Page 202 of Somno Slave

Peter drags me next to him like he doesn’t trust me to move by myself, and I stumble into place.

My eyes find Deogal immediately. I reach for him with the same shame as touching a bruise just to feel it hurt again. Hiseyes are locked on the floor; he doesn’t show us if he has noticed our presence.

The chains are tight across his body, drawn hard enough that they should dominate the image of him, should define him, should reduce him into something contained and manageable. But they don’t. He sits with the same impossible stillness. Nothing’s changed, and yet everything is about to.

I keep looking until my eyes ache. Until the muscles start throbbing.

And only then does he finally move. His head lifts slowly and the motion drags through me with horrible precision.

His gaze catches first on the floor beside my boots before climbing higher in no hurry whatsoever, over my legs, my stomach, my chest, until it finally settles into mine. Heat tears through me in one brutal sweep, sharp enough to feel invasive. My thighs lock instinctively beneath the table. I feel my pulse everywhere at once. In my throat. Between my ribs. Low in my stomach where something humiliating twists hard enough to ache.

He doesn’t look afraid. That’s the worst part.

There’s no panic, or bargaining. Nothing in him resembles a man about to die.

I hold his gaze anyway even though every second of it feels dangerous now. Around us, the rest of the room continues in blurred fragments that no longer connect properly in my head. Papers shifting. Fabric pulling tight as someone crosses their arms. The dull electrical hum from the monitors vibrating through the walls. Harris speaking somewhere to my left in that flat administrative tone they train into people before they let them oversee death.

None of it feels fully real anymore.

It feels distant.

Like the room has started separating from me in thin invisible layers while I stay trapped at the centre of it with him.

My mouth has gone dry enough to hurt.

I can still feel his eyes on me.

Harris keeps talking. The words drag together into meaningless sound for several seconds before one sentence finally forces its way through the fog and lands hard enough to make my stomach turn. “...sentenced to death, effective immediately.”

The room doesn’t react.

But something inside me does.

Air catches halfway in, sharp enough to hurt, and suddenly I can’t swallow. It reacts like they have announced they are about to cut a limb from me.

He turns to Peter, who nods his approval.

My lips part to protest, but the sound is suddenly stolen from my lips. I blink hard but time seems to move faster.

Harris is now moving.

My stomach drops so violently I grip the table to stay upright. Peter’s grip around my wrist tightens. It stings viciously like he’s drawing blood, like he’s straining the bone, but the pain feels delayed like it’s already an old wound.

I’m watching Harris placing the tray on the table next to Deogal. He selects a needle with brutal slowness like he’s dragging out the moment, before taking a vial in the palm of his hand. He lets it roll side to side and the liquid sloshes, thick and pale, clinging to the sides of the glass before settling again.

My eyes lock onto it so completely it feels like my body has forgotten how to do anything else. I can’t blink. I can’t swallow. I just stare.

“Any last words?” Harris holds the needle in front of Deogal’s face like a taunt.

My body seizes up so sharply it feels like fury.

Deogal doesn’t react, and it’s worse than if he did. He remains perfectly still like he’s frozen in time. I can’t seem to force the same calmness through me.

Everything narrows. The room blurs slightly at the edges. The sound shifts with it, voices stretching slightly, distorting, as though they’re arriving just behind where they should.

Harris slides the needle through the seal in the vial. The sound lands somewhere deep inside me like a rupture. His hand strikes out to angle Deogal’s head properly.

My throat closes.