Facets

The end. It was great, wasn't it? Every beginning has an end. And Facets is no exception. We've come a long way, learned a lot about ourselves and our facets, made painful choices in the most difficult moral situations, rejoiced and grieved when we learned the whole story about our choices. I hope you have no regrets. A few statistics: 1,311 users. 143 dilemmas. 12,037 conscious choices. What's next? Who knows... With love, the Facets team.

The room goes quiet. You sit there, oh my brothers, understanding the real question: Is it better to be forced to be good, or to freely choose to be bad? In here, you're locked up, but your gulliver is still yours. You can think what you want, dream what you want, be whoever you are in the privacy of your mind. You're caged, but you're still Alex. Still capable of choosing, even if the only choices are which Scripture to read or which work detail to volunteer for. The Ludovico Technique changes that. Makes you good not because you choose goodness, but because you're physically incapable of badness. Like a machine programmed to specific parameters. Like a wind-up toy that can only do what it's wound to do. But you'd be free. Walking the streets in two weeks instead of twelve years. Back in the world, with Ludwig Van and milk-plus and the night air and all the sights and sounds of life outside these gray walls. Except you wouldn't really be you anymore, would you? You'd be what they made you. A thing that looks like Alex but operates on government programming. A body without a will. A clockwork orange. The Chaplain is watching you with something like pity. "You don't have to do this, my son. There are other ways. You could genuinely reform. Choose to be better. That would mean something. That would be real." You almost laugh. Choose to be better? You've tried being better. It's dull. Boring. The world is full of sheep pretending to be good because they're afraid not to be. But you were never afraid. You were gloriously, violently, beautifully free to be exactly what you wanted. Until they caught you. The Minister is getting impatient. "We need an answer, 6655321. The program has limited slots. If you're not interested, there are other prisoners who—" "I'm interested," you hear yourself say. "I just want to understand what I'm agreeing to." "Freedom," the Minister says. "You're agreeing to freedom." But the Chaplain's eyes say: You're agreeing to lose yourself. There are other options, you realize. You could refuse—stay in prison, keep your mind, serve your time. Twelve years is long, but you'd still be you at the end. You could try to escape. You're clever, you've been watching the guards, learning their patterns. It's possible. Dangerous, unlikely to succeed, but possible. You could do what the Chaplain suggests—actually reform yourself. Not be programmed, but genuinely change who you are. Choose goodness instead of having it forced on you. Though that feels like defeat, like letting them win. You could manipulate them. Fake the treatment's success, or fake reform without the treatment. You're good at faking—you've been faking penitence for two years. Why not take it further? The Minister is waiting. The Chaplain is praying quietly. The guards are indifferent—one prisoner's choice doesn't matter to them. But it matters to you. Because this isn't just about freedom versus imprisonment. It's about who you are versus who they want to make you. It's about whether a man is defined by his choices or by his actions. Whether it's better to choose evil or be incapable of choosing at all. Outside your window, you can hear the faint sound of music from the guard's radio. Not Ludwig Van—something modern and tasteless—but still music. Still the world continuing while you're frozen in this moment of decision. Two weeks or twelve years. Freedom or free will. Being good or choosing good. Being Alex or being safe. The Minister's pen is poised over a clipboard. "What's it going to be, 6655321?" The Chaplain's lips move in silent prayer. You look at the bars of your cell, then at the door to the Minister's freedom, then at your own hands—the hands that created such beautiful ultraviolence, that might create it again, or might never be able to create anything but clockwork goodness. What's it going to be, indeed?

