When Felix opens his eyes, he's back in the cell.

For a moment, it almost feels normal. A long instant where his mind lets go of everything else, where nothing exists but that sense of familiarity. This is his place. Everything is normal. So why does he feel as if something in him is irreparably broken?

He sits up, his back straight. He blinks slowly, trying to quickly adjust to the blinding white light of the fluorescent lamps hanging from the ceiling. When his vision sharpens, he realizes the cell is empty.

The bed, the bedside table, the sheets, the pillow, the blankets—gone.

All that’s left are the walls, the ceiling, the floor.

Felix’s eyes linger on a dark stain against the asphalt.
Someone cleaned up the blood, but it seeped too deep to be completely erased.

The memories return all at once.
Like a crashing wave, animalistic and devastating, they sweep through everything, leaving destruction in their wake. And then Felix remembers.

He remembers killing a man.

He remembers plunging the bone into his neck.

He remembers hearing the man groan, watching the light in his eyes fade.

He remembers the weight of the body.

He remembers the warmth of the blood on him.

He remembers staring at the spreading stain.

He remembers waiting until the gurgling breaths ceased entirely.

He remembers climbing toward freedom.

He remembers the iron door.

He remembers the strange monitoring room.

Atonement.

He remembers the long hallway lined with countless identical doors, like the one that had hidden his cell.

Other prisoners, like him?

He remembers the elevator.

He remembers the night sky, the glass window separating him from the outside world.

He remembers the guard.

He remembers running.

He remembers the electric shock that paralyzed him.

And then the needle piercing his skin.

“I’m sorry,” the guard had said.

It was the last thing he heard before darkness swallowed him whole.

Suddenly feverish, Felix begins to tremble so hard his teeth chatter. He presses himself against the rough wall, squeezing his eyes shut as tightly as he can, as if trying to banish those images, to banish everything, to retreat back into that empty void where there was no cell, no captivity, no horrors endured within those walls.

But it’s not enough.
Closing his eyes isn’t enough.

The panic attack steals his breath. It truly feels like he’s losing his mind, trapped not only in this cage but also in his own body—his bones, his skin. Everything is a prison. His nails dig into his forearms, scratching as the panic drags Felix into an endless abyss. His mind is gripped by overwhelming fear. He’ll never get out of here. Never. No matter what he’s willing to sacrifice or risk, it will never be enough.

And then he thinks:

I should have used that bone to kill myself.

He feels tears filling his eyes, but it isn’t sadness; it’s frustration, rage. Felix regrets wasting that unrepeatable opportunity. He should have driven that bone into his own neck and let the blood choke him. His hands claw through his hair, pulling as he grits his teeth, his head pounding so fiercely it feels like he’s losing his sanity completely.

If I had killed myself, I’d be free.
If I had killed myself, I wouldn’t still be in this cursed cell.

He tries to regulate his breathing, to tame his panic, to pack those thoughts away into a box, one by one, rationally. He inhales and exhales, his fingers releasing their grip on his hair and falling limply to the ground. The metal of his shackles strikes the floor, the sound echoing in the empty room, a spectral presence.

He’s back in the cell.
That’s a fact.

He’s alive.
That’s another fact.

Ivan is dead.
He’s certain of it. Ivan won’t return.

But someone else will.

That thought makes his eyes snap open. Or perhaps it’s the sound of the key turning in the iron door, timed so perfectly it feels almost orchestrated. Whoever imprisoned him is spying on him, watching, studying him, but Felix is sure they can’t yet read his mind. Meanwhile, the key clicks in the lock, and the terror he had just managed to subdue resurfaces. It’s not a wild terror; it’s a calculated one. He knows for certain Ivan won’t descend those stairs, but who will? Perhaps someone even worse. There’s no limit to how bad things can get—that, Felix has learned in this cell.

He lowers his head, his hair falling messily over his face. He looks at his arms: red marks from his scratches trail over his pale skin, his nails are chipped and jagged, his wrist bones jut out, as do his knees. He’s thin, weak, worn down by prolonged captivity. His mind teeters between clarity and suicidal madness. He knows he won’t last much longer.

