The walls are too white. They hum with sterile silence, the soundless drone of a place where people come to rot.

I sit in the chair, my legs dangling over the edge, too short to reach the floor. The air is cold, biting through the thin fabric of my hospital gown. My wrists itch where the cuffs used to sit, red rings etched into the skin like permanent reminders of who I am—or, who they think I am.

Across from me, Dr. Grey scribbles in his notebook. His movements are sharp, angular, as if each stroke of the pen carves something permanent into the paper. He doesn't look at me. He hasn't looked at me once since I was brought in. His pen scratches out a mechanical rhythm, jagged and rough, like he's being forced to write something too ugly for his flawless hands.

"Do you see them now, Harlan?" His voice is flat, devoid of anything human. It leaks into the room like an oil—slick, cold, and heavy, coating every surface.

"I don't—I don't see anything right now," I mutter. My voice is too small, too weak, like it doesn't belong to me. My hands twist in my lap, trying to find something to hold onto. "But I did. I swear. It was real—"

The pen stops.

Dr. Grey's head snaps up so fast it's like a marionette string yanked it into place. His gray eyes, dull and lifeless, lock onto mine with a precision that feels unnatural. There's no warmth there, no curiosity, just something clinical and cold. Like I'm not a person at all, just a thing to be studied.

"You swear?" His thin lips curl into something that isn't a smile but pretends to be. The room feels smaller suddenly, the air heavier. "And what is your word worth, Harlan?"

I shrink back into the chair, but it doesn't help. The chair feels like it's growing, the armrests curving inward, trapping me in. My nails dig into the metal as if I can anchor myself there.

"It's the truth," I whisper, but even I don't believe it anymore.

"Truth?" He says it like it's a disease. The word bounces off the walls, twisting and folding back on itself, growing louder with every echo. His pen shifts in his hand, the metal lengthening, darkening, until it's no longer a pen. It's a needle now, impossibly sharp and glinting under the harsh fluorescent light.

“You wouldn't know truth if it gutted you."

I try to move, to run, but I can't. My breath catches in my throat as Dr. Grey stands. No, not stands—rises. His frame stretches unnaturally, his shoulders broadening, his head brushing the ceiling. The shadows in the room shift, pulling at him, pooling around his feet like living things.

"You're sick, Harlan." His voice grows deeper, the edges jagged like broken glass. "Sick people don't get to decide what's real."

The needle gleams, and with every step he takes, the air grows colder, heavier, until it feels like it's pressing down on my chest.

"I'm not sick," I choke out, tears welling up in my dull eyes. "I'm not."

The walls crack.

The sound splits the air, sharp and wrong, like the very room is coming apart at the seams. I look around, panicked, as thin fractures spiderweb across the pristine white paint. Pieces of the wall splinter and crumble, revealing something darker underneath—black, empty, like the shadows are bleeding through.

Dr. Grey keeps moving forward, but he's not Dr. Grey anymore. His form twists and stretches, his features melting into an inky void. His sharp gray eyes burn brighter, white, like invisible ink. His grin widens, exposing rows of razor-sharp teeth that glint like shards of glass.

The cracks in the wall spread faster, tearing away the sterile white to expose something alive underneath. Blacklight glows from the void, pulsing and flickering in patterns that sear into my vision.

Zero.

The number burns itself into the walls, into my mind, its edges cutting through the air like a weapon. It's written everywhere I look, glowing in twisted, impossible patterns, its presence suffocating.

Dr. Grey—or whatever he's become—looms over me now, a towering shadow with glowing eyes and that needle still clutched in his hand.

"You'll die here, 187," the shadow hisses, referring to me by my patient ID, its voice a thousand voices layered on top of each other, each one colder than the last. "Unruly patients need stronger measures."

The walls buckle, the cracks widening into gaping voids, spilling blacklight so bright it burns. The needle in his hand is enormous now, a grotesque thing dripping with the same glowing ink that coats the number 0.

The room collapses around me, the chair beneath me vanishing as I'm dragged into the shadows. His face—no, its face—looms closer, and all I can see are the jagged edges of its grin and the pulsing number 0 reflected in its molten eyes.

The darkness swallows me whole, the number, the name, burning itself into my mind like a brand. Zero. Zero. Zero.

A sharp intake of breath. My eyes snap open, and I'm met with the dim, familiar glow of my bedroom. My heart pounds against my ribs, my chest heaving like I've just surfaced from drowning. Sweat clings to my skin, chilling me in the cool air, and for a moment, I can't tell where the nightmare ends and the real world begins.

"Harlan?"

The voice pulls me back, soft but urgent. Lacy is leaning over me, her hands on my shoulders, shaking me gently. The concern in her soft pink eyes is rare and disarming, cutting through the haze of panic still gripping me.

"You're okay," she says, but her voice is just unsteady enough to betray her worry. "It was just a dream, Harlan. You're okay."

I try to respond, but the words stick in my throat. My breathing is too fast, shallow and uneven, and my hands are trembling where they clutch at the sheets. Lacy notices, of course she does, and her expression softens.

"Hey," she says quietly, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I've got you."

She reaches for me, and I don't pull away. Her arms wrap around me, firm and steady, and I feel myself leaning into her without meaning to. I bury my face in her shoulder, squeezing my eyes shut as if that will block out the memory of Dr. Grey's grin, his voice, his needle.