You're Alex DeLarge—Prisoner 6655321—and you're trapped in Her Majesty's Prison reading the Bible in your cell when the Chief Guard tells you the Minister wants to see you. That's never good. Or maybe it is. Hard to tell in this cancerous world. Two years you've been in here. Two years of the old in-out in-out of prison routine: wake, work, eat, sleep, repeat. Twelve more years to go for what they called murder, though it was really just a bit of the old ultraviolence that went too far with that stupid rich ptitsa and her cats. She shouldn't have fought back. That was her first mistake. Her second was having a heavy sculpture within reach. But here's the thing, oh my brothers: you're not sorry. Not really. You miss the rush—the tolchocking, the twenty-to-one, the in-out-in-out, the feel of the old britva in your hand, your faithful droogs Pete, Georgie, and Dim at your side, and Ludwig Van pulsing through your gulliver like divine fire. That was real living. This? This is just existing, word by word through Scriptures you don't believe, pretending to be reformed for the prison charlie who thinks he's saving your soul. The Minister of the Interior arrives with cameras and smiles that don't reach his eyes. Government type, all suit and statistics. You've seen his kind before—they measure suffering in percentages and human lives in polling numbers. "6655321," he says, not using your name because names make you human and humans are harder to experiment on. "You've shown remarkable improvement. The Chaplain speaks highly of your Bible studies." You smile your best reformed smile. "I've found comfort in the Word, sir. Especially the Old Testament." (The violent bits, naturally, but you don't mention that.) "Yes, well." He exchanges a look with the Chief Guard. "We have an opportunity for you. A new treatment program called the Ludovico Technique. Revolutionary. Experimental. Two weeks of treatment and you walk out a free man. Completely reformed. No parole board, no conditions. Just... freedom." Two weeks versus twelve years. The math is so simple even Dim could do it. "What's the catch?" you ask. "No catch," the Minister says, too quickly. "Simply an advanced form of aversion therapy. We show you films, administer certain medications, condition you away from violent impulses. It's quite safe. We've had... preliminary successes." The Prison Chaplain appears in the doorway, looking troubled. He's the only one here who treats you like a human instead of a number or a problem to solve. "Minister," he says carefully, "perhaps 6655321 should understand the full implications—" "The implications are freedom," the Minister cuts him off. "Two weeks of cooperation versus over a decade of incarceration. I should think the choice is clear." But the Chaplain's face tells you it isn't clear at all. There's something they're not saying. Something about what this treatment does to you. Something that makes a man of God look worried. "What does it do?" you press. "Really?" The Minister's smile tightens. "It eliminates your capacity for violence. Permanently. You'll be unable to harm anyone, unable to even think violent thoughts without becoming physically ill. You'll be good, 6655321. Perfectly, reliably good." "Whether I want to be or not?" "Whether you want to be or not," he agrees. "But isn't that better than rotting in here? You'll be free. You can go home, resume your life, do anything you want—as long as it's legal and non-violent, of course." The Chaplain steps forward. "Minister, with respect—this technique removes his ability to choose. When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man. He becomes... a clockwork orange. Something organic made mechanical. He may look human, but he's been robbed of the one thing that makes us human: the capacity for moral choice." "He's made plenty of moral choices," the Minister snaps. "All of them wrong. This simply corrects that." "By removing his ability to choose at all!"

You could split up. One of you creates a distraction, draws their fire, while the other slips out the back. Fifty-fifty chance one of you makes it. But it means leaving your partner behind. It means one of you dies alone while the other lives with it. You could try to negotiate. Offer to work for the Bolivian government—you know every outlaw route in South America by now. Or promise to quit robbery forever, go straight, disappear into the countryside. Save your life by betraying everything you are. Or you could do what the old Butch Cassidy would do: grab your gun, stand up with your best friend, and walk out into that plaza with your head high and your pistol blazing. Go out like outlaws. Go out together. Go out free. Sundance is watching you, waiting. He'll do whatever you decide. That's always been the deal. You plan, he follows. Partners to the end. Outside, the soldiers are getting impatient. Someone's shouting orders. You hear rifle bolts clicking. They're preparing to storm the building. "Kid," you say, and your voice sounds strange—tired, older than your forty-two years. "I'm thinking—" "Yeah?" This is the moment. Not the robberies, not the chases, not the legend they'll write about you in dime novels. This moment. Two bleeding outlaws in a foreign country, surrounded, outgunned, out of time. What you choose next defines everything: who you were, what you stood for, how you'll be remembered. The old West is dead. You've known it for years. Men like you—free men, wild men, men who lived by their own rules—there's no place left for you. The world wants order, laws, boundaries. It wants you in chains or in the ground. But you still get to choose how this ends. Sundance waits, faithful as ever, ready to follow you into hell or heaven or that plaza full of rifles. The sun is setting over the Bolivian mountains. Beautiful, in a way. Your last sunset, probably. Might as well make it count. You grip your revolver. Take a breath. Look at your best friend—the man who jumped off a cliff into a river because you asked him to, the man who crossed an ocean because you had an idea, the man who'll die beside you if that's what you choose. "What do you think?" Sundance asks again. The soldiers are moving. Thirty seconds, maybe less, before they rush the building. Time to decide.

