White took the room by the floor.
Caleb felt the old concrete leave his boots. The work lamp vanished. The chair vanished. Marek's last laugh stayed, caught in the filter of Caleb's mask like bad air refusing to clear.
Then the ceiling came down.
The Child hit him through the falling concrete with both silver hands.
Caleb went up the stairwell backward.
His shoulder struck the wall. His mask cracked against the rail. Silver spread under his skin, ready and pleased, as if pain had opened a door it had been waiting beside.
In for four.
The count came from Marek.
Hold for two.
The stair squeezed Caleb's ribs.
Out for six.
He landed on his back in the wash bay with rain needling his mask and the yard tilted hard to the left.
The Child climbed after him through the broken opening.
Sefa's stolen light burned behind its ribs, brighter now. The marks along the Child's small wrong body had opened wider, four cuts of white-green fire laid into silver skin.
