08:00 GMT | London – Tan Residence
There was no official news about the Ateliér.
Only rumors, and the lingering smell of ozone that refused to leave the city's lungs.
Sheren Wilson was returned—not as a daughter, but as a contaminant already isolated.
Her body arrived in a medical bag labeled Infectious Multi-Organ Failure.
The nurse who bathed her said Sheren's skin felt like chrysanthemum petals soaked in chemicals.
Kenji was found floating in a pond near campus.
Still alive, but with memories fragmented like a corrupted film. Every day he rewrote the tiles of his bedroom with his fingernails, drawing the symbol Σ in blood.
Raymond?
Never found.
Only a black suitcase left on the sidewalk—no fingerprints, no name.
What remained: four powerful families and one small question—Where is our control?
The secure phone rang before the sunlight reached the glass.
Dual authentication code: Ministry of Health and the University Ethics Commission.
Richard Tan was already seated before the screen.
Three faces appeared. All wore formal suits, but their expressions were empty—like a board of Directors that had just lost a major asset.
Sir Harrison Wilson — Sheren's father, Director of the Medical Council.
Lord Kenjiro Sato — Kenji's father, Chairman of the Asia–Europe Investment Bank.
Justice Ray Kensworth Sr. — Raymond's father, Chief Justice of the Common Court.
No one said the word missing.
That word was taboo among them—too close to loss of control.
They didn't mourn. They calculated damage ratios.
"My daughter was returned without an explanation," said Sir Harrison, his voice trembling but still dignified.
"The report said psychotic collapse due to stress exposure. I signed it because... it sounded humane. We're handling it internally."
"Kenji's alive," Lord Sato added, "but he breathes like someone auditing air."
"Raymond's case is sealed," said Justice Kensworth. "Officially: academic burnout."
A long silence.
Richard Tan rubbed his temples.
"None of our children told us where they were going that week. No messages, no posts, no routes. Tell me, gentlemen—since when do kids like ours keep secrets?"
"Because someone paid for their silence," Sir Harrison replied flatly.
They all knew: in their world, children had no privacy—
unless someone more powerful granted it on purpose.
Richard looked at his reflection on the screen—three elite faces mirrored back, all tense but not afraid. They looked less like fathers, more like investors closing a loss portfolio.
The faces of men who ruled the world,
but for the first time,
had no one left to command.
"Gentlemen," he said quietly,
"perhaps it's time we admit something happened beyond our reach."
"Nonsense," Sir Harrison snapped. "We control the narrative, not the system."
Justice Kensworth ended the discussion decisively.
"We keep it quiet. Media won't touch it. We'll call it an academic accident. No scandal. Not now."
And just like that—four human lives were buried beneath a legal sentence.
***
14:30 GMT | Guest Room – Tan Residence
(POV: Dion)
This living room no longer felt like home.
It resembled an ICU that forgot to turn off its lights. The smell of medical alcohol clung to the air—like something refusing to heal.
The monitor around my wrist pulsed softly—
an unfinished electronic prayer.
I sat on the long sofa. My pupils were wide but flat—evidence of long-term sedative residue.
Then they came.
Not police with handcuffs, but with clipboards—and empathy learned from textbooks.
Detective Inspector Miles Hanley.
Dr. Evelyn Marks, Police Psychiatrist.
They sat down, posture too upright for people who claimed to listen.
"Residual hyper-consciousness," the psychiatrist murmured.
"Fully aware. Severed narrative."
I wasn't sure which part was supposed to be a compliment.
"Mr. Dion," they said softly, "we just want to understand… what happened before you were found."
I stared out the window.
Every pedestrian silhouette outside turned into the same face: Sheren. Raymond. Kenji.
They still lived behind my eyelids.
A wound that refuses to close—that's the truest form of immortality.
"We found a digital file on your tablet," said Hanley.
"Batch Sigma. Do you know what that is?"
I shook my head.
The movement felt like a command, not a choice.
"I don't remember the place," I said. "Only the smell of metal. And the voice."
"Whose voice?"
"I don't know. Sometimes it sounded like an order. Sometimes like a prayer."
They wrote notes.
They always write notes, as if ink could replace blood.
