Chapter Text
“Do you hate us, Emil?”
Sinclair drops his fork. It clangs against the porcelain and rings out a discordant note. “W-what?”
“Do you think we’re disgusting?” his mother asks. The blank face of her mechanical case is unmoving. An LED on her smooth temple begins blinking red; fans whirr in the computerized mockery of breath. Sinclair cannot tell what she is thinking. Sinclair can never tell what they are thinking anymore.
“N-no!” Sinclair exclaims. “No, I don’t—”
“Then why?” his father asks, sitting at the head of the table. The camera embedded in the smooth surface of his head clicks and whirrs, lens contracting in accusing focus. “Why did you kill us?”
“What?” Sinclair exclaims. “I didn't… I wouldn't. What are you—”
He looks down at himself. Instead of soft skin and flesh, all he sees is metal. His heart drops. In place of fingers he has talons, sharpened into serrated knives; his arms have been replaced with rusted poles, dented chrome in place of legs.
“What happened to me?” Sinclair demands. He tries to put his hand on the table—but his metal skin slices through it like it is not there. A gash rips through the polished wood, and he rips his hand back hurriedly.
“Isn't this what you wanted?” his sister asks. “The procedure of your dreams. We had it done while you were asleep. Don't you love it?”
“No!” Sinclair cries. “No, I—”
“You should be grateful,” his father says. An LED on his shoulder is flashing. “It’s the newest model.”
Sinclair means to protest, but his mouth no longer works. Instead, his body stands up on his own, entirely without his input. It is no longer his; it’s been rewritten into code and wire. Stop, Sinclair tells himself, but his body keeps going. It no longer listens to him.
He stops by his mother’s chair. “Do you hate me?” she asks, the flat surface of her face turned to him.
“No,” Sinclair gasps. He’s sobbing. He wants his body back. He wants his family back. He wants to see their faces, one more time—
Suddenly there is a nail and hammer in his hands, and he swings. Sinclair watches in powerless horror as it collides; his mother’s body crumbles under it. She topples backward, and Sinclair screams. He whirls around, looking for anyone, anything that can help him, but its no use. His father and sister are on the floor, staked through with nails, metal plating ripped open to reach the circuitry hidden in their exoskeletons.
“Emil,” his mother rasps, voice cutting out with static. Sinclair sobs. He kneels by her body, and she reaches out to him. “It’s all your fault.”
All his fault. All his fault. He did this to them. He killed them. It’s his fault—
Sinclair tries to gasp for air, but he can't breathe. His lungs have been replaced with metal. They're not his anymore. He fights and struggles to draw in air, but nothing works.
He can't breathe. He can't breathe. He’s drowning, he’s drowning, he’s drowning—
“E—mil,” his mother cracks out. “E…mil.”
She pulls him close, and tells him—
“For the One Who Grips will use her holy weapons to purify the land of sin. She will strike down the vicious heretics who seek to drive out the purity of humanity, and from her blessed Grip we will be remade in a new world of flesh—”
Sinclair wakes up screaming.
“—And all who deny her will be punished in a lake of fire. Those who have stood by her in her noble quest will be elevated to the rank of angels and experience the holy pleasures of flesh forevermore—”
Sinclair sobs, limbs flailing out in panic. He slips and falls, banging his knee against the corner. The shock jars him; he lays there gasping, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.
He’s in a small, windowless room, dimly lit by a single hanging lightbulb. Positioned on the roof is a single speaker, crackling out ominous passages, and in the corner is a dingy toilet and sink. And right next to him—
Sinclair gags. He claps his hand over his mouth and rushes over to the toilet, vomiting into it. His legs give out beneath him; he falls to the ground in a trembling heap, pressing his forehead to the cold metal of the toilet bowl. It couldn't be—surely not. Why, why, why—
“For anyone who commits the atrocious sin of replacing their blessed flesh with metal is a heretic of the highest degree; it is the holy mission of the One Who Grips and her noble servants to seek them out and purify them by force—”
Sinclair risks a glimpse behind him. Immediately, he gags again. Yes—there’s no mistaking it.
