The corridor was brighter than the white room.
Fluorescent tubes in the ceiling, the light a flat white, the walls close on both sides, no windows, the floor a material that returned a sound with every step. Sarah walked ahead, moving faster than before. The other two came behind me. All of us heading in the direction of the far end of the corridor.
I walked and looked at Sarah's back, at the walls on both sides, at the distance still to cover. Everything appeared as it should. Normal was what I'd learned to distrust, but I was still walking — still following, because what else.
After a while, Sarah said from ahead: "Faster. The sooner the better."
I picked up the pace.
The corridor curved. We followed it around, and ahead there was another stretch, ending in a door. The door was closed. Along the bottom edge of it, a trace of light.
Then I heard it.
Faint. Far off, as if drifting from some corner of the corridor — soft enough to be almost swallowed by the sound of footsteps. Almost.
Hm — Hmhm — Hm — Hm — Hmhm —
My feet stopped.
Not my decision. They just stopped.
The moment that melody reached me, something in my mind went completely clear — all the ambient noise of the corridor fell away at once, pushed back, reduced to something distant and muffled. Only the melody remained, coming through precisely, note by note. And in my ears, something started — a low, faint ringing. Not pain, not loud. Just that particular quality that the body produces when it registers something that matters.
Something was wrong.
Not the kind of wrong where you can identify what's off. A different kind — the feeling of something trying to get your attention, as if someone had put a hand lightly on your arm. Stop. Look at this.
I stood and my mind began to move.
Sarah had been pushing for fast from the moment she came into that room. Moving quickly, not explaining why, not saying what would happen if they didn't. Every sentence carried the urgency, nothing explaining where it came from.
The door.
My gaze went to the door at the end of the corridor. One glance, and I went still.
The light coming through the gap along the bottom edge — it wasn't the even, neutral light of the corridor. It was the kind with a slight instability in it, a faint glow that didn't sit quite right against the surrounding surfaces. A glow I'd seen too many times to mistake.
I looked at it for one second, and things clicked quietly into place.
If that door was an exit — and she'd been pushing me toward it, fast, not explaining — then the urgency wasn't about what was waiting for me on the other side. It was about the timing. Getting me through before something changed. Before the time ran out. Not because Dad was waiting, not because of a medical check. Because they needed me to walk through that door believing I was going home, when I would only be going somewhere else.
The melody was still there. Soft. Steady.
Hm — Hmhm — Hm — Hm — Hmhm —
Mum was telling me: stop.
"Elena?"
Sarah's voice came from ahead. I looked. She'd turned back, looking at me, lips moving as she said something.
She walked back toward me. "Are you alright? Are you feeling unwell?"
I looked at her. Said nothing.
She frowned slightly, reached out, her hand moving toward my shoulder.
My hand moved.
Not a decision. My hand moved first — before her hand reached me, I'd shifted sideways, reached across, closed my fingers around the holster at her side, pulled the weapon clear, stepped back. Two steps. The muzzle toward her.
The corridor went silent for a beat.
Sarah stopped, her hand still partially raised, and her expression changed — the professional composure cracked open just slightly, showing what was underneath: genuine surprise. Surprise that this had happened, that she hadn't seen it coming. The two behind me had stopped too. One of them shifted a hand toward their side. Sarah's head turned fast. "Don't."
Then she looked back at me. Her hand came down slowly. Her voice dropped. "Elena. Put the gun down. Take a breath."
My hands were around the weapon, the muzzle toward her, my hands trembling — not badly, just the particular kind of trembling that comes from holding something steady by force.
"This is real," she said, each word placed carefully. "You're out. We came to find you. Your father is outside waiting. If that discharges, someone will be hurt. Put it down."
I looked at her. Said nothing.
"I know it's been a lot," she said, moving forward by half a step. "I know trusting anyone right now is almost impossible. But right now I need you to trust me. This is real. I'm real. The gun is real. Put it down."
My hands were still shaking.
Every word she said, I could hear the reasoning in it. Every sentence had weight. Every sentence was pulling at something in me that wanted to believe her, and the place where that something lived was not far — only one step, only releasing my grip, only putting the weapon down, and I'd be standing back in the version of events where she was telling the truth.
She moved forward another fraction. "Elena." Quieter now. "Your father's name is Michael. He's forty-three. He's out there right now. He's been there the whole time we've been here. You only have to walk through that door and you'll see him. Put the gun down."
My hands began to lower.
Her eyes tracked the movement. Her shoulders released slightly. She stepped closer. "That's it. Just like that. It's okay —"
I closed my eyes.
The melody was still there.
Hm — Hmhm — Hm — Hm — Hmhm —
Every note in its right place. The same as I'd always known it. The same as the one from the kitchen that I'd carried for years. Not the version from inside the dream — that one had been different, a note out of sequence, a detail I'd been too tired to examine when I heard it. This one was exact.
I raised the gun.
And pressed the trigger.