Darkness isn't supposed to be loud.
This one is.
The lights don't just shut off. They drop like something grabbed them by the throat. One second there's sterile white and faces and rules on the wall, the next second there's nothing but breathing you can't control and the faintest scrape of wheels somewhere down the corridor.
Desto's first instinct is stupid.
Look.
His second instinct is smarter.
Don't move.
He keeps both hands pinned under his thighs. Nails biting into fabric. He forces his shoulders to stay down even as every muscle wants to spring up and run at the same time.
Tristo's knee stops bouncing completely.
Desto hears it—how Tristo holds his breath like he's trying to become invisible by accident.
Someone whispers, "What the fuck—"
A hand clamps over a mouth. A muffled whine follows.
The woman in the white coat's voice slices through the dark like a blade that knows where it's going.
"Silence order," she says. "Now."
Nobody answers. Nobody dares.
She doesn't repeat herself.
The barrier tape rustles. Not from air. From pressure. Like something on the other side leaned against it.
The sound of wet cloth comes again.
Slow.
Careful.
Like whoever's holding it enjoys the rhythm.
Desto's nose burns from the mist that was released earlier. That disinfectant cloud sits low in his throat like he swallowed clean poison. It makes him want to cough, and he clamps down on that urge hard enough his eyes water.
He won't give the dark a sound.
He thinks of his mother at the burn bin. How she scrubs until the skin on her knuckles splits. How she says nothing while she throws things away that somebody wanted to keep.
Dirty.
That word wasn't an insult.
It was a verdict.
A small light clicks on.
Not overhead.
A narrow beam—someone's handheld.
The Bureau man at the tape line. His flashlight points straight down, not forward, like he knows better than to give the corridor a target. The beam catches dust and hair clippings on the tile. Little black curls, blond strands, flakes of scalp. Clean becoming messy.
The man's voice is low. Controlled.
"Ma'am," he says. "We have contact."
The woman answers without moving her tone at all. "Keep the beam down. No faces."
"No faces," he repeats.
Desto swallows. His half-shaved scalp is suddenly the most vulnerable part of his body. He imagines that wet cloth touching skin. Wiping. Wiping until there's nothing left worth wiping.
He hates how his mind goes there.
Tristo leans in, close enough that Desto can feel his breath brush his ear. It's barely there.
"We should get up," Tristo whispers.
Desto doesn't move his head. "And do what?"
"Not sit here like—"
"Silence order," Desto whispers back, almost angry.
Tristo's mouth closes. Hard.
A few seats behind them, Draco lets out a tiny laugh.
Not loud.
Just one soft exhale of amusement like he can't help it.
Desto's spine tightens.
Draco mutters to himself, words swallowed, but Desto catches one piece anyway.
"Finally."
The flashlight beam flickers as the Bureau man shifts his stance.
The barrier tape trembles again.
Something slides under it.
Not a hand. Not a weapon.
A thin strip of cloth.
White.
Soaked.
It drags along the tile like a tongue tasting a room.
A cadet near the wall makes a strangled sound in his throat. He tries to swallow it down. It leaks anyway.
The cloth stops.
Like it heard him.
Desto's heart kicks.
The woman in the coat speaks again, voice still calm, but there's a different edge under it now.
"Eyes down," she says. "Do not track it. Do not follow it. Do not speak."
She pauses.
"If you can't control your body, bite your own hand. I don't care. Just don't feed it."
Feed it.
Desto doesn't know the full rules. He doesn't need to. The phrase alone makes his skin prickle.
The cloth slides forward again, inching along the tile. It reaches the edge of the tape line.
Then—slow as disrespect—it lifts.
Like someone kneeling on the other side raised it gently.
The Bureau man's flashlight catches the shadow of a cart wheel. Thin spokes. Rusted metal. It rolls half an inch forward.
The wet cloth drapes off the cart's side.
A soft hum starts. Low and polite. Like a lullaby that doesn't belong here.
The Bureau man's hand goes to the sealed case at his hip. He pops it open with one thumb.
There's a metallic click.
A smell hits the room—sharp, sterile, almost sweet—like hospital-grade cleaning solution.
The woman in the coat steps up beside him. Desto can't see her face, but he hears her gloves shift. Leather on leather.
"Prep the strip," she says.
"Strip ready."
Desto's eyes strain in the dark. He sees only shapes and shadows, the faint glow of the flashlight pointed down, the tape line like a boundary between "still normal" and "not."
The cart wheel rolls again.
A pale shape glides behind it.
Not walking.
Gliding.
A silhouette that's too straight, too tidy. Like a person wearing an apron, except aprons don't move like that.
The humming grows a little louder.
It's not a song Desto recognizes, but it sounds… familiar in the worst way.
Like something his mother might hum while scrubbing floors because she can't afford to think.
Tristo's hand finds Desto's wrist under the chairs. Grips tight.
Desto doesn't pull away.
He doesn't squeeze back either.
He just lets it be there, because it's quiet.
