Subject ID: 47B
Cycle Unknown – Post-Simulation Isolation
It takes time to come back.
Not from sleep. Sleep is a luxury. Sleep implies rest.
No, what it takes time to come back from is the simulation. Because it doesn't leave you the way it found you. It stretches your soul thin, like wet paper, and when they pull you out, you're not sure which pieces are still yours.
Elias sits on the edge of the cot, fingers pressed to his temple like he could squeeze the memory out if he applied just enough pressure.
Caleb.
That name shouldn't mean anything. He's sure it didn't, once.
But when he saw it—childish scrawl in crayon—it felt like a blow to the ribs.
He hadn't thought about a kid in years. Never wanted one. Never trusted himself to protect something small, fragile. The world doesn't let men like him hold on to things like that. The only thing you get to keep in prison is your silence—and even that gets stolen eventually.
But now?
Now he sees the kid when he closes his eyes. Blonde hair, lopsided grin, laughing in the back of a truck while Elias ties down crates. A memory that never happened, but feels more real than the cell he's sitting in.
He's not sure what scares him more—that CONCORDIA put it there… or that it might've always been there, buried under years of rust and rage.
There's a noise from the wall. Not loud. Just... persistent.
Scratching.
Elias stands. Crosses the room. Presses his ear to the plaster.
"Jonah?" he says, low.
No answer. Just that slow, methodical scrape. Like someone's carving a message—one letter at a time.
He knocks twice.
The scratching stops.
Then, faintly:
"She was real, Elias. I can still feel her hand in mine."
Elias closes his eyes. Tries to tune it out. But his own voice won't shut up either.
Because he remembers a hand, too. Smaller. Warm. Tugging at his fingers in a supermarket aisle.
"Daddy, can I get the blue cereal?"
He gasps. Sits down hard on the cot.
That never happened.
That never happened.
Right?
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