There, where he had been sleeping, were the bodies of his family. All three of them, lined up side by side, staked through with nails.
“Thy will be done. Amen.”
Sinclair spirals.
When Kromer comes, his face is wet with tears. Sometime after he’d woken, he’d found the strength to inch to the farthest corner away from the bodies; still, they are close enough that he is only two paces away. No matter where he stands, he can see them.
There is also the noise. It’s everywhere, so deafening he can barely hear himself think. It is a constant drone of heresy and purity and flesh.
That is how Kromer finds him; a miserable creature, crunched up as small as he can, covered in tears and breathing too fast. As the door opens, the speaker shuts off; the silence rings in his ears.
“Oh, Sinclair,” she croons, and Sinclair shrinks against the wall he is pressed to. In the silence, he can hear his heart pounding and the rush of blood in his ears. “You poor thing.”
Sinclair says nothing, mute with terror. He watches, wide-eyed, as Kromer slides the door shut and makes her way over to him.
“Are you going to kill me?” he manages.
Kromer laughs. She reaches out; Sinclair flinches. However, all she does is brush his hair out of his face. It’s more terrifying than if she struck him. “Of course not,” she says, playful like he’s being ridiculous. One finger taps his cheek. “We’re friends, aren't we?”
“W-what?”
Kromer’s hand retracts. Sinclair lets out the breath he’d been holding.
“I said, we’re friends. So I don't have any reason to kill you. Unless you think I do, that is.”
Sinclair makes a helpless whimper of fear; he cannot seem to speak. His throat has closed. Mutely, he shakes his head.
“Oh?”
“I—” Sinclair shakes his head again uselessly. He can’t breathe. No matter how much air he takes in, he can’t breathe. “Kromer—I just. Please. I—What do you want?”
Kromer laughs, delighted; Sinclair whimpers. “Alright, Sinclair,” she says, leaning closer. Her eyes are alight with good cheer, smile stretched too wide. “I’ll be blunt, then. I have an offer for you—one you won't get anywhere else.”
Sinclair waits with apprehension; all of his thoughts are drowned out by the anxious beat of his heart. Sweat drips from his palms; he clenches them nervously on the thin fabric of his shorts.
“Join me, Sinclair.”
A moment passes, then two. Sinclair gapes at Kromer.
“J-join you?”
“That’s right! See, I’m a member of N Corp, and a fairly high-ranking one, too. If you agree, you’ll have everything a wing has to offer. We can purify this world, side by side.”
“...What?”
Is this a trick? A practical joke? Some sort of cruel game, akin to a cat playing with its prey before it is inevitably put down?
“You heard me right,” Kromer says, as though pulling his doubts straight from his head. “It’s not a trick, either. There’s a job at N Corp, just for you.”
Sinclair has no response, no recourse; this is the last possible turn of events he could have expected. The whole situation is surreal, taken straight from a stress dream; it's as if he could reach out and pop the whole setting like a bubble.
“...But I’d have to kill people,” he responds, after a long pause.
Kromer smiles, a small, patronizing, and fond thing. “Those things aren't people,” she corrects, head tilting. “All we’re doing is culling filth.”
Filth. Filth. Culling filth. Tears spring to his eyes; Sinclair sniffles. “No,” he croaks. Y ou killed them, he thinks, can feel the words pressing in the back of his throat. But he does not dare to say it. Instead, he presses the back of his hand to his mouth, overcome with a surge of hysteria. What’s next? Will Kromer kill him for denying her? Will he be thrown out to the streets? Will she take him by force, instead?
But Kromer does none of those things. Her smile stays fixed in place, studying him like a pinned butterfly. “Hm,” she says. “Well, think about my offer. I’ll be back, Sinclair.”
