Silence.
True, uninterrupted silence was a foreign country. For two days, the white room was a vacuum. No hum, no music, no Valerius. The absence of stimulus was, in itself, a new kind of torment for the fractured mind. The hundred Leos, deprived of an external enemy, turned on each other.
The child's fear echoed in the void. The soldier's aggression had nothing to fight. The old man's despair filled the empty space. They were a parliament of madness, each demanding the floor.
But the core self, the one who had spoken to Valerius, endured. It was a quiet, stubborn thing, honed by data entry and survival. It did not fight the chaos. It did the only thing it could. It returned, again and again, to the anchor.
Running.
It was no longer just a memory. It became a meditation. A mantra of motion. In the infinite white space, Leo ran. Not with his body, which lay curled on the floor, but with his mind. He felt the phantom burn in his lungs, the slap of his feet on phantom pavement. He ran from the crying child, he ran past the raging soldier, he outdistanced the weary old man.
[Skill Recognized: Sprinting - Basic Lv. 1]
He held the skill, unmultiplied, as his fixed point. The chaos did not vanish, but it began to orbit this new center of gravity. The voices became a background roar to the single, focused act of his mental flight.
On the third day of silence, a new sound began to emerge from the cacophony. It was faint at first, almost lost in the static of selves. A simple, rhythmic tapping.
Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.
It wasn't from inside his head. It was a real, physical sound, transmitted through the padding of the floor. It was a pattern. Three short, three long, three short. A classic, ancient distress signal. S.O.S.
Kaelen.
The core self latched onto it with the desperation of a dying man. It was an external anchor. A rope thrown into the pit.
His body, responding to a will that was slowly consolidating, uncurled. He dragged himself across the floor, his ear pressed to the padded wall. The tapping was clearer here. It was coming from directly below.
He lifted a trembling hand. He had no strength for a hundredfold anything. He had barely enough for a onefold. He focused on the simple, physical action of tapping back.
[Skill Recognized: Rhythmic Percussion - Basic Lv. 1]
[Application: x1.]
Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.
He repeated the S.O.S. A weak, pathetic echo. But it was an answer.
The tapping from below stopped. Then, after a moment, it resumed. A new pattern. Slower. Deliberate.
TAP. . . tap . . . TAP.
A question. A check for consciousness.
With immense effort, Leo formed a reply, mirroring the pattern. TAP. . . tap . . . TAP.
A final, single, firm TAP came from below. An acknowledgment. A confirmation. Then, silence.
But it was a different silence now. It was no longer the silence of abandonment. It was the silence of a plan in motion. He was not alone.
The knowledge was a dam against the chaos. The core self grew stronger, using the simple, rhythmic communication as a new tool for organization. The child-self was soothed by the presence of another. The soldier-self had a mission: wait. The old man felt a flicker of hope.
Later, during the designated "nutrition" period where a paste was dispensed through a slot, something else came through. Alongside the bland food was a single, small, folded piece of paper.
His heart hammered against his ribs. He snatched it, his hands fumbling. He unfolded it.
It wasn't a note. It was a schematic. A hand-drawn, crude, but clearly labeled diagram of the ventilation system for the secure medical wing. One particular duct, leading from a supply closet to his white room, was highlighted in red. A path.
On the bottom, in small, block letters, were two words.
READY THE ANCHOR.
Leo stared at the paper, then carefully ate it, destroying the evidence. The taste of paper and paste was the most delicious meal of his life.
He looked around the white room, not as a prison, but as a location. An extraction point. Valerius was studying his reorganization, waiting for him to become a more stable, more useful specimen.
He didn't need to become stable for Valerius. He just needed to become stable enough to run.
He closed his eyes, and for the first time since the wall, he smiled. It was a thin, fragile thing, but it was his own.
The anchor was set. The tether was thrown. And deep within the wreckage, Leo O'Connor began, deliberately and quietly, to plot his escape.