It doesn't.

"Was it the asylum again?" she asks softly, her hand coming up to run through my hair. She knows. Of course, she knows.

I nod against her shoulder, unable to say it out loud. The asylum. Dr. Grey. Just one of many others—their voices, cold and clinical, still echoing in my mind.

Unruly patients need stronger measures.

I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, the words crawling under my skin. I hate them. I hate everything about them

—the way they made me feel small and broken, like I was just a case to be studied and discarded. Like I wasn't a person at all.

"It was Grey," I whisper finally, the words coming out hoarse and shaky.

"He's not here. You're not there. You're safe." Lacy pulls back just enough to look at me, her hands framing my face. Her gaze is steady, her voice firm. "He can't hurt you anymore, Harlan."

He can.

The memory of him can. The helplessness, the self doubt, the suffocating weight of being ignored and dismissed—it's still there, clinging to me like a second skin. And now, it's tangled with something else.

Zero.

The name pulses in my mind, an intrusive thought I can't shake. The glowing blacklight numbers on the wall, the jagged edges of the word—why did it feel like he was always waiting for me to see it?

"I'm fine," I finally sigh, pushing the words out like they don't stick to the back of my throat. I force a small smile for good measure—just enough to make it look real. Lacy stares at me for a moment, her expression unreadable, her hands in the pockets of her oversized hoodie.

"You sure?" she asks, her tone casual, almost indifferent. Almost.

"Yeah," I reply, shrugging like it's nothing. "I've had worse."

Her gaze lingers, sharp and searching, but she doesn't press. Lacy never does, not directly. She leans against the doorframe instead, crossing her arms, her eyes flicking down to the trembling fingers I've clenched in the blanket. I tuck them under the covers, my smile stiffening.

"If you're sure," she says finally, the words clipped, but there's a softness beneath them. She doesn't need to say more. She knows comfort helps, at least at first, but moving on with my day is the only cure for mornings like these.

I nod, the movement automatic, and watch as she straightens up.

"I've gotta go soon," she says, already shifting the subject. "You need anything?"

"Nothing," I reply a little too quickly. I need amnesia, that's what I need. She arches an eyebrow, but doesn't call me out.

"Alright," she says. She taps her knuckles lightly against the doorframe, a small, absent motion. "I'll call you later."

The silence creeps in immediately after she leaves, heavier than I expect. My smile slips away as I sink back into the bed, staring up at the ceiling like it holds answers I'll never get.

I hate this.

I hate the way my chest still feels too tight, like Dr. Grey's needle is still pressing just under my ribs. I hate the way his voice lingers, sharp and clinical, cutting me down to size even now.

"You're sick, Harlan. Sick people don't get to decide what's real."

My hands tighten around the blanket, and my wrists itch with the phantom pressure of cuffs that haven't been there in years. Red rings, raw and permanent in my memory. I rub at them absently, like that'll make the sensation go away. It doesn't.

Dr. Grey's face looms in my mind—sharp features, gray eyes that didn't see me, only what I represented. A case. A problem to be solved. He never looked at me like I was a person. None of them did.

I can still hear the cold steel of his voice, the way he spoke to me like I was stupid, like everything I said was a symptom he needed to document.

"Do you see them now, Harlan?"

His pen scratching against the paper, his notes full of the same dismissive detachment as his voice. I remember how he used to hover over me when I cried, his face unreadable as he muttered about my fighting back and how it would never solve anything. I never stopped, though. God knows what they would've done to me if I didn't resist every step of the way.

The only effective measure with me was electrocution, which they figured out eventually.

I swallow hard, my throat dry. I try to push the memories away, but they cling, dragging me back to every session, every test, every moment I sat in that chair with my legs too short to reach the floor.

Then... Carly.

My breath hitches at the thought of her. Carlotta Hayes, the one bright spot in that hellhole. She didn't look at me like I was a problem. She didn't talk to me like I was broken. She saw me. Really saw me.

I met her when I was ten, after I'd been there for years. She was the only person who ever believed me. She listened when no one else would. She fought for me when no one else cared. God knows how much worse my treatment there would've gotten without her.

I remember the first time she stopped Dr. Grey mid-sentence, cutting through his clinical nonsense with a sharp, "Maybe he's not the problem. Did you ever think of that?"

I didn't even know adults could talk to each other like that.

After that, everything shifted. Carly became my shield, my voice, my advocate. She stayed late when I was scared, brought me books when I had nothing else to do. She taught me that I could be more than the diagnosis they'd slapped on me.

I close my eyes, my chest tightening again, but this time it's different. The memories of Carly hurt, but in a way that feels less like drowning and more like... breathing, somehow. Like I survived, and she was the reason why. I sit up slowly, rubbing my hands over my face.

"You're fine," I tell myself, the words quiet but firm. "You're better."

I don't believe it. Not yet, but I pull myself out of bed anyway, forcing my legs to carry me toward the kitchen. I need coffee. I need to do something—anything—to keep myself from spiraling back into that chair, into that sterile, suffocating silence.

Dr. Grey's voice lingers in the back of my mind, but I push it down. Carly's voice rises instead, steady and sure.

"You're stronger than they think you are, Harlan. Don't let them take that from you."

I cling to that as I fill the coffee pot, as I go through the motions of starting my day. I might not feel fine, but I can act like I am.

It's all I can do.