"You've already spoken to my father, haven't you?"
Hanley didn't answer, but his pencil moved.
Marks jotted something down that sounded like a diagnosis—but felt like an accusation.
"Classic avoidant detachment with moral dissociation."
I gave a small laugh.
"Diagnosis is just another form of storytelling, Sergeant."
They didn't understand—
or pretended not to.
"There's still residual thematic hallucination," he said.
"Possible trauma-induced confabulation."
I heard the terms like a foreign chant— names of diseases invented so they wouldn't have to say fear.
"So you don't remember anything?"
"Funny," I said. "Everyone keeps asking me that, but there's nothing left to remember."
The monitor beeped softly, like a heart unwilling to commit to life.
Hanley looked at the psychiatrist—
the silent glance meaning: invalid witness.
"For now, the case is under internal review."
Just like that—the truth died under an administrative stamp.
My mother sat beside me.
Satin gown. Perfect makeup. Wet eyes. Her hand gripped my arm like a stock losing value.
"He's not stable, Detective. You can see that. He doesn't even recognize his own meal times."
Hanley tried to stay polite.
"We're only asking questions, Madam."
"Questions can trigger stress," she cut him off.
"Our family psychiatrist said my son only needs peace."
Needs peace.
The phrase most often used to perfume decay.
Dr. Marks wrote: Avoidant dissociation. Maternal control excessive.
I watched the pen move—
like a scalpel etching my name into an operating table.
Then the voice came again.
Not from them.
From inside.
From the vents.
From the cracks in my mind.
Stable… Sterile…
I blinked.
"What was that?"
Hanley turned.
"What?"
"You just said something."
"I didn't."
Silence.
The monitor kept beeping— a rhythm not quite mine.
More like instructions being followed by a body that no longer had a master.
***
19:00 GMT | Belgravia – Private Club
(POV: Justice Ray Kensworth Sr.)
There was no echo in that room.
The walls were lined with dark velvet, the air rich with old oak and Cuban smoke. Here, old men governed the world with low voices and clean hands.
I sat in my chair as though it were a courtroom—a habit I couldn't extinguish, even when the trial was over the fate of my own son.
Wilson spoke first.
His hands trembled as he straightened his tie, but his voice was steady—the voice of a doctor too accustomed to signing death certificates.
"The Hospital's internal audit is complete. The anesthesia logs were edited. Capnography readings exist without a patient. Oxygen vendor—shell company. Procurement code: unregistered."
I looked at him.
Not with sympathy—only with the professional reflex of listening to testimony without expression.
Sato leaned back, turning the ring on his finger like he was measuring loss.
"Telecom wiped the data. But our satellites caught three dead zones, two weeks long—at the alumni building, the University clinic, and an abandoned pharmaceutical warehouse. CCTV footage has an eleven-minute loop. Too precise to be coincidence."
Silence.
Only the air conditioner's hum turning like a machine's breath.
And in that moment, I felt something dangerous—professional admiration for such immaculate crime. A crime that understood the aesthetics of procedure.
I leaned forward. My voice came out low, measured, cold.
"My private investigators traced the campus data custodian. The contract was auctioned to an education foundation with no physical office.
The money trail ends at an old consulting firm—the same one that ran the leadership simulation program five years ago."
Quiet.
Wilson stared at the table. Sato looked at me.
We all understood: our children hadn't vanished by fate.
They had been absorbed by something that knew how to write digital footprints like liturgy.
"Independent forensics," Wilson continued softly,
"show medical procedures performed without official orders. All the electronic signatures check out—yet none of them have authors."
He pinched the bridge of his nose, wiping away a tremor that wasn't grief.
Sato spoke again, voice flat, like reading a portfolio loss.
"Our sons' bank logs: cards deactivated, but a concierge service booked unlicensed vehicles. Four names disguised as a campus event code."
I straightened my shoulders.
It felt like reading a verdict someone else had already written.
"The event occurred. The perpetrators do not exist. We're fighting a system more precise than we are."
The antique clock ticked—a sound lawful, cold, and official.
Richard Tan hadn't spoken.
He stared out the window, half his face drowned in the city's glow.
