The observation room had no corners that felt safe.
Its walls were the color of old paper. Not white—never clean enough to be honest. The light above hummed softly, steady and indifferent, as if it had been trained to witness things without remembering them.
A camera sat in the upper corner.
Black. Small. Unblinking.
It flashed a red dot once every three seconds.
A mechanical heartbeat.
Evan sat on the edge of the narrow bed, hands resting on his knees, spine straight in a way that hurt after a while.
Still.
Too still.
The guard outside the glass wall shifted his weight. The chair creaked. A phone buzzed faintly, muffled by a pocket. Someone laughed down the hallway and quickly stopped.
Evan did not react.
He counted the blinks.
One.
Two.
Three.
Red.
Again.
He tried lying down.
The mattress was thin, wrapped in plastic beneath the sheet, the kind that never quite warmed to skin. It sighed under him like something tired of being useful.
The ceiling above held a stain shaped vaguely like a wing or a wound. He couldn't decide which.
He closed his eyes.
The pressure was already there.
Not sharp.
Not heavy.
Just present.
Like a hand hovering an inch from the back of his neck.
Like breath that wasn't his.
His chest tightened.
He opened his eyes again.
Too soon for sleep.
His heartbeat sounded wrong—too loud, too close, as if it had moved up into his throat.
He pressed his palm against his sternum, grounding himself in bone.
Not yet, he thought.
The room was silent.
Not peaceful.
Vacant.
The kind of silence that felt borrowed.
The camera blinked.
Outside, somewhere far away, a train screamed along its tracks and vanished again into the city's throat.
Evan inhaled slowly.
Then—
Something shifted.
Not the light.
Not the sound.
The air.
A subtle change, like the moment before a storm admits it exists.
The pressure tightened.
Condensed.
Focused.
His breath caught halfway in, sharp and shallow.
"No," he whispered.
The word barely reached the walls.
His fingers curled into the fabric of his pants, knuckles whitening.
It wasn't strong.
Not yet.
It wasn't loud enough to be murder.
But it wasn't harmless.
It hovered in between.
Unfinished.
A thought learning how to become a decision.
Somewhere.
Anywhere.
He tried to trace it.
Directionless.
Blurry.
Like a shadow without a body.
Or a body without a name.
His stomach turned.
The camera blinked.
The guard chuckled softly at his phone, unaware that the air had changed shape.
Life continued in careless pieces.
Evan stood too quickly.
The pressure pulsed once.
A single, deliberate beat.
Like knuckles tapping glass from the other side.
He staggered back, shoulder brushing the wall.
Cold paint. Old disinfectant. A ghost of metal.
His reflection stared back at him from the darkened window.
Paler than it should be.
Eyes too large.
Face drawn tight over bones.
A stranger wearing his skin.
"You're early," he whispered.
The room did not answer.
But the feeling remained.
It settled into him the way cold settles into water.
Patient.
Quiet.
Certain it would be heard when it was ready.
Miles away, in another part of the city, someone stood at a sink.
Water ran too long.
Skin reddened.
Soap rinsed away nothing that mattered.
A mirror watched a face practice being ordinary.
Practice being kind.
Practice being invisible.
The smile came easily.
The camera blinked.
One.
Two.
Three.
Red.
Again.