swung open.
Ogdi rose and exited the vehicle. The cool night air hit him. His coat shimmered once in the fading light, the dust of the explosion finally falling away.
A second car—a sleek, black armored sedan—waited nearby. Its rear door opened.
Ogdi stepped closer.
Inside sat Eloi Raventhir.
The Prime Minister looked tired. The lines on his face were deep, etched by years of navigating a cesspool of corruption. But his eyes were sharp—predatory and calculating. There was gratitude there, yes, for the save at the plaza. But beneath the gratitude lay a hunger. He didn't just see a savior; he saw a weapon.
Ogdi met his gaze. He didn't bow. He didn't speak.
He entered the car.
The door closed with a heavy, final thud, sealing them in silence. The vehicle pulled away, disappearing into the dark veins of the city, carrying the boy who could rewrite reality and the man who wanted to rewrite the kingdom.