You're Butch Cassidy—Robert LeRoy Parker, if anyone still remembers your real name—and you're bleeding out in a sun-baked Bolivian village with your best friend, a hundred soldiers outside, and exactly zero good options left. The year is 1908. Nine years since you and the Sundance Kid fled Wyoming with a posse that wouldn't quit. Nine years since you realized the Wild West you knew—the open ranges, the easy scores, the gentleman bandit life—was dying, strangled by railroads and Pinkertons and persistent lawmen who didn't respect the unwritten rules. So you ran. You and Sundance and his woman, Etta. All the way to Bolivia, where you thought you could start fresh, rob a few payrolls, live the good life in a country that didn't know your faces or care about your past. It worked. For a while. You learned Spanish. You went straight for a stretch, even worked honest jobs—you as a ranch hand, Sundance breaking horses, both of you pretending you were different men. But honest work paid nothing, and old habits are persistent as that Wyoming posse. So you went back to what you knew: robbing. Banks, payroll mules, mine shipments. Easy money. Familiar thrill. But you got sloppy. Or maybe Bolivia got smarter. Either way, here you are: trapped in a crumbling adobe building in San Vicente, surrounded by what looks like the entire Bolivian cavalry, nursing bullet wounds that probably won't kill you before the soldiers do. Sundance is across the room, back against the wall, reloading his revolver with bloodstained hands. He's been shot in the leg—bad—and you've got two bullets in you that you're trying very hard not to think about. The pain is manageable if you don't move. If you move, it's white-hot agony. "How many you figure?" Sundance asks, voice steady despite everything. That's Kid for you—never rattled, even staring down the barrel of the inevitable. You peek through a bullet hole in the wall. Soldiers everywhere. Rooftops, windows, street barricades. A hundred men, maybe more, all with rifles pointed at this building. "Enough," you say. He almost smiles. "You always were good with numbers." This wasn't supposed to happen. You were supposed to hit the mining company payroll, ride to the coast, catch a boat to Australia. You'd been talking about Australia for months—a whole new frontier, they said, wide open spaces, opportunity for men willing to work hard or steal smart. Etta had gone back to the States already, tired of the violence, tired of running, tired of watching the two of you bleed. You promised her this would be the last job. You weren't lying. It will be. The soldiers are shouting in Spanish. You catch enough to understand: surrender or die. Come out with hands up. You're surrounded. There's no escape. The usual. Sundance checks his ammunition. Six bullets left. You've got maybe eight. Against a hundred rifles. "What do you think?" he asks. It's the question he always asks. You're the planner, the talker, the one with ideas. He's the gunfighter, the loyal partner who'll follow wherever you lead—off cliffs into rivers, across continents to Bolivia, into hails of bullets if that's what you decide. That's the problem with being Butch Cassidy: everyone expects you to have a plan. And you usually do. You've talked your way out of bar fights, planned elaborate heists, convinced a hundred men to follow you into impossible situations. Your brain is your best weapon—better than Sundance's aim, better than any gun. But right now? Right now you've got nothing. You could surrender. Walk out with hands up, face Bolivian justice—which probably means a firing squad, but at least it buys time. Maybe a trial. Maybe a chance to escape later. Pragmatic. Sensible. Completely unlike everything you've ever stood for. You could try to fight your way out. Make a run for the horses tied up two buildings over. Sundance covers you, you get the mounts, ride like hell. It's a long shot—impossibly long—but you've beaten long odds before. Haven't you?

