Scene 13
The guard led him through a maze of identical white corridors, past locked doors with small observation windows, past other boys in gray uniforms shuffling silently in supervised groups. No one made eye contact. No one spoke.
Finally, they stopped at a door marked "B-466."
"Inside," the guard grunted, unlocking it with a key card.
The room was small, Barely three point zero five by three point zero five meters. A narrow bed with a thin mattress. A metal desk bolted to the wall. A single chair. A door in the corner that Glenn assumed led to a bathroom. One small window, high on the wall, with frosted glass that let in diffused light but no view.
"Dinner's at six. Someone will come get you," the guard said. Then he stepped out and locked the door behind him.
Glenn was alone.
He sat on the bed, running his hands over the rough, starched sheets. The silver-blue lines on his forearm seemed to pulse more strongly now, almost glowing in the dim light.
"This... all of this is wrong."
"Damnit... Hope you're okay wherever you are, Gwen."
He closed his eyes and tried to remember the layout from all fourteen of his encounters, mapping out where the girls' blocks should be, where the common areas were, where the blind spots in surveillance exist, the tests...
But one thought kept pushing through all the planning, all the strategy:
"How much of things have changed for this encounter? How long has Gwen been in here? Is Matthew even in here? He and Anthony supposed to arrive at the same time."
"No... Did I get the dates wrong? Is it tomorrow? Maybe things haven't changed that drastically."
The possibilities sent ice through his veins.
"Or maybe... we've changed so much the past is nolonger ours to remember. A present to survive in."
He sighed, laying back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, counting the minutes until dinner.
Somewhere in this building, his sister was waiting.
And somewhere in this building, Matthew Winters is either about to arrive for the first time, unaware that his fate had already been written and rewritten fourteen times over or he's about to arrive.