When Kromer leaves she takes the silence with her. Soon after the door closes behind her, the speaker begins to blare. Sinclair flinches as it crackles to life—
“Flesh is our greatest gift and our greatest salvation. To cast it off is heresy like none other; to call it augmentation is mockery. There is nothing more holy, more pure, than the softness of humanity and its lifeblood.”
A newfound realization turns his stomach over; they are playing this for him as some form of brute-force indoctrination. Because Kromer wants him to join her. She wants him to kill—to cull filth, as she put it.
Sinclair’s gaze trails to the remains of his family; he snaps his eyes to the floor, clapping his hands over his ears. Everything; the cell, the audio, the bodies—is it all for that? Maybe more than just those. Maybe his whole family, each tin-shelled life— filth, she called them—had all been slaughtered for this—
To break Sinclair completely, and turn him into a murderer.
Sinclair retches. He stumbles to the toilet bowl and heaves. His reflection stares back at him, eyes wide, mouth gasping.
Why? Why? Of all people, why him? For all Kromer had talked, she hadn’t answered the one, most pressing question. And Sinclair had been too scared to ask. He’s a useless, spineless creature of a boy. He’s never held a weapon in his life, much less used one.
The cell and the endless audio feed provide him no answers. As the hours pass, he wrenches himself into a ball and squeezes his eyes shut. He can’t bear to look at them. How could he dare to?
Left alone, a single grim thought fills his mind:
He is going to die.
It’s certain now. He’s entirely at Kromer’s mercy, nothing more than a plaything for her. She’s going to break him, perhaps for nothing more than her own sick sense of satisfaction, and when it becomes clear that Sinclair has nothing more to offer her, she’ll stake him through like the rest of his family. Isn’t that why he’s here? To be tormented? To dance for her amusement? Why else would she offer a position by her side to the spineless, worthless boy who folded to everything?
The time passes in dread; certainty solidifies in the pit of his stomach. Left with the cell, and the bodies, there is nothing for him to do but wait for Kromer.
“So, did you think about my offer?”
Kromer’s entrance, marked by the abrupt end of the audio, snaps Sinclair immediately to awareness. His head shoots up, legs uncurling under him as if to run. One hand braces in front of him as a flimsy shield, every muscle locked tight.
There is silence; Sinclair tries for several moments to coax his throat into working. “N-no,” he croaks finally. “I-I can’t. I won't be any use to you. Kromer, please. Just…”
“Oh, that's where you’re wrong,” Kromer sings, pacing over to crouch in front of him. Sinclair flinches away. “I think you have potential, Sinclair. Don’t sell yourself short; you might be surprised by what you can achieve.”
Sinclair shakes his head frantically. “T-there’s no way,” he stammers. “It can't be true. Kromer, j-just look at me. I’m pathetic.”
Kromer eyes him up and down, smile sharp and faintly patronizing. “I don't think you understand,” she says, resting her chin on one hand. “It’s not about physical ability. It’s about the depths… hah, the purity of your faith. Your belief. If you have that, everything else will follow.”
“I don’t,” Sinclair bursts out. “I don't—I don't think that way—”
“But you do,” Kromer says, eyes wide and innocent, “You told me yourself. You agreed. You said they were filthy.”
“That—” Sinclair shrinks down. “I don't want to hurt anyone. Kromer—” Here Sinclair darts forward in an aborted motion, gripped with a prey-animal’s desperation. “—You can’t really think that people with prosthetics deserve to die. They’re still living beings, r-right? Y-you’re not the type of person who likes hurting others—”
Kromer, who was his friend and used to listen to his worries. Kromer, who sat two seats behind him in class for months. Kromer, who attended his school and wore the same uniform and complained over homework—
“You’re wrong, Sinclair.” She smiles, killing all of Sinclair’s fleeting hopes. “There’s nothing more beautiful than pain, and the joy of inflicting it on others. And heretics… have forsaken humanity so deeply that their very existence is insulting. Killing them is doing the world a service… it’s purification. Holy.”