You solved the anagram Roman kept repeating: Steven Marcato. Rearranged: *Satan, deliver me*. But also: Roman Castevet = *Satan, live here now*. And Adrian Marcato, the devil worshipper who was killed by angry Catholics in the Bramford in 1896—Roman's father. Your baby is due in three weeks. Your body is no longer your own. Your husband made a deal—your womb for his career. Your neighbors aren't eccentric—they're a coven. Your doctor isn't helping you—he's one of them. Your baby isn't a baby—it's the son of Satan. Everyone you've tried to talk to thinks you're hysterical. "Pregnancy hormones," they say. "Paranoid delusions," Dr. Sapirstein diagnosed, trying to sedate you. Guy treats you like a child having tantrums. Minnie pats your hand and pushes more herbal drinks. They've isolated you perfectly—anyone who might believe you is gone or silenced. You stand in your apartment, seven months pregnant with the Antichrist, holding a book about witchcraft, while your husband sleeps in the next room and the coven gathers in the apartment next door, waiting for you to deliver their dark messiah. You have options. None of them good. None of them safe. You can run. Take what money you have, get on a bus, disappear into America. Have the baby somewhere else, give it up for adoption, start over. They'll chase you—but maybe you'll get far enough. You can confront them. Go next door with the book, with the evidence, demand the truth. Make them acknowledge what they've done. Maybe confrontation will give you power. Maybe honesty will save you. You can seek help from the Church. Father Whoever-will-listen. Confess everything, beg for sanctuary, for exorcism, for protection. The Catholic Church dealt with Adrian Marcato once. Maybe they'll deal with his son's child. You can trust the system. Go to the police, to hospitals, to authorities. File reports, demand medical records, get lawyers involved. They think you're crazy—prove you're not. Fight them with documentation, with official channels, with the law. You can accept it. The baby is coming whether you want it or not. Your body is already committed. Maybe if you cooperate, if you protect the child, you can influence what it becomes. Maybe maternal love can redeem even the devil's son. Or you can do what Terry did. End it before it begins. Stop the Antichrist the only way left available. Your body, your choice, your sacrifice. The apartment walls are thin. You hear chanting next door, low and rhythmic. They know you know. They're waiting to see what you'll do. Your husband's breathing is steady in the bedroom. The man who sold you. Who let them violate you while you were drugged. Who gaslights you daily, who calls your terror "hysteria," who chose fame over your body, your autonomy, your soul. The book is heavy in your hands. The baby kicks—strong, insistent, alien. Three weeks until your due date. Three weeks until they expect you to deliver Satan's child willingly, to be the mother of the Antichrist, to smile and rock the cradle while the world ends. The night is dark. The Bramford is quiet. Your phone sits on the table—one call could change everything. Or nothing. Or make everything worse. You're not paranoid. You're not hysterical. You're not crazy. You're a woman whose body has been stolen, whose husband has betrayed her, whose life has been converted into a vessel for evil. You're a woman with limited time and impossible choices. The chanting grows louder. They're ready. The question is: are you?

The Bramford building looms over Central Park West like a gothic cathedral, all dark stone and shadowed windows. You're Rosemary Woodhouse, twenty-four years old, newlywed, and seven months pregnant with a child you're no longer sure is yours. Your hands shake as you hold Hutch's book—*All of Them Witches*. He's in a coma now. The doctors say stroke, but you know better. He was trying to warn you about the Bramford, about the Castevets, about the thing growing inside you. The last thing he said before collapsing: "The name is an anagram." You've been piecing it together for weeks, but your mind keeps refusing the conclusion. It's too impossible. Too insane. Except nothing else explains what's happened. It started so simply. You and Guy needed an apartment. The Bramford was perfect—high ceilings, good light, affordable. Your friend Hutch warned you about its history: the Trench sisters who ate children, Adrian Marcato who practiced black magic. But those were just stories. Ghost stories. Manhattan folklore. Then you met Terry, the young woman the Castevets took in from the streets. She seemed grateful, healthy, wearing a strange pendant with herbs inside. "They're the most wonderful people in the world," she said about your elderly neighbors, Roman and Minnie. Three days later, she jumped from their seventh-floor window. Or was pushed. The police said suicide. You saw her body on the pavement, limbs twisted, eyes open to the sky. Guy was fascinated by the Castevets after that. The eccentric old couple with their strange dinners and insider theater connections. Roman with his pontificating and Minnie with her pushy mothering and terrible-tasting "herbal" drinks. Guy started spending hours with them while you slept. His struggling acting career suddenly took off—he landed a major role after the original actor mysteriously went blind. The night you conceived was wrong from the start. Minnie brought chocolate mousse. Yours had a chalky undertaste. You barely ate any before discretely throwing it away, but even that small amount made the room spin. You remember fragments: Guy's weight on you, but his eyes weren't Guy's. Naked bodies surrounding the bed. Chanting in a language that hurt your ears. Claws instead of hands. Pain. Violation. The smell of sulfur and something ancient. "It was just a dream," Guy said the next morning, seeing your scratches. "You had a nightmare." But you were pregnant. And the pregnancy was wrong. The pain started immediately. Not morning sickness—agony. Your body wasting away while something inside you grew strong. Dr. Sapirstein, the famous obstetrician the Castevets insisted you see, prescribed Minnie's herbal drinks instead of prenatal vitamins. "Trust me," he said. "I've delivered thousands of babies." You trusted him. You trusted Guy. You trusted Minnie's motherly concern and Roman's intellectual charm. You trusted because that's what good wives do, what good mothers-to-be do. You trusted while your body became a prison and your mind screamed warnings you kept dismissing as paranoia. But then the pieces started connecting. Minnie's constant monitoring. Roman's obsessive interest in your due date. Guy's sudden success coinciding with your suffering. The Castevets' friends who visited—all elderly, all watching you with hungry eyes. The strange sounds through the walls at night. The tannis root necklace Minnie gave you, identical to the one Terry wore before she died. Hutch noticed. Dear, skeptical Hutch who didn't believe in superstition but did believe in research. He started investigating the Bramford, the Castevets, the connections between Adrian Marcato and Roman Castevet. He called you three days ago, excited: "I've figured it out, Ro. Meet me for lunch. Don't tell Guy." He never made it to lunch. His housekeeper found him collapsed. The doctors say he might never wake up. But before he fell, he sent you a book. *All of Them Witches*. Inside, a passage marked in red: "Often they will attempt to breed with a human woman, resulting in the birth of the Antichrist."

