A familiar scene. White room. Fluorescent lights. Souls lining up, holding queue cards, waiting to be called. The sign said what it always said.
WAITING TIME: UNKNOWN.
At the center desk sat a man like a permanent figure in the room. Like he had always been there. Like the room was built around him.
Cael.
His voice carried across the room. He was not shouting. He didn't need to.
He called a number. A woman stood. She looked at him the way they all looked at him — as if waiting for something. Some were excited. Some were afraid. Some cried. But they all expected something from him.
He already knew the routine. He had been doing this for a long time.
A file appeared on his desk. He opened it. Read it. Closed it.
He usually wore his bored, tired facade. This time it was gone.
He faced the woman.
"It is time."
She stood. In the notebook he always carried, he drew a line through her name. His pen moved the way it always moved.
Then he called her name. But something in his voice was different. Not flat. Careful. Like he was holding something fragile.
The guard at the gate — the one distributing the queue cards — glanced at him. Said nothing.
The queue continued. The line was endless. Another soul processed. Another name. Another careful line.
He didn't know how long he did this until a loud sound echoed through the room, signaling the end of the shift.
As Cael was about to stand, a document appeared on his desk.
His brow arched. He remembered the last time a document appeared like that. An anomaly case. Something almost like a smile at the corner of his lips.
He took the document and opened it.
Not a case file.
A single page. Clean. Almost empty. One sentence in the middle. A question.
WHERE DO YOU WANT TO BEGIN?
He read it. Then read it again.
He sat still. Not moving. Just — sitting with the words the way someone sits with something they don't yet know how to hold.
Want?
He remembered someone asking him that. A long time ago. If he wanted something for himself.
Then he moved. Calmly.
He picked up the worn notebook. The one with all the names. He turned past the pages of the collected. Past the careful lines drawn through each name. Past all the names that had been recorded.
Silence followed. Only the rustle of pages being turned.
Until he reached the last blank page.
He stared at it for a moment.
Then he wrote his name.
Not crossed out. No drawn lines. No case number.
Just his name. Written by his own hand on the blank page at the end of the book full of other people's names.
He picked up the pen.
END