Sinclair goes cold, hearing Kromer’s voice distantly behind the roar of his heart in his ears. His mouth moves without thinking. “Then, my family—”
“Oh, them?” Kromer laughs, her voice light and airy as tinkling bells. “I did you a favor. They were revolting. I did the world a favor, really, by striking down those pathetic wastes of human life—”
A sudden burst of rage pierces him through; Sinclair’s mouth snaps shut.
He’s going to die. He’s always going to die. But his life will be worth something if he takes out this bitch along with him.
Sinclair lunges.
Kromer’s face flashes open with delight. She pivots too slow; he connects solidly with her midsection and sends them both tumbling down. Vision red, he grabs her arm and yanks; something cracks. Kromer shrieks in pain and laughter. The sound sends his thoughts whirling with rage.
“Fuck,” Sinclair snarls; he does not recognize his own voice. “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up—”
“Sinclair,” Kromer purrs. Something collides with his ankle; he tumbles. Kromer rolls him, slamming him to the ground. In a single, smooth motion she’s on top of him, straddling his midsection and pinning him. Sinclair howls, kicking out blindly. His teeth and snails snap at empty air—he just needs something, he just needs one more wound on her, one more scratch, one more pound of suffering to drag her down with him—
“How cute,” Kromer croons; one knee digs painfully into his stomach. There is a flash of steel; her sword lays across his neck. Sinclair goes suddenly, abruptly still. Fear returns to him, pinpoint to the cold steel touching his lifeblood. Kromer giggles. “Hah, that was so unlike you, Sinclair! You’re so—”
Kromer cuts herself off; her sword bites into his flesh. Kromer watches it with a cold and besotted fascination. She looks manic. She looks fucking insane; teeth glinting, eyes open wide, all ecstasy and violence.
Sinclair doesn't even notice her move. The sword stays aloft at his throat; Kromer’s eyes scan over him, greedily, lovingly, and then blinding pain shoots through his arm.
Sinclair screams. He thrashes, trying to fold in on himself, trying to get away, but Kromer holds him fast.
“Pain looks so good on you,” Kromer croons; a hand ghosts over his face, wiping hair off his sweaty forehead. “Hah… Sinclair, you’re delicious. Aah—”
Sinclair becomes suddenly aware of a repetitive movement rocking him back and forth. He gasps on a sob, cracking an eye open to look up at Kromer.
The sword has been discarded; instead, her hand is braced on his shoulder, while her other arm is bent at an odd angle. And she’s—
A sudden, cold fear sweeps over him, entirely different from the kind where his life was at swordpoint. Sinclair retches miserably. “Kromer,” he hiccups. “Kromer—”
She kisses him.
Sinclair yelps; she swallows the protest whole, teeth grazing his lower lip. Her tongue shoves into his mouth. With one blindingly fast motion, she restrains his flailing limbs, wrapping him up in her hold.
Kromer kisses like she is trying to consume. It is like being eaten alive. Sinclair gags, revulsion rolling through him; she moans in pleasure, smiling into his sobs. And all throughout, Kromer grinds against him, chasing arousal from his pain.
Then, as quickly as it began, it stops. Kromer draws back, smile stretched wide with manic energy. Her eyes, lit with the same passion she had just devoured him with, drink in his features with rabid hunger.
Sinclair has never felt more like prey. He is frozen, struck dumb with terror, heart pounding in his ears.
Whatever Kromer sees in his expression makes her light up with ecstasy. She regards him with the besotted adoration of a child with their favorite doll, laying her head sideways on his chest.
“I hate you,” Sinclair rasps. “I hate you. I hate you—”
“Of course,” Kromer breathes. She giggles. “Let me fill your thoughts, in entirety. Everything and anything.”