Dragline visits you in the dark. Big, loyal Dragline, who's followed you like a disciple since the boxing match. "Luke," he whispers, "you gotta stop. They're gonna kill you." You look at his eyes. They aren't dead anymore. You put that light back in them. "Maybe," you say. "But if I stop, what are you?" He has no answer. The other prisoners watch from their bunks, pretending to sleep. Waiting. Waiting to see if their symbol cracks, if hope dies tonight or keeps burning. You have a choice. Not an easy one. Not one with a clear right answer. You can submit—accept the system is bigger than you, that survival matters more than pride. Behave and live. It's not surrender; it's wisdom. You can resist smarter—play the long game. Pretend to submit, plan better escapes. Be strategic instead of reckless. Sometimes the smartest rebellion looks like compliance. You can keep fighting as you are—loud, reckless, inevitable. Be the symbol they need even if it kills you. Because symbols don't die—they become legends. You can escalate—organize the prisoners. Turn individual defiance into collective resistance. Risk not just your life but theirs. Make the system shake, even if it crushes you all. Or you can find another way—something none expect. Not submission, not rebellion, but a third path. Maybe you can transcend the system entirely. The chains are cold. The night is hot. The prisoners hold their breath. What you do next determines not just your fate, but what they believe about themselves, about resistance, about whether any of this suffering means something. The guards change shift outside. The Captain's mirrored sunglasses sit in his office, watching nothing, reflecting everything. You stand up, chains rattling in the darkness.

