Twenty-One
The assistant wardenstood at the threshold of Ward’s former cell, arms crossed. “We cleared it,” he said again, a little sharper. “Twice. Top to bottom. There’s nothing in there.”
Charlotte kept her eyes on the space, not him. “You looked. We’ll see.”
Graham followed her inside, staying quiet. The air was stale. The kind of stillness that lingered long after someone was gone.
The cell was stripped bare. Thin mattress on a metal frame. A rusted sink. No books, no letters, nothing but the walls. It was the kind of space that gave up nothing—unless someone knew where to look.
“We need to see what you removed,” Graham said.
The assistant warden looked more annoyed.
“Bottom bunk?” Charlotte asked, already moving toward it.
“Yeah,” the assistant warden said. “Ward said climbing was hell on his knees.”
Charlotte sat, then slowly lay back on the mattress, staring up at the slats beneath the top bunk. They looked like any others, until her brow furrowed. She pulled her phone from her pocket and clicked on the flashlight.
Under the beam, something shifted—lines, shadows—writing.
She exhaled quietly. “Graham. He left something.”
Graham crouched beside her. “Where?”
She tilted the light. Faint, brownish script covered the underside of the top bunk. Not pen. Not ink. Ward had used… something else. Blood, maybe. Or worse. It was nearly invisible without the right angle, the right light.
She began reading aloud, slow and steady, recording it on her phone. Graham took notes and snapped photos, each sentence sinking in heavier than the last.
You’re here because you’re desperate. That means you’re finally listening. This is for the ones who come after. You think you’re cleaning up, but you’re only stepping into the mess.
Charlotte — I know you’re the one reading this. You left the department, but you never left the case. You never could. They weren’t random. I picked them. Quiet ones. Disconnected. The ones who could vanish. The suffering. So depressed nothing worked. I gave them a chance.
I didn’t kill them. Some died. That’s the mistake amateurs make. I studied them. Broke them down. Took them apart from the inside out. No marks. No noise. Just silence. Then I rebuilt them. Well, rebuilt some.
Methods: Isolation. Sleep fragmentation. Controlled sedation. Deprivation of time, light, sound. Fasting. Overwhelming noise. Shock therapy.
Some died. But some didn’t. A few held on longer than they should’ve. That was the point. They lived.
Here they are:
She read the names aloud, one after the next. A list of the vanished. Some names she recognized from the old files. Others, she didn't.
Count them:
J. Cole
N. Grier
T. Chan
E. Vargas
R. Kim
R. Simms
K. Lin