A cadet stands up.
Fast. Panicked. He's near the wall, freckles, shaking hands. The same kid who asked about losing a year.
"I can't—" he starts.
The woman in the coat snaps, "Sit."
He doesn't.
He stumbles toward the door behind them like there's an exit that wasn't blocked five seconds ago.
The hum stops.
Instant.
The room goes so silent Desto hears the kid's shoes squeak on tile.
The kid freezes mid-step.
Not because someone grabbed him.
Because he realizes he made himself the only moving thing in the room.
He whispers, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm—"
The pale figure behind the tape glides forward.
The cart wheel rolls right up to the barrier tape.
The cloth lifts again.
The Bureau man says, "Don't."
Not to the cadet.
To the thing.
The thing doesn't answer.
The wet cloth slips under the tape line and drags across the tile toward the kid's shoes.
Slow.
Deliberate.
The cadet's breathing turns ragged. He clamps both hands over his mouth too late.
The cloth reaches his shoe.
Touches it.
Just a tap.
Then it slides up his shin like it's checking for stains.
The kid jerks back with a muffled scream.
The woman in the coat moves.
Fast.
Not a sprint. A straight step forward with zero waste.
She flicks her wrist and a strip of something—black, matte, flexible—snaps out from the Bureau man's open case like a ribbon.
It hits the tile between the cloth and the cadet.
A faint crackle follows. Not electricity. More like pressure.
The cloth recoils.
The hum spikes, sharp for half a beat, like annoyance.
The woman's voice is still level, but it's colder now.
"Back," she says. "All of you. Stay seated. Don't look at it."
The cadet is still standing. Frozen, shaking, eyes wide.
The cloth twitches toward him again.
The black strip on the floor trembles like something invisible is pushing against it.
The woman in the coat steps between the cadet and the tape line without hesitation. She doesn't raise her voice. She doesn't threaten.
She just speaks like she's telling a dog to stop.
"Back," she repeats.
The pale figure pauses.
For a second, Desto thinks it listened.
Then the cart wheel rolls forward with a soft whisper.
The cloth slips around the black strip like water finding a gap.
The cadet's mouth opens, silent at first, then—
"Please—"
Desto's lungs tighten.
Promise-shaped.
The hum turns almost pleased.
The cloth lunges.
Not fast. Not violent.
Just inevitable.
It wraps around the cadet's wrist like a mother holding a child's hand.
The cadet's eyes go watery. He makes a sound like relief.
"It's okay," he whispers, voice shaking. "It's okay. I'm okay."
Desto's stomach twists.
Because the cadet believes it.
The cloth pulls.
The cadet takes one step toward the tape line.
Then another.
Like he forgot why he was scared.
The Bureau man's flashlight jerks, beam still pointed down, but Desto sees the pale hem of something—an apron edge, clean white fabric—gliding closer.
Tristo's fingers dig into Desto's wrist hard enough to hurt.
Desto doesn't even feel it. Not really.
His mind is on one thing.
That cloth is already on skin.
It's already "cleaning."
The cadet blinks.
Once.
Twice.
Then his face changes.
Not gore. Not blood.
Blankness.
Like someone turned the lights off behind his eyes too.
His mouth keeps moving though.
"Sorry," he says, soft. "Sorry. Sorry."
The woman in the coat swears under her breath, the first crack in her control.
"Fuck."
She lunges for the cadet's shoulder.
The cloth snaps up like it expected it.
It slaps across the woman's glove.
Wet.
A tiny smear.
The woman stiffens.
Not with fear.
With anger.
She jerks her hand back and rips the glove off in one motion like the glove is poison. She tosses it onto the tile without looking where it lands.
"Burn that," she says, voice cutting.
The Bureau man answers instantly. "Yes, ma'am."
The cadet takes another step.
He's at the tape line now.
The cloth tugs gently.
The tape lifts.
The cart wheel rolls.
The pale figure glides forward like a host welcoming a guest.
Desto's hands flex under his thighs. Instinct screams at him to get up, to grab the kid, to yank him back.
But the woman in the coat already made the room a rule.
Don't move. Don't look. Don't speak.
And still, the kid is being taken in plain sight.
Tristo's voice is a breath in the dark. "Desto…"
Desto doesn't answer.
Because if he speaks, his voice will shake.
And if his voice shakes, the room might remember it has a witness count.
The cadet crosses the tape line.
The pale figure's hand—too white, too neat—rests on the cadet's shoulder like a blessing.
The hum returns, softer now.
Satisfied.
The flashlight beam catches something for the briefest moment as the cart turns slightly.
A reflection.
Not a face.
A glimpse of the thing's chest.
Clean fabric.
A small stitched tag pinned like a name badge.
Only one word on it.
MAID
Desto's pulse stutters.
The woman in the coat sees it too.
Her head lifts just a fraction.
And somewhere in the dark corridor, beyond the tape, beyond the cart, a second set of wheels squeaks—closer than it should be—like another cart is already inside the building.