Chapter 5: The Echo Chamber

Some people call it guilt.

I call it gravity.

It pulls me down when I try to be still. Keeps me tethered to this meat suit, this mask, this lie of a life. I wake up every morning not with purpose, but with pressure. Like a scream caught behind the teeth. Like something inside me is rotting from the inside out—but politely.

Jane texted me again.

"You okay?"

I left her on read. I don't know how to answer that question anymore. Okay is a costume. Okay is a performance. Okay is for the ones who still flinch at blood.

I don't flinch.

I never flinch.

---

Factory. Machines hum like lullabies for the damned. I watch grease-slick hands move in rhythm, turning bolts, pressing buttons. Repetition keeps the rats sane. I've memorized the patterns of everyone here. How they move. How they breathe. How they'd die.

The man two rows ahead? Collapsed trachea, two minutes.

The woman by the control panel? Jugular, one swift motion, silence in twelve seconds.

They're all puzzles I've already solved.

---

Flashback: Winter. Age 14.

Father's boots were muddy that day.

His mouth stank of old beer and borrowed rage.

"You think you're better than me?" he slurred.

I didn't answer. My silence was louder than his shouting. He swung. Missed. Tried again. That time, he didn't.

I felt something crack—not my jaw, something deeper. A split. A fracture that never healed.

That night, I stared at him while he slept. Mouth open. Snoring. Defenseless. I held the kitchen knife to his throat for seventeen minutes.

Didn't press.

Didn't kill.

Not that time.

I told myself it was restraint.

Now I know it was rehearsal.

---

After work, I follow a man.

He's not special. Just another drunk staggering home from a bar. His breath fogs the cold night air, thick with regret and cheap whiskey. He doesn't see me. They never do. I'm a shadow. A footstep that vanishes before it lands.

He walks past the alley. I almost pull him in.

Almost.

But then a little girl runs out from behind him. Laughing.

"Daddy, slow down!"

And just like that, the urge dies.

Not because I'm merciful.

Because I'm particular.

---

I return home to silence.

No music. No TV. Just the sound of my own mind, clicking like a loaded gun.

I open the drawer. My notebook is there. My confessional. My scripture. I flip to a blank page.

I don't write names. I draw maps—mental blueprints of every place I've considered painting red. Every alley, rooftop, dead-end road. A cartography of carnage.

And tonight, I mark a new one.

A new name has earned a place.

I stare at it for a long time.

This one matters.

He hurt someone. A child.

And now, he has to meet me.

---

Tomorrow, I won't hesitate.

And when I'm done…

…I'll finally sleep without dreaming.