Justin POV:
I don't remember turning the ignition again.
Don't remember pulling out of that lot.
Maybe I didn't.
Maybe the car never moved and it's me spinning—spiraling in a cage of my own making.
The voices were louder now. Not whispering anymore. They screamed like a riot in a closed room. Different ones, all overlapping, all alive.
Do you remember, Justin?
Do you remember the chair?
The needles?
The voice behind the glass?
I gasped as my mind cracked open like a fault line and the past poured in.
White lights.
Cold steel.
The smell of antiseptic and blood and burnt skin.
I was fifteen again, strapped down to a table, wrists blistering beneath the buckled leather. My mouth was gagged this time—I'd bitten through my tongue during the last session. I could still taste the copper.
One of the man in a lab coat voice echoed behind glass. Smooth. Clinical. God-like.
"Subject is resisting. Apply stimulation protocol seven."
The electrodes came alive.