“I hate you,” Sinclair gasps. “You killed them.”
Kromer’s smile widens, stretching cheek to cheek. “Oh, Sinclair. Is that really what you think? You poor thing.” She leans in close, flashing the sharp points of her canines. “ It was you that killed them.”
“Shut up,” Sinclair snaps. “I’m not the one that staked them through—”
“Sinclair,” Kromer laughs. “We both know it doesn't matter. It might have been me that killed them, but you’re the one that made it happen.”
Sinclair freezes. “No,” he rasps. “I—”
“You know it’s true,” Kromer purrs, drawing closer to croon in his ear. “You’re the one who agreed to our deal. You’re the one who let me in.”
“Stop talking,” Sinclair whispers, squeezing his eyes shut. “Please, please—”
“It was thanks to you that we knew where to strike. To cut the head off the filthy snake leading this town to heresy. You told me yourself and led me straight to the most vile sinners in this place,” Kromer whispers, breath hot on his ear. She giggles, low under her breath. “And you even gave me a tour. Sinclair, don’t you see? It’s all your fault. They’re dead because of you.”
“That’s not true,” Sinclair says weakly. “It’s not—”
“You’re cursed,” Kromer coos. “You’re a mistake of a person that killed everyone you loved. There’s no place left for people like you. No one will take a child that killed his own kin.”
Sinclair says nothing, and Kromer smiles, small and self-satisfied.
“But you're lucky,” she murmurs, running her thumb over his bottom lip. “You have me. I’ll keep your secret, as long as you’re mine. Because we’re the same, Sinclair.”
At that, Sinclair looks away. Kromer grabs his chin and forces it to face her, nose-to-nose.
“Look at me,” she commands, voice soft. Her grip is tight on his chin. “Join me, Sinclair. There is no one that knows you, inside and out, like I do. I can make your pain go away. I can make it good for you.”
Sinclair’s breath hitches. Kromer bears down on him, eyes glittering. She is the snake in the garden, the temptress here to lead him to sin. It would be easy; so easy, to give in. Maybe then, everything would end.
“Kromer,” Sinclair murmurs, regarding her through blurry vision; he reaches forward, finding the curve of her cheek. She’s pleased, expectant, waiting; he can see it writ on her face.
Sinclair lunges. His teeth meet flesh. The tang of blood hits his tongue, sweeter than ambrosia.
Kromer yanks on his injured arm; Sinclair screams. He goes sprawling across the floor at her feet.
“Oh,” Kromer says, sounding disappointed. Sinclair struggles to look up at her. She’s gotten to her feet to loom over him, larger than life itself.
“I hope you die,” Sinclair gurgles, locking eyes with her. “I hope you suffer. I’ll die before I help you.”
Kromer clicks her tongue. “Well, Sinclair,” she says. “I was hoping it wouldn’t have to end like this. But, I only have so much time to spend on people who won’t listen.”
Sinclair squeezes his eyes shut, bracing for the bite of steel through his neck.
But it doesn’t come. Kromer’s footsteps crunch through the cell, heading away from him. There is the creak of the door opening.
“Goodbye, Sinclair,” Kromer says. The door swings shut.
Kromer doesn't come back.
After she leaves, Sinclair drags himself over to the wall to nurse his arm. It’s bent at an odd angle, swollen and ugly. It’s definitely broken. Fuck, Kromer broke his arm. He barely knows anything about first aid—from what little he can remember, broken bones need to be splinted? Or realigned, so they don’t heal wrong?
He doesn't know the first thing about doing that.
Sinclair sniffles, blinking through tears. He moves to cradle his arm, sobbing when the jolt sends pain shooting through him. He screws his eyes shut, curling in on himself, and manages a restless sleep.
In his dreams Kromer stands over him, twisting his injured arm back and forth as she chants passages of flesh and heresy. When he wakes his arm is no better, but there is a tray of unappetizing gruel pushed through the slot. Sinclair doesn’t move to collect it.