"Our media team is ready," Wilson finally said.
"Official narrative: academic accident. The ethics panel will call it a protocol breach."
"Investors demand stability," Sato added. "We've deployed search engine management teams to replace the word missing with retreat. Sounds spiritual, not criminal."
I swallowed bitterness—it tasted like warm metal.
"I'll make sure every habeas data request dies in committee. Nothing reaches court."
That was the most honest sentence of the night.
In our world, truth isn't revealed—it's negotiated.
Richard finally spoke, voice flat, eyes empty.
"We're not searching for truth, gentlemen. We're writing the version that sells."
The mirror across from us reflected all four faces.
Four timelines refusing to age. All looked the same—polished, educated, elegantly rotten.
"This is for our children," Wilson said quietly.
"Our children aren't here anymore," Richard answered.
The line fell between us like a gavel.
No one turned. No one regretted.
I finished my whisky—warm, bitter, sterile.
Outside, London moved like a respirator—keeping the city alive so we could keep lying.
And in my mind, I wrote a single sentence—not as a judge, but as a father out of jurisprudence for grief:
We did not lose our children.
We only lost the proof that they were ever ours.
The meeting adjourned.
No prayers.
Only signatures.
And the sound of NDA papers—quieter than any prayer I've ever heard.
***
20:00 GMT | My Bedroom – Tan Residence
(POV: Dion)
That night, they came.
David and James.
Two faces that once shared a sponsored future. Now they arrived like ambassadors of politeness, carrying imported fruit and vintage wine—peace offerings from a world still loyal to etiquette.
Their cologne masked the lingering scent of disinfectant. Even politeness had its own aroma in our class—expensive, but sterile.
David smiled first.
"You look better, Dion."
The sentence felt like protocol.
"You too," I replied. "Busy managing headlines, I see."
He gave a thin laugh. A true journalist never relaxes, even in mourning.
"Sheren's story trended for two days straight. The university denies everything, but the public has turned it into a moral tragedy. Media just follows the wind, not the truth."
James spoke next, voice flat as a financial report.
"The Wilson family won't speak. The burial was quick—three-layered coffin, top-tier cooling unit.
Kenji's still in intensive psychiatric care. He's writing numbers on the wall with a spoon."
I stared at the steam rising from my tea—
steam, the only living thing in the room.
"And Raymond?"
"Still missing," James said quickly. "His father claims he's on a spiritual retreat."
Retreat.
A soft word to replace disappearance.
A sponsored word—to soothe investors.
"There's always a synonym for loss," I murmured.
David chuckled.
"You're still cynical, even fresh out of treatment. But honestly, Dion… of all of us, you're the one who faced the system best. You made madness look sophisticated."
I looked at him for a long time.
"Do you know why I survived, David?"
"Because you're smart?"
"No. Because I stopped feeling guilty faster than they did."
A long silence.
The air conditioner hissed like the lungs of a brainwash machine.
James looked at a framed family photo—me as a child, between my parents, smiling in an editor-approved composition.
"Your home looks beautiful in pictures," he said. "But it feels… airless."
"Maybe even air learned to be polite here," I replied.
We laughed.
Not human laughter— something mechanical, like a ventilation system imitating humor.
Then silence again.
Three young men, sitting upright in a climate-controlled room, each staring into the void as if waiting for permission to stay alive.
When they left, I sat in the dark.
The silence felt like a breath held too long.
The EEG monitor beside my bed pulsed softly.
Σ — the same symbol Kenji had drawn on the walls — appeared on its tiny screen, right beside the rhythm of my heartbeat.
I stared at it, as though waiting for the machine to answer.
Sleep no longer felt like rest—more like a call from something waiting on the other side of the signal.
In the window glass, three faint faces appeared: Sheren. Raymond. Kenji.
They smiled—synchronized. Too synchronized to be hallucination.
I touched my chest.
My heartbeat was uneven, but I recognized the rhythm.
The rhythm of the glass chamber.
"Batch Two," the voice whispered from within.
"Isn't observing anymore."
I blinked.
"Then what are we doing?"
Silence answered—cold, precise, exactly as Dr. Nicco intended:
Integrating.
—To be Continued—