“Maybe they’re planning to kill me. Plotting another betrayal. But I don’t care anymore. I won’t play their game again.”Jerome slowly tugged at the yarn, unraveling the tight knitting in silence until every strand lay loose on his lap.“Shall I let you live?”Looking up, Jerome’s face was uncharacteristically serious. “I could help you run away—to somewhere we’d never find you. How about China? No, you don’t speak Chinese. India, then?”“Why are you saying that?” I asked.“Because I like you. I don’t want you to die.”I said nothing. Jerome remained silent for a moment, then suddenly broke into a broad smile.“No—that won’t do. If I let you go, Acacia will skin me alive.”He swept the loose yarn from his knees onto the floor. “I’ll go fetch Acacia.”Jerome leapt up and stalked out of the cabin. I still had no idea what he was really thinking or what he truly wanted, just as I never had before. There were so many things I didn’t know—why it had to be me, what those boys had wanted from me. I would never have the chance to learn.Jerome said he would kill me “soon,” as repayment for my attempt to burn him. He scooped up the yarn and began winding it back into a skein. His hands did not tremble; neither did his heart. He was perfectly calm and composed, as always.I needed to know nothing else. Everything was ending now. I would die—and that alone was enough.Late that afternoon, Jerome had left the cabin—and by evening, he still hadn’t returned. I wandered the cement-floored interior alone. Though I believed death was imminent, I felt neither tension nor fear. Facing a near-death situation was familiar to me; years of serving on Afghanistan and Iraq’s front lines had numbed me to the feeling of death.Looking back, I’d never developed PTSD, even after years in combat and mustering out. A roommate in the veterans’ hospital had lost two toes to a bullet and trembled at the sound of a toilet lid, mistaking it for gunfire. I was different: no event on the battlefield frightened me as much as Bluebell’s grim dormitory. On the front, I had comrades I could trust at arm’s length; on my own body were the shells and grenades of war. Each night I’d slept on my rifle stock. There was no reason to fear—at least compared to lying naked in a barn after being gang-raped in the dark. Before even arriving at the battlefield, I’d been powerless, abused, and threatened so constantly that it became my baseline tension.Thus, I felt no fear now. The air I breathed was the same—Bluebell’s chilling air that erased one’s personhood, summoning utter despair. Unlike summer in Rabbahm, where the sun scorches and humidity stifles, I felt no heat. I felt only that cold, dormitory chill.As dusk fell, the cabin grew dim. Though electric lights were available, I left them off. I sat atop a stack of paint cans by the window and stared out. Insects chirped softly. Not a mosquito stirred in that summer night.I lost track of time after Jerome left; there was no clock. The life of measuring hours felt as distant as some forgotten past.Then I heard footsteps at a distance—grass crunching, a twig snapping, voices murmuring. I recognized them immediately: Acacia’s voice, so distinctive one couldn’t mistake it. The other voice was fainter… Jerome’s, surely.I waited as their steps grew closer; the voices faded, replaced by the crunch of gravel outside and footsteps inside. They had returned.I sat with my back to the window. Footsteps crossed the threshold into the dark room; then a light flashed on. Jerome stepped in and cranked the lamp’s brightness to full, setting it on a paint can.Behind him came heavier, measured footsteps. In the lamp’s glare, a figure advanced, revealing Acacia’s grotesquely pallid, fishlike face. He extended a gloved hand toward me—holding, absurdly, a waffle topped with cream.“ You must be hungry. Haven’t eaten dinner yet, have you?” Acacia’s gravelly voice was almost gentle.“ No.”Cream dripped over his black leather glove onto the floor, making the waffle look repulsive.“ Not hungry?”“ I’m not.”“ Oh, come on! I went to the trouble!”Acacia chuckled oddly. “See? He’s wrong, Jerome. If you can skip meals, you’re healthy enough.”Jerome said nothing, merely shrugged—apparently he had told Acacia I wasn’t yet well.Acacia perched on the edge of another paint can, three or four meters away. We faced each other, lit only by the dim electric lamp, in silence.Suddenly Acacia flung the waffle to the floor; it splattered onto the cement. Jerome backed into the dark, disappearing from view. He wasn’t leaving, but he clearly had no intention of joining this conversation.Acacia’s eyes glowed as he stared at me. As he watched, I watched him. He was a creepy, bizarre character: dressed in full suit and leather shoes in midsummer heat, wearing gloves and a too-tight tie—yet not a bead of sweat on his face, as if he could not feel the heat. He was unsettling, making my skin crawl and my eyes dart away.Despite cream sliding off his glove, he laced his fingers together and leaned forward, elbows on knees. In a low, more grotesque tone, he asked,“ You have questions for me, yes?”I met Acacia’s flickering gaze.“ Yes. Jerome told me to ask you.”His lips stretched in what looked like a silent, grotesque smile—teeth yellowed, only four front teeth visible.