Nothing changes. The corpses do not move and do not rot, gaping at Sinclair in accusing silence. The speaker continues to crackle an inescapable drone of passages. More food is pushed through the slot. Sinclair finds the strength to stumble over and choke it down, only to spend the next couple hours hunched miserably over the toilet. He drifts; his thoughts slip away from him.
“For pain and death and grief are fundamental and beautiful tenants of humanity; to suffer is to live. To bleed is to be made holy. It is the highest virtue to be made miserable before the One Who Grips. And he who denies that humanity and seeks to flee from it denies himself. Such heretics must be slain for the sin of trying to deny their nature.”
Isn’t it true? Aren't they right? Prosthetics are disgusting. How could they replace parts of themself? How could they do that to him? He didn't want it. They would have stolen his body and replaced it with something fake. He doesn't want it, he wants to eat and cry and sleep—
“The arrogance of those who think themselves above flesh is the greatest insult to the glory of humanity. There is no greater crime. Their sins must be purified in order to rewrite the land into one of perfect humanity.”
Kromer. Kromer. Kromer said she would save him. Kromer killed them all. Kromer broke his arm and left him here and kissed him while she got off to his cries of pain. Kromer said she would make it good for him. Kromer— the One Who Grips—
If only they didn't do that to themselves she wouldn't have had to kill them for their crimes against humanity she wouldn't have had to save him from having his pieces replaced one by one she wouldn't have done this to him—
Sinclair wakes up.
What was that?
He stares, wide-eyed and ragged, around him. His eye catches on another tray, and he flinches.
It’s drugged.
Fear rushes through him all at once. His mind is not his own. Wild, he whips around, scanning the room. It’s the food. It must be the food. But what if it's something else? The water? Some new technology that can brainwash through sound? The air itself?
Sinclair stumbles over and dumps the gruel into the toilet. He flushes, once, then twice, then again. Then, he shoves two fingers down his throat and retches. Nothing comes up; he tries again. His bad arm catches against the floor, and he howls.
Is he going to starve? He has a broken arm. His body needs nutrients to heal. He’ll starve, unless Kromer comes back for him. Unless he, driven mad with hunger, tears off his broken arm and cannibalizes his own flesh. His eyes dart, unbidden, to the corpses of his family. There is no flesh left there, except one organ, locked in their head plates—
Sinclair heaves up empty air.
He’s going insane, and he doesn't even need the drugged food for it.
Sinclair loses track of the time he spends waiting.
A list of his thoughts, in no particular order:
Is she really going to leave him here until he agrees? That’s never going to work. He’s not going to start killing people next to his family’s murderers, no matter how long they keep him here—
Kromer’s going to leave him here. She’s given up on him. He’s going to rot here forever next to his family’s corpses listening to the mantras of their murderers. She is never coming back.
He should look at them. It’s only right that he should bear witness to their ruin. It’s only right that it should hurt.
…He’s hungry.
Why did he do that? He pissed her off. It’s his fault. He shouldn't have attacked her. It’s no wonder she left.
She’s right. It’s all his fault. It’s all his fault. He’s sorry. He’s sorry. He’s sorry. He killed them—
One of these days, he’s going to tear apart his fingers, piece by piece, until he’s consumed his hands entirely.
Did she forget him?
It’s all her fucking fault. It’s all her fucking fault. How dare she blame him? Like Sinclair was the one that took apart their fucking face plates and smashed them to bits until she could dig out their soft brain matter. Like Sinclair was the one that left them scattered across the floor. That bitch, that fucking rat, that—
If she came back, he would lick her boots and beg. He would crawl on his stomach and kiss her robes. Please, please, take him away from here. Don’t make him live another day like this—
Was he really just muttering along to the passages? Did he really start to remember the words?
