Lina
I hate neon lights.
They flicker, turn shadows into knives, and my face into something I don't recognize. Every morning I see it in the locker room mirror: the same eyes, the same cut on the chin, the same skin as my mother. And yet I feel like a blank copy of her memory.
Today is Tuesday. Or maybe Wednesday. In Ward C, it always smells of disinfectant and old meat, no matter how often they clean. I tap my way through the security doors, check the magnetic locks, nod at the guard. Everything as always.
Station 7A. High security, double-glazed, electrically locked. Here lie those nobody wants anymore. Murderers with diagnoses, rapists with reports, sadists with certificates.
"New arrival today," says Nurse Ellen and hands me a clipboard. "Careful: special status. Direct from the project ward."
I stare at the name.
Valentin S.
No diagnosis. No history. Just a note in red: Observation around the clock. No touching. No one-on-one contact.
"What does 'project ward' mean?"
Ellen shrugs. "Ask the doctors. Or better not."
I read the name again. It means nothing to me. But something flickers in the back of my mind. Like the light on the ceiling.
Valentin
They call me Valentin.
That's not me. But I've forgotten who I really was. Maybe that was the plan.
I feel the body beneath me, like a skin of lead. Every movement is wrong. Too heavy. Too long. The view from my eyes is… foreign.
And there's this voice. Not audible – but tangible.
A kind of echo inside.
They told me I was sick. That I was imagining everything.
But that's a lie. I was part of something.
Something big.
Something they want to bury now.
I have only one chance left.
When she comes – the nurse – I'll tell her the truth.
Maybe she'll believe me.
Or she'll kill me.
Either would be progress.