Page 15 of Somno Slave

His height is the first thing I can’t make sense of. His head nearly clips the top of the doorway when he enters, body stretched like something from a nightmare. Prison fabric pulls tight across broad shoulders. The orange is too bright. It draws my attention in a way I don’t like, and I note instinctively that it matches the colour of his file on my lap. And for a ludicrous moment, it feels as though I’m meeting himthroughthe colour. Warmth follows through the fabric, throbbing like it has its own pulse.

He keeps his head lowered as he enters, dark curls falling across his face, and for one irrational second, I’m grateful for the obstruction. Because even without fully seeing him yet, something low in my stomach tightens hard enough to hurt.

He’s flanked by four heavily guarded security guards, who saynothingto him. There are too many bodies in the room. Too many men around him for it to feel sensible, and yet it still doesn’t feel enough. I don’t know why I think that. I don’t know why I care.

He moves without urgency, but something about the slowness feels deliberate rather than controlled. The chains scrape softly against the floor.

He takes his seat without prompting.

The guards move fast, securing the chains around his wrists and ankles to the clamps in the ground.Click. Click. Click.Everything flows in one motion until the chains hold him still.

They step back. And now, settled in the chair, under the harsh lighting of the overhead lamps, I finally see his face. Not all at once, but in pieces that refuse to soften when they join together. The sharpness of bone. The stillness of his mouth. Eyes too dark to read at this distance, though distance suddenly feels like a weak defence.

I’m drawn to the deep reds of his lips. My eyes snag on them before I can stop myself. His lower lip looks bitten raw, swollen slightly at one corner like he’s been chewing at it for hours—or using it for something worse. It’s a stark contrast to the paleness of his skin, even more so to the deep purple bruises under his eyes, the colour of a man that doesn’t sleep well.

Something in me recoils like it remembers him before I do.

My eyes find his name on the file.

Deogal Attor.

The name feels wrong in my mouth immediately. Too sharp at the edges. Too heavy. And I have the ridiculous urge to glance toward the door like something might hear me saying it.

My attention slides back to him. He just sits there; attention fixed on the table. Blank. Disinterested. The four guards he came in with file out of the room, and the air becomes heavier.

“You’ve been busy,” Peter says. “Three bodies confirmed.”

There’s no soft opening, no introduction. He just lays the words down like evidence.

“More we haven’t found yet.” He lets that sit. “I dislike unfinished work.”

He waits but Deogal gives him nothing. His face is a perfect statue of stoicism. Hisbodyis a statue of stillness, eyes fixed firmly on the desk in front of him, not breaking away for even ablink. It is unlike anything I have been trained to read, and the gap bothers me more than it should.

“Hmm,” Peter hums. He shifts forward in his seat, trying to catch his gaze. “Not much of a talker, are we?”

He doesn’t appear to even breathe.

The seconds tick by. Peter studies him for a beat, then folds his hands.

“You’ve already had the polite version of this conversation, Mr Attor,” His voice lowers. “I wouldn’t mistake this unit for hospitality. What happens next depends entirely on how much inconvenience you feel like causing me.”

But it’s as if Peter never spoke. The criminal,Deogal,doesn’t react, not even for a breath.

“Alright,” Peter says. He opens the file with deliberate care, turning each page slowly enough for the sound to carry through the room. Paper against paper. Soft. Dry. Repetitive. My fingers flex once.

“Bodies only stay hidden when the people looking for them are lazy.” He says it in the way men talk about weather. He turns a page in the file. “We are not lazy. We will find the other bodies.”

The silence stretches long enough that I become aware of my own breathing, each inhale suddenly too loud in the room.

I try to break him down into parts. I start with his jaw, but there’s nothing. No grinding teeth or clenching behind his composure. His mouth just sits there, loose and still, like the rest of him has forgotten movement entirely.

My attention drops to his shoulders next. Most people hold tension there before they realise they’re doing it. The body always betrays itself eventually. Tightening. Locking. Preparing for impact before the face catches up.

His don’t. Not even a twitch beneath the orange fabric.

Hands.

They rest loosely in his lap, fingers relaxed, not curled, not gripping, not fighting the restraints in the way they should be. The chains hang from his wrists without resistance, heavy and dull against his skin.