Page 108 of Somno Slave

I force my eyes lower, staring so hard at the paper that the words begin to blur

And then his voice cuts clean through me. “Come here.”

The words ripple around my mind, dark and heavy. There’s gravel in the sound, a roughness like fire scraping over coal. Not loud. Not shouted. Worse than that—quiet and certain, intimate in a way that makes my skin tighten.

And I hate that I notice it’s the same voice from my dream.

Deogal.

My pen slips from my fingers and clatters against the desk. The noise is sharp in the small room. My body locks, blood draining so fast I feel it behind my eyes.

I freeze.

The words stain everything. It feels like chains tightening around my throat, one link at a time, tugging me forward without touching me.

I don’t want to look.

I look.

Shadows stare back. I can’t make anything out of it and yet, I can’t move. I can’t blink properly. I’m transfixed under his glare. I realise I’m holding my breath again—and I don’t know when I stopped breathing.

My vision tunnels. The sounds warp. The hum of monitors becomes a distant roar, like I’m underwater. I catch myself reaching for my badge again. The movement is automatic now, desperate in a way I don’t want to examine too closely.

And Mike doesn’t react.

“Mike,” I whisper.

I swallow hard, the lump in my throat threatening to choke me.

“Mike.” I try again. “Look.”

He glances up, frowning. “What?”

“He—" my throat closes around the word as if my body refuses to let me say it. “Spoke.”

The word tastes insane. It catches on my tongue.

“Wait. What?” he freezes. “It didn’t beep though.”

My chest seizes.

“Mike,” I say and it comes out pitched.

He finally moves. He shoves forward, hand already on the controls, rewinding the footage with a quick jerk. The room fills with the soft scratch of playback, the tiny mechanical sound suddenly too loud.

My heartbeat turns violent. I lean in before I realise I’m leaning, drawn toward the screen like the answer is waiting to be extracted.

The CCTV roars to life, infrared technology revealing him in the dark.

On screen, Deogal is frozen in his familiar stillness, head bowed, eyes down.

I crowd the monitor without meaning to. My whole back pulls inward, hovering in suspense.

The timeframe kicks forward. But no sound rings through.

“What?” I croak. “Go again.”

Mike scrubs the footage back, slower this time.