The footsteps stop. He raises his face to meet the gaze of his jailer.

Hyunjin.

Felix lunges toward the bars. His fingers grip the thick metal, and he realizes he’s crying only when he feels the warmth of tears streaming down his face. He wants to say a torrent of things—mostly insults—but no words come out.

Hyunjin looks down at him. His jaw is slightly clenched; if he had been furious, that anger vanishes as soon as he takes in Felix’s state. Hyunjin kneels, his long legs folding, his fingers resting on Felix’s. Felix sobs. It’s the first gentle touch he’s felt in weeks. He thought he would never see him again—and God, how ironic that is. Once, he would have wished to never see him again, and now he’s grateful he’s here. That he’s back.

“Hyunjin…”

Hyunjin says nothing. He withdraws his hand, taking a trembling breath. He’s nervous, visibly so. He’s holding back, only because he can’t afford to have a harsh reaction with Felix in this state—Felix understands that, and it unsettles him.

“You’ve made a mess,” Hyunjin hisses. “A mess too big to fix.”

“That bastard—”

“You killed him,” Hyunjin cuts him off, bluntly. “You killed someone.”

“He wanted to rape me!” Felix shouts the words with more fury than he intended. The anger he’s kept burning inside him explodes all at once. “He tortured me, humiliated me, beat me! He deserved to die, deserved to rot like a dog! He got the end he deserved!”

“Yes!” Hyunjin snaps, and he seems less inclined to stay calm now, too. “Of course, Ivan was a piece of shit, and Christ, I’m glad he’s dead. I’m glad, and I don’t give a damn—this world has one less parasite to worry about. We’re on the same page about that. But this isn’t about Ivan. This is about you!”

Felix stares at Hyunjin, his wide eyes roaming over his face, his figure. He doesn’t understand what he means until Hyunjin speaks again: “Don’t you get it? The fact that you killed someone—your jailer—makes things more complicated. For you. Far more complicated. Beyond what I can do to help you.”

Felix’s hands, still clutching the bars, slide down slightly. “Help me?”

“It won’t be easy,” Hyunjin hisses. He reaches through the bars, catching Felix’s chin in his hand and touching him lightly. Felix flinches at the contact—his first instinct is to pull back, almost as if he expects to be struck. Yet the touch is gentle, and Felix doesn’t fear it. Their eyes meet, and Felix wishes he could read Hyunjin’s thoughts, to understand what’s behind his gaze, but he can’t. He’s incapable. “The days ahead will be hard. Felix—I won’t ever be able to talk to you like this again. Never again. But I need you to keep trusting me. Do you understand?”

Felix’s eyes widen further, his confusion deepening. “What do you mean by…?”

“Don’t ask questions; I can’t answer them. I wish I could. I can’t. You just have to—you just have to trust me. Can you do that?”

No.

Yes.

Felix doesn’t even know if he can trust this man. He doesn’t know if he should. But he nods. Hyunjin is the only person here he can cling to right now to stay alive. Whether he’ll be someone who keeps him afloat or drags him down like an anchor, Felix has no idea. He only knows he needs him. He’s too fragile and weak to stand on his own two feet now. He needs Hyunjin.

Hyunjin exhales deeply. He releases Felix’s chin and rises. “I’ll say it one more time. I’ll never be able to talk to you like this again. So you need to remember what I said today. It’s going to be tough. Incredibly tough. But you can’t fall apart. You can’t do anything reckless. No matter what happens. You can’t.”

Felix feels cold seep into him, heavy and suffocating, like oil coating a gull’s wings. “For God’s sake… Just tell me. Will it be worse than Ivan?”

Hyunjin clenches his jaw for a moment. Then he lowers his eyelids until his eyes close. “Yes,” he says.

And it’s as if a chasm opens at the bottom of the cell, swallowing Felix whole.

“I’m sorry.”