If he looks at just the faces, maybe pieces together the fragmented bits of metal, his family would look just the same as they did when they were alive. Isn’t that funny? Would it be love, if he took the time to painstakingly stitch them back together?
He’s going to kill her. He’s going to fucking kill her, even if he dies for it. He’ll tear out her goddamn throat with his teeth. He’ll tear apart her stomach and glut himself on her frail intestines. He’ll kill her, he’ll kill her, he’ll kill her—
It hurts. It hurts. It fucking hurts. It’s getting worse with each passing hour and he’d do anything to make it stop. He’d grovel on the floor for her.
Is he ever going to see the sky again?
This room is a grave. The entire Sinclair family is laid to rest here. All of them, him included, will rot here.
…He misses her.
They should be laid to rest. They should get to be at peace. They deserve to be buried, not crumpled here.
She said N corp. That means recordings are taboo. Is this noise… all someone reading the passages, in real time? It can't be a recording. She must be coming back, then. If someone is still chanting her passages to him, she must still want him—
Did she really forget him? Is she ever coming back?
The trays are stacking up. Surely she won't leave them all here? Surely she wants them back. Doesn't this mean she’ll come back, eventually, if only when the trays are stacked up to the ceiling?
It’s so fucking obvious what she’s trying to do. It’s so transparent what she wants from this. Does she really think just leaving him here with her passages and her corpses will work? He knows what she’s doing and it won't fucking work on him—
Please leave me alone. I’m sorry, Mama, Papa, Sis, I’m sorry—I’m sorry, I never meant for this to happen—
He hopes she never comes back.
It’s working on him. He’d do anything to leave.
She’s going to kill him. He’s going to die here. When she comes back for him it will be to tear apart the soft skin of his throat and drain him dry. She will lay him down like a lover when she crucifies him and puts her teeth to the wound.
I’ll kill her. I swear. I’ll do it for you. I’ll make sure it hurts.
…Isn’t it true that prosthetics are disgusting? If it was flesh in here instead there would be something soft for him to hold to his face. If it was flesh, he could curl up against them and find comfort from the give of their bodies.
He’s filthy. She kissed him, rutted against his stomach like a dog, and he let her. He needs to peel off his skin. He needs to burn it all.
Why did he say that? Why did he let her have the key? Should he have known, the first day when she smiled too wide and too greedy? When she said she would free him from the procedure, he should have known.
Did Demian know?
Did anyone?
It wouldn't have been that bad, to be made of metal. His family all got it, and they were fine. He would have been stronger. He wouldn't be as easy to maul. He could have killed her easier.
Someone is watching him. There are eyes on the other side of that vent cover, he knows it. Even if cameras are taboo, someone is watching him and whispering his secrets to her—
How could she do that? She used to steal half his lunch and laugh, bright and unrestrained. When he protested she would give him half of hers, grin wide like everything is easy. And he believed her. Was that real? Did she ever care for him at all?
Is anything real? Is there anything outside of this room at all? Maybe a monster passed through and killed them all, and only Sinclair is left hallucinating meals from moss.
Why me? Why me? Why me?
I hope she kills me.
I’m going insane.
And, perhaps not last but the most important:
Sinclair can’t flee. He can’t fight. He’s never going to escape on his own. But Kromer wants him; Kromer is trying to tempt him, to coax him, to manipulate him to lay himself at her feet.
But he can do that too. He can trick her back. All he needs to do—
Sinclair needs to walk into the lion’s den and bare his neck. He needs to let the monster put him in a collar and leash. To do this, he needs to pretend.
He must pretend to drink in her words and fall at her feet. He must pretend to be won over. Only then will he be given the chance to strike back. The game is convincing her before she breaks him.
Remember, Sinclair; everything she says is a lie. Every word is poison. Before everything, he must remember: he cannot, under any circumstance, listen to her.
And then, after countless days and hours that Sinclair cannot keep track of, the door creaks open again.
Kromer comes back.