The Florida sun beats down on your neck like a hammer. Your hands bleed from the pickaxe, legs ache from leg irons, throat burns from thirst. You're Lucas Jackson—war veteran, drifter, drunk, prisoner number 37 on a rural Florida chain gang. Two years for cutting the heads off parking meters one drunken night in May 1948. But that's not really why you're here. You're here because you can't stop. Can't stop drinking, can't stop moving, can't stop looking for something you lost in the war—or maybe something you never had. The judge saw your war medals and empty eyes and decided you needed straightening out. The camp is hell dressed as rehabilitation. Wooden barracks baking in heat. Guards with mirrored sunglasses—"The Man With No Eyes," they call the Captain—watching every move with loaded rifles. The other prisoners say "yes, Boss" like trained dogs. Their eyes are dead. They've been broken. You haven't. It started with Dragline, the bull who runs the prisoners' hierarchy. He challenged you to a boxing match to beat the defiance out of you. You lost—of course you lost—but you didn't quit. Every time he knocked you down, you got back up. Blood, cracked ribs, blurred vision—you kept standing. Not to win. To prove you're still free. Dragline stopped the fight himself. The prisoners started watching you differently. With hope. You became proof that a man can still be a man even in chains. Then came the egg-eating bet. Fifty hard-boiled eggs in one hour. Impossible, they said. But impossible is just a word the bosses use to keep you small. You ate all fifty while they cheered and forgot, just for an hour, that they were slaves. When you finished, lying exhausted on the table like crucified Christ, you saw it in their eyes: worship. You'd become their symbol, their rebel angel, proof that the human spirit can't be completely crushed. But symbols are dangerous. The bosses noticed. The Captain noticed. Then your mother died. The prison got the telegram three days ago. She was all you had left—the only person who loved you without needing you to be anything else. She died in her sleep, and you weren't there. The grief was quiet and drowning. You realized there's nothing left outside these fences worth behaving for. No one waiting. No reason to survive except to survive. So you ran. Fourth of July. Guards distracted by fireworks. You slipped into the swamp like smoke. For eighteen hours, you were free. You could've kept running, disappeared into another state. But freedom isn't just about where your body is—it's about proving you can take it. They caught you. Bloodhounds and rifles always do. The Captain threw you in the Box—a tiny metal shed barely big enough to stand or lie down, baking in Florida heat like an oven. No light, no air, no human contact. Three days of hallucinations and dehydration and the slow realization that this is how they break you. When they let you out, squinting in brutal sunlight, the prisoners gathered to see if you'd broken. The Captain waited for your first words to be "yes, Boss." You smiled instead. Small, knowing: you haven't won yet. The prisoners erupted in quiet cheers. You'd survived the Box with your spirit intact. Still Cool Hand Luke, the man who doesn't break. But here's the problem with being a symbol: you stop belonging to yourself. Every act of rebellion now carries their hope. If you break, they break. If you submit, they lose the only thing keeping them human. Two weeks later, you escaped again. Made it further this time—sent them a photograph of yourself with two women, sunglasses on, grinning. They caught you again. More days in the Box. Doubled leg irons. A warning from the Captain: "Next time, we shoot." But you know there will be a next time. Because stopping means they were right—that you can be broken, tamed, made into another "yes, Boss" machine. And if you become that, everything means nothing. Tonight, you sit in the barracks while others sleep. Legs chained. Body a map of bruises and scars. The Captain's words echo: "Next time, we shoot."

This is the moment your film has been building toward. This is raw truth, unfiltered reality, the kind of footage that wins awards and launches careers. This is also a human being dying while you decide if his death is worth more as documentary evidence or as a life saved. Edie appears in the doorway. She sees Danny, sees you, sees the camera. "Now you understand," she says quietly. "This is the Chelsea's real art. Not the paintings or the poetry. The art is the choice between witness and accomplice, between documenting life and participating in death." Other residents gather. No one calls an ambulance—not yet. They're waiting to see what you'll do. The camera feels impossibly heavy in your hands. Paul, the silent poet, speaks for the first time in your presence: "Warhol taught us that everything is performance. But he never taught us what to do when the performance becomes real, when the art requires actual blood, when the camera's presence changes what it captures." Marie adds, "You came here to document authenticity. But maybe authenticity means choosing—being complicit or being human. You can't be both observer and innocent." Gerard, still in character from a play you've never seen, delivers a monologue: "The tragedy isn't that art requires sacrifice. The tragedy is that we've convinced ourselves that other people's sacrifice is valid currency for our art." Danny opens his eyes slightly. "Film it," he whispers. "Or save me. Or both. Or neither. Just stop pretending the camera makes you invisible, that observation isn't participation, that documentation isn't a choice." Your finger rests on the record button. The moment stretches. You can hear your own heartbeat, the distant sound of traffic, someone practicing scales in a room above. The camera's weight increases with each passing second. Danny's breathing grows shallower. Edie watches with those enormous eyes. The Hotel Chelsea holds its breath.

You are a twenty-four-year-old documentary filmmaker, fresh from film school, armed with revolutionary ideas about cinéma vérité and capturing "truth" on camera. Your thesis project, "Authenticity in the Age of Performance," caught the attention of someone connected to Andy Warhol's Factory. They've invited you to spend two weeks at the Hotel Chelsea, documenting its legendary residents. This is your dream—access to the heart of 1960s counterculture, the chance to capture something real in a world of façades. You arrive in November 1966 with your 16mm Bolex, notebook, and idealistic conviction that the camera can reveal truth without altering it. The Chelsea overwhelms you immediately. The lobby smells of incense, cigarettes, and something chemical you can't identify. Artists paint directly on hallway walls. A transgender woman in an evening gown walks past carrying a taxidermied peacock. From Room 428, you hear screaming that might be ecstasy or agony—impossible to tell which. Your guide is Edie, a painfully thin woman with enormous eyes and a laugh like broken glass. "Welcome to the only honest place in America," she says, leading you to the third floor. "Here, we don't pretend. We're all performing our real selