(Present - Back in the Real World)
The room breathes with him. Barely.
Jason lies on his back, phone hovering inches from his face. Blue light washes his brown skin flat, drains the warmth from it. His eyes track downward, unfocused, trained by habit more than interest.
"Just a minute," he whispers, though no one asked.
The ceiling fan clicks. Stops. Clicks again.
His thumb moves. Scroll. Pause. Scroll again.
The screen feeds him fragments, faces, colors, half-promises. Nothing lingers. Nothing lands.
"This is stupid," he mutters, but the word slides off him. No weight. No resistance.
He shifts, exhales, adjusts his grip. The motions follow a script written long before tonight.
Scroll. Breathe. Release.
Silence returns immediately after. Thick. Unimpressed.
Jason stares at the screen, waiting for something else to arrive. It doesn't.
"That's it?" he says softly. "That's all you've got?"
The phone hums faintly in his palm. Warm. Familiar.
He locks the screen. Unlocks it again.
"No," he tells himself. "Done."
The glow flares back to life anyway.
His jaw tightens. He drags a hand over his face, fingers scraping stubble that never quite grows in evenly. Stress leaves marks like that.
"Why does this still feel loud?" he asks the room.
The screen freezes. Then goes black.
Jason's breath stalls.
He lowers the phone, eyes still searching the dark where the light was.
The pull doesn't fade.
It sharpens.
—
(Present - Within the Construct)
Sister Hollow stands a few paces away, hands folded, posture exact. She does not look at the floor. She does not look at him. Her gaze rests somewhere between, as if the space itself is the subject.
"You returned to relief," she says.
Jason scoffs. "You make it sound intentional."
"Learned," she says. "Repeated until decision is no longer required."
"That's the same thing."
She turns her head slightly. "It is not."
Jason folds his arms. "So what, this is where you lecture me?"
Her gaze meets his, silver-gray, reflective, holding nothing that could be mistaken for warmth.
"I do not instruct," she says. "I observe."
"Could've fooled me."
She moves nearer without haste, encircling him as if distance has no meaning.
"What you reached for was never pleasure."
Jason lets out a short, brittle laugh. "My body would argue."
"Bodies respond," she answers evenly. "They do not decide."
He starts to protest. Stops.
"That's it?" he says. "You're giving a verdict?"
She turns her head toward him, voice level.
"Think of it as a label."
She circles slowly, her silver eyes tracking him without malice or mercy.
"You felt pressure. Mental drag. Delay. Friction." Her voice is precise, clinical. "You set it aside. For a moment that could not last."
He exhales through his nose. "You're saying I took the easy way out."
"I am saying you chose the path of least resistance." She pauses. "That is not weakness. It is a coping strategy."
"That doesn't make it better."
"It makes it accurate."
The construct hums faintly. Jason shifts his weight, restless under her gaze.
"Then call it what it is," he says.
She studies him for a moment longer than necessary.
"Evasion," she says quietly. "Not from suffering, but from the act of bearing."
Jason looks away. The word lands heavier than shame ever did.
The floor beneath them darkens, subtly, decisively.
Jason's chest tightens, ribs pressing inward as if the air itself weighs more. His hands curl at his sides; a tremor snakes up his spine.
He breathes through it. Waits.
Sister Hollow's voice comes again, softer now.
"The cabin is only shelter," she says. "Leave it, and the clearing reveals itself."
Jason glances toward the door. It stands open now, he doesn't remember it opening. Beyond it, the tree line waits.
He steps toward the threshold. The clearing surrounds him instantly, inevitable as a held breath finally released.
The clearing smells of damp earth and pine sap, a faint metallic tang hanging beneath it.
At the tree line: wooden shapes. Limbs bent wrong. Faces worn like erasure. Purple symbols glow faintly along their bodies, mirroring patterns he's seen before, loops, spirals, fractured lines that don't quite connect.
Jason steps closer, throat tight.
"They're not moving," he whispers to himself.
A dry creak answers him from somewhere deep in the trees. He jerks his head toward the sound. Nothing shifts, yet the stillness feels deliberate. His heartbeat drums in his ears.
The figures stand at attention in a loose semicircle, as if they've been waiting. For him.
"Are you watching me?" Jason asks, unsure if he expects an answer.
The wind rustles the upper branches. A leaf flutters against his cheek. He shivers.
One of the figures, the nearest, tilts its head fractionally. Just enough to be noticed. The symbols on its arm flare in perfect sync with his pulse.
Jason freezes. His breath catches.
They know him. Or worse, they're broadcasting something they can read.
His fingers twitch at his sides. Every instinct screams at him to step back, to run, to do anything but stand here while wooden things become aware.
The second figure tilts. Then the third.
All in sync now. All tracking him. All responsive.
Jason's hand moves before thought catches up. He reaches out toward the nearest figure, not to touch, he doesn't dare, but to test. His palm hovers inches from its wooden chest.
The symbols pulse brighter.
And Jason feels it: a pull, familiar and sharp, drawing him inward. Not toward comfort this time.
Toward something waiting.
He doesn't pull his hand back.