“ When and how will you kill me?”Acacia’s mouth opened wide, but no sound came. Then he laughed silently.“ How I kill you! My favorite topic.”“ But I won’t tell you.”“ ………”“ People only learn how they die in their last moment. The sick, the wounded soldier, the heart attack—they’re all the same. You have no privilege to know your death beforehand.”He fished in his jacket pocket, ignoring the cream stain, and withdrew a flattened tin.“ And when you die—same thing. Death comes unexpectedly, in an unexpected way.”Lighting a cigarette, Acacia rose and took slow, deliberate steps toward me. Towering over me, his shadow engulfed me. He watched my reaction closely—whether I was overwhelmed, frightened, what expression crossed my face.I looked up at him blankly. Close up, his face was less human: smooth and slick like fish belly, lips more cracks than lips.The cigarette, half-burned, fell onto his gloved hand. He clicked his tongue and extinguished it under his shoe. Rummaging again in his breast pocket, he said,“ Clearly, you’re not ready to die.”“ You’re wrong. I’m ready.”“ No.”Acacia produced the same tin, its brass surface gleaming. Whispering through clenched teeth:“ As long as your limbs are intact, your mind must be healthy. Not a single corner damaged—perfect body and mind. Able to start each day with a healthy desire to live.”He opened the tin and removed another cigarette.“ Only then can a person taste true despair—knowing you can do anything, but can do nothing… utterly powerless to the core.”He lit the cigarette, exhaled his smoke, and left without another word. Jerome followed. I remained frozen atop the paint cans, mind reeling with one question:How?How...?That night, Jerome did not return. Lying on the mattress alone for the first time since arriving at the cabin, I heard insects outside. The humid night pressed in uncomfortably. I blinked at the darkness, then fell asleep.In the morning, no one was beside me. Though I could have run away, I did not. After washing, I touched my jaw—stubble had grown since Simon shaved me. I went to the bathroom and shaved clean. I washed again from head to toe with cold water.Because it was hot, I didn’t wear a shirt. In just trousers, I returned to the living room and did something I had never done before: I stretched lightly to loosen my muscles—my shoulder, scarred by bullet and burn, ached. As I limbered up, I began doing push-ups, controlling my breath and speeding up.Soon I was drenched in sweat; drops fell from my face onto the cement floor. Despite my morning wash, my torso glistened, and my trousers clung from sweat. Having done my workout, I set out alone for a walk. Outside the cabin, no one seemed to be around.One thought filled my mind:When I stepped into the woods, someone followed. I heard hurried footsteps on twigs but did not look back. I’d wondered during walks with Jerome if someone watched us. All this time, I noticed nothing. Truly, I knew nothing.After returning, I followed Jerome’s daily routine. It was too hot for a shirt, so I knitted quietly, my fingers deft. I could move my body at will now—thanks to Jerome’s care. In the afternoon, I spent hours re-knitting the yarn Jerome had unraveled yesterday.At dusk I sat by the window again, waiting for them. They’d left me wholly alone all day—abandoned in the throes of drug aftereffects and unfed. Yet they’d also given me chances to flee, in the cabin and in the woods—opportunities I had let pass. The only reason they confused me so was one: as always… the three of them always were.Only late into the night did clumsy footsteps finally approach—at least two people. But only one foot crossed into the living room and flicked on the lamp. It was Acacia, again holding a melting waffle. He extended it toward me and smiled that strange smile.“ Hungry?”“ Yes.” I spoke for the first time since morning.“ May I?”Acacia laughed, then «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» carried the lamp to my side window, setting it down before me.Instead of taking the waffle, I stuck out my tongue and licked the cream from his glove. He laughed again. Then I parted my lips and sucked the glove’s thumb, tasting the cream on the smooth leather.Acacia watched me chuckling. I drew his wrist toward me and bit into the waffle.It was sickeningly sweet. A flood of sensation overwhelmed my tongue, starved as it was of taste for so long. Overcoming revulsion, I devoured the entire waffle, then licked every trace of cream from his glove—even between his fingers. His leather gleamed, wet with my saliva.Acacia began to speak: “ Delicious—”But I did not wait for the last syllable. I clamped his wrist in a vice grip and yanked off his glove. Under the lamp, his bare hand lay exposed.It was horribly twisted, skin melted and scarred as if burned. Not the clean, pale hand I remembered, but a grotesque wound. Acacia’s eyes widened in shock as he tried to wrench his hand free, but I did not relent—and did not wait for his full reaction.Thanks to my morning exercises, I moved swiftly: I twisted his arm behind his back, delivered a fierce kick to his knee, knocking him to the floor, and leapt onto his back. Though someone must have fallen, outside no one…

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