Page 88 of Psycho Obsession
But it’s not for all of us.
A team of guards in white tactical suits appears at the rail, their rifles levelled at Ryker and me.
“The brothers are redundant,” the girl’s voice echoes over the water. “Retrieve the prototype. Sink the rest.”
The first shot hits the water inches from my head, a hiss of steam and lead. I look at Ryker, then at the ghost on the deck, and I realise the truth. We didn’t escape Oakhaven. We just moved from the nursery to the incinerator.
Chapter
Thirty-Four
JEX
The water is a freezing vice, but the cold isn’t the problem. The problem is the frame rate.
I’m treading water, watching the white tactical cutter glide toward Hallow. One second, it’s a masterpiece of military engineering—sleek, carbon-fibre plating, glowing blue HUD displays on the bridge, the Vance Corporation crest shimmering like a neon star. The next, the image tears.
The blue glow stutters into a flickering, dying yellow lantern. The carbon fibre melts into rusted, jagged iron. The sleek prow becomes the rotting nose of a tugboat called The Mercy, its hull weeping orange streaks of oxidation into the black harbour.
“Ryker,” I choke out, my teeth shattering against each other. “The boat. It’s… it’s shifting. My head, it’s?—”
“Focus on the mission, Jex!” Rykerscreams, but he isn’t looking at me. He’s staring at the deck of the cutter with a terrifying, wide-eyed intensity. “The retrieval team is deploying. Look at their gear. Thermal goggles. Level four plates. They’re professionals.”
I look. I see them. Six men in bone-white tactical suits, moving with the synchronised grace of a clockwork machine. They raise their rifles, the laser sights cutting through the fog in perfect, lethal red lines.
Then the wind shifts.
The red lasers flicker out, replaced by the swaying, dim beams of two rusted flashlights held by men in stained overalls. The tactical suits dissolve into tattered rain gear. The ‘rifles’ are just lengths of lead pipe and a flare gun.
My stomach rolls. The world feels thin, like wet tissue paper held over a fire.
“Hallow!” I roar, trying to swim toward her, but the water feels like thick, black molasses.
She’s dangling in the air, caught in the grip of the high-tech retrieval arm. But as I watch, the polished chrome of the pincer turns into a frayed, greasy rope sling. She’s being hoisted up like a bag of salt.
“Hallow, look at me!” I yell.
She turns her head. In the ‘clean’ version of the world, she looks like a tragic queen, her hair flowing, her eyes filled with a defiant, cinematic glow. But then the glitch hits. Her face becomes a map of raw, unwashed exhaustion. Her hair is matted with actual filth, not ‘aesthetic’ soot.
She looks at the railing of the boat. Standing there is the Replacement—the girl in the white lace dress.
The girl is perfect. She’s glowing. She’s the sister weshould have had. She leans over the rail, her hand extended, her fingers tipped with manicured nails.
“Come home, Hallow,” the Replacement says. Her voice is like a silver bell, clear and sweet.
But then the audio distorts. The silver bell turns into a scratching, rhythmic sound—the sound of a record needle stuck in a groove. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. The Replacement’s face blurs. For a second, she’s not a girl at all. She’s a mannequin draped in a moth-eaten curtain. Then, she’s a memory of our mother. Then, she’s just a shadow cast by the boat’s crane.
“She’s not real!” I scream, the words tearing my throat. “Ryker, there’s nobody there! It’s the humming! The humming is making us see things!”
“Shut up!” Ryker turns on me, his face a mask of frantic, desperate rage. He lunges through the water, grabbing my hair and shoving my head under.
The world beneath the surface is silent. No humming. No tactical cutters. Just the deep, dark truth of the harbour. I see the pilings of the pier—rotted, barnacle-encrusted wood. I see the trash drifting in the current. I don’t see any “underwater labs.” I don’t see any “submarines.”
I kick Ryker off me and break the surface, gasping.
“It’s a lie, Ryker!” I sob, my voice breaking. “The Council, the Clinic, the Mother… we made it all up so we didn’t have to be alone in the dark! We’re just in the harbour! We’re just?—”
“Look at the Ledger!” Ryker screams, holding up the leather folder. “The names! The proof!”
