The card slapped against the low table and spun before it settled.
Elias stared at the faded edge of his hand without really seeing the numbers. His knuckles had swollen around the joints. Every finger felt packed with sand after the fight with Colby, and his ribs complained whenever he breathed deeper than a sip.
The game meant nothing.
The chair mattered. The table mattered. The cheap cards mattered because they were normal enough to keep his mind from counting pain.
A vibration moved under his boots.
At first he took it for Cube X's ventilation. The building was always coughing air through pipes, always letting the recruits remember they lived inside a machine. Then the hum climbed higher. The floorboards began to rattle. The vibration reached his teeth and stayed there.
Paul pushed off the wall. His shoulders came up as he checked the ceiling, the door, then the seams along the floor. "Can everyone else hear that vibration?"
