The routine had been broken.
Not the routine of feeding, cleaning, and simple passive exercises—those continued with clockwork precision. What was broken was the warped sense of stability that lay beneath it, the one that had once allowed Erika a fragile ability to predict and cope.
First, the light.
The flat ceiling panel that had once emitted a constant cold white glow began to show periodic, extremely subtle fluctuations in brightness. Not flickering—more like a slow, breathing modulation, shifting from full brightness to slightly dimmed and back again. There was no fixed rhythm. Sometimes the intervals felt long; sometimes they seemed short. Erika tried to count, but his weakened body and the complete absence of reference points thoroughly shattered his sense of time.
Then, the person.
During one of the "bright periods," the door opened—but the one who entered was no longer the sister with the standardized smile, the probing gaze, the one who pressed him about his dreams and spoke with unsettling certainty whenever she said, "The Merciful Father watches over us."
It was a different sister.
The same plain white habit. The same youth.But the feeling was entirely different.
Her movements were smoother, lighter. She pushed the metal trolley in almost complete silence. The way she arranged items and prepared the feeding was instinctively practiced, without a trace of excess or deliberation. Her voice was softer, more natural—not like reciting protocol, but like engaging in the most ordinary daily conversation:
"Time for your meal.""Careful—it's warm.""Would you like your position adjusted?"
What unsettled Erika the most was her gaze.
She did not pin him with her eyes like a searchlight, lingering to excavate every emotional fluctuation as her predecessor had. Most of the time, her eyes were lowered, focused on her work—checking the temperature of the water, adjusting the angle of the spoon, wiping a stray drop from his fingertip.
Only in seemingly incidental, utterly natural moments would she glance up. Her eyes appeared a shade lighter than the previous sister's—clear, calm, carrying professional concern but lacking that aggressive inquisitiveness. When their eyes met, she would offer a small, seemingly genuine smile, then look away and continue her task.
Her "mantra" had changed as well.
Gone was "The Merciful Father watches over us."In its place came something broader, more diffuse—almost gentler:
"The Merciful Father blesses us all."
She said it evenly, even with a trace of shared warmth, as though invoking a collective grace rather than emphasizing surveillance. She did not ask about his dreams. She did not attempt conversation. She simply spoke the phrase habitually, a parting blessing after completing her duties, as if it were the most natural farewell in the world.
Everything seemed more professional.More gentle.More… normal.
Normal enough to make Erika's skin crawl.
Would the Sanctum truly send a better jailer?A sister who no longer pressed about dreams, no longer emphasized being watched, who simply carried out her nursing duties in silence?
This did not align with his understanding of the Sanctum as cold, precise, and obsessively controlling.
What did this change mean?
A shift in strategy?Had they decided that his emotional withdrawal required a softer approach, something less confrontational, less likely to provoke resistance?
He did not dare dwell on it—but the seed of doubt had been planted.
The arrival of the new sister did nothing to change the presence of the wheelchair and the restraint suit. They remained in the corner of the room, motionless, under the alternating light—sometimes sharply visible, sometimes swallowed by shadow—like a steel beast lying in wait.
Erika's coping strategy was forced to adapt.
Outwardly, he maintained the same numb silence, responding to every word with nothing. Inwardly, the string inside him was pulled tighter than ever.
He began to observe with greater precision—every natural-looking movement,the vague pattern of the light's fluctuations,the faint, unfamiliar sounds that occasionally leaked in from beyond the door.
When the sister turned her back to organize the trolley, or lowered her head to focus on some minute task, he began to test himself again—slowly, weakly.
Not the Mark.Just his body.
Could his fingers curl a fraction more?Could his ankle rotate, even slightly?
The progress was negligible—but he was doing it.
"The Merciful Father blesses us all."
Once again, she said it with that mild smile and gently closed the door.
Silence reclaimed the room, leaving only the light, slowly and uncertainly brightening and dimming.
Erika's gaze drifted from the wheelchair in the corner to the tightly closed door.
Gentler control was often harder to escape than overt oppression.
Because he could not tell whether this gentleness was a numbing poison, or merely a false calm at the center of a storm. And either way, the moment of being lifted into the wheelchair, strapped into the restraint suit, and taken out for "air" felt inexorably closer.
He needed time.He needed information.He needed… a variable.
And in this pale prison—where day and night were indistinguishable and even the jailer could be quietly replaced—time, information, and variables were the rarest luxuries of all.
So he waited.In silent observation.In painstaking self-testing.
Waiting for the next change—whether salvation or catastrophe.
The change came quietly, and then all at once.
It began with something small.
"I'm hungry."
Once, those words had functioned like a crude but effective spell—interrupting the sister's rhythm, summoning food, granting him a fragile illusion of control.
Now, they no longer worked.
The new sister did not rise immediately. Nor did she show that relieved look of having received clear instruction. She merely lifted her lashes slightly, regarded him with those calm, pale eyes, and continued her task—adjusting the pillow behind his back, inspecting a nearly healed abrasion on his arm.
She would say, gently but without room for argument:
"Just a little longer. The medicine needs time to be absorbed."Or, "Soon. Let me finish this first."
And the food would come—when she decided it should.
The timing varied, dictated entirely by her rhythm. She still fed him by hand, her movements professional, gentle, impeccable. But Erika could feel it clearly now:
The agency had been taken from him completely.
He was nothing more than a container, periodically filled.
What truly chilled him, however, was the restraint suit.
The new sister seemed to take an unusual interest in it.
Between procedures, while waiting for medication to take effect, or during brief pauses, she would approach the corner where the wheelchair stood. Without touching the chair itself, she would carefully lift the gray-white restraint suit from the seat and fully unfold it.
Her movements were slow, almost reverent—as though presenting a ceremonial garment. The heavy fabric, the intricate metal fastenings, the reinforced straps were laid bare beneath the cold light. She smoothed wrinkles that did not exist, tested the flexibility of a buckle, her gaze focused, her lips holding a faint, unsettling calm—almost admiration.
She would leave it displayed for several minutes.
Then, with the same measured, exacting precision, she would fold it again along its original lines and return it to the seat.
Unfold.Display.Fold.Return.
She repeated the ritual several times a day.
No explanation.No words.
Just a routine—more terrifying than any spoken threat.
Each time she unfolded the suit, Erika felt an invisible hand close around his throat. The cold buckles and heavy fabric did not feel as though they would bind his body—they felt as though they were tightening around his soul.
The more natural and composed she appeared, the more crushing the pressure became.
This was no longer a distant possibility.
It was a confirmed future, approaching with certainty.
Unease spread through Erika like mold through dead soil. Outwardly, he remained numb and silent. Inwardly, every approach to the wheelchair tightened his muscles; every brush of her fingers against the straps sent his pulse racing; every completed fold screamed ready.
"The Merciful Father blesses us all."
She still said it before leaving, her smile soft and unremarkable.
But Erika no longer heard a blessing.
Food arrived on schedule. His body continued to "recover." The suit was unfolded and refolded day after day. Everything advanced steadily, coldly, toward a predetermined end.
Erika lay there, his gaze piercing past the sister's gentle silhouette, locked onto the wheelchair—and the neatly folded gray-white prison garment resting upon it.
He knew it now.
The day of "air" was drawing closer with every silent ritual.
And he—a prisoner who could not even choose when to be hungry—had to find, within this soft-spoken, tightening cage, a single crack before the suit was finally placed upon him.
Because what awaited him, if he failed, would be far more than physical restraint.
Only once did Erika realize something worse than the suit itself.
She was no longer preparing it for him.
She was making sure it was ready.