Lina
He sits still.
No trembling, no tics, none of the typical behavior I see in new arrivals. Just: silence.
The camera in the corner ticks quietly, rotates. The microphone hums as if it's breathing.
Valentin sits upright on the cot, hands folded, eyes fixed on the glass door. He doesn't blink. Maybe he does when you're not looking.
I open the patient file. It's almost empty. That scares me more than anything else. No childhood. No escape. No offense. Just: Assigned by internal transfer. File access restricted (Level IV).
"Good morning, Mr. S.," I say.
My voice sounds like an old cassette tape.
He doesn't answer.
I stand in front of the door, at exactly the prescribed distance. Camera. Audio. No contact. No risk.
Then he speaks. Quiet, but clear.
"You're not the first."
I blink.
"Excuse me?"
"You're not the first to look at me and believe I'm someone else."
He looks up.
And for a moment…
…it seems he knows me.
Valentin
There she is.
The woman from the memories that aren't mine.
Not quite the same – older, more hardened – but something in her gaze is familiar.
I see the cracks beneath the surface.
"You're not the first," I say.
She barely flinches. But I see it.
She wears guilt like a scarf. Tight, neatly folded, always there. I wonder if she knows she does.
She reads from a file. Formalities. Questions she doesn't expect answers to. The camera watches, the protocol runs.
I lean forward.
"You have a splinter in you," I whisper.
"It sits between your thoughts. You feel it sometimes, at night. When you dream you're underwater."
That's enough. She freezes.
Just for a second. But a second is enough.
I have a connection.
Now I just have to keep her awake.