BROKEN LINES

I wake with a start.

There was no unusual sound. Nothing but that beep—the same as every day. Yet it slices through my head like an alarm. Which, in truth, is probably what it is. An alarm for our minds, stripped down to the bare minimum. For our bodies, trained to rise like machines the moment it sounds.

I stay still for a moment. My eyes search for something to latch onto, but the walls are bare. Just grey. Always grey. Smooth, uniform, unmarked. My bed—a plastic slab topped with a thin layer of foam—is pushed up against the right wall. My sink is embedded in the opposite corner. A bowl. A faucet. A button.

That’s the whole room. I could walk it blind.Three steps wide. Four steps long.

I’ve counted, dozens of times. I don’t know why.Maybe to keep from losing my mind.Maybe because it’s the only thing that truly belongs to me here: the exact number of steps, the feel of the walls under my fingers, the faint creak of the light humming above me.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here.

I don’t know my name.

I am 036. It’s written on the inside of my left wrist, in dark numbers, inked or burned—I don’t know. I tried to scratch them out, once.They stayed. The kind of thing that doesn’t come off.

I don’t try anymore.

The light comes on. White. Brutal. It doesn’t illuminate me—it exposes me. It says:You are seen.It says:Stand up.And I obey. Without a word.

No one speaks here.

I don’t know why. It’s just... understood. No one ever said it aloud. But it exists. It weighs on us. Sometimes, a new one forgets. Whispers. Asks.

They never do it again.

I never tried. I never wanted to.Silence is safer.

I move toward the sink. The button only works once a day. I press it. Water runs. Twenty seconds, no more. I’ve counted. Twenty seconds to wash, to drink, to rinse your mouth.

I drink. It’s lukewarm, tasteless, faintly sweet—like a medicine with no name. I never get used to it. But I never refuse it either.

You have to obey.

When I step away, the door opens. On instinct, I lower my gaze. I don’t look at the cameras. Not at the walls. Not at the guards’ silhouettes behind the blinding light.

I walk out.

---

The hallway is cold, lit by neon. The smell is always the same: disinfectant, plastic, steel. I join the line in silence. Another door opens further down, to my right. Another subject steps out.

047.

I recognize him. He walks like I do—stiff, soundless. He doesn’t look at me, not really. But I feel his presence, like a shadow clinging to my steps.

He’s taller. Broader. He has the same hair as me—black. The same eyes—green, bright, almost too sharp in this sickly light. He never smiles. No one does here.But there’s something strange in his gaze. Not empty. Not dead.

Sometimes I wonder if he thinks the same things I do. If he counts the steps.

But I’ll never know.Because we don’t speak.

We walk together to the consumption room. A guard behind each of us.

It’s a circular space, lined with rows of dispensers. Each subject receives a cup. The water is warm, as always. I drink. Without thinking.

It’s routine.

I set my cup down, wait for the signal. The others do the same. There are ten of us today. Maybe more. I no longer count the faces. They change too often.

Some disappear.

Sometimes they come back.Sometimes they don’t.

---

A short beep. The doors open again. The lights flicker. We’re divided.

I’m sent to corridor 4, room 17.

Behavioral testing. I know it by the smell. By the shadow cast by the furniture. By the chair in the center, with its straps, its electrodes, its bolts fixed into the ground. They fasten me in without a word.

Two scientists in white suits. Opaque glasses. Expressionless faces.

A device is placed in front of me. A black screen. It lights up.

Images. Sounds. A crying child. A screaming soldier. A naked woman. A growling dog. A smiling face. A dying man.

It all comes too fast. No time to understand. Only to react. The screen watches me. The sensors track my heartbeat, my pupils, my sweat.

I stay still.

I’m good at this. At going blank. At giving nothing away.

I give them nothing.

When it’s over, they undo the straps. One of them watches me a moment longer than usual. His lips move—barely. I don’t understand. But I remember.

I remember everything.

---

I’m sent back to my cell.

No food today. That happens, sometimes. I’ve learned not to be hungry. Not to be cold. Not to be afraid. My body barely speaks to me anymore. It does what it’s told. It survives.

I sit on my slab. I pull my knees to my chest. I listen.

A hallway far away. A cart rolling. A clicking sound. Footsteps.

Maybe 047, returning to his cell. Maybe someone else.

I don’t know how long I sit there. Sometimes sleep comes. Sometimes it doesn’t. But I don’t move.

It’s safer that way.

---

The light cuts out in an instant.

That’s the signal. Sleep time. Because they said so. My brain should follow.But tonight it doesn’t.

I keep my eyes open in the total dark.

And I think of him.

047.

That moment, two days ago—I think. Two wake-ups, anyway—when he turned toward me in the hallway. Just for a second. He looked at me. Not with fear. Not with defiance.

With... something strange. As if heknewme.

As if... I was familiar.

But that’s impossible.

I’m 036.

I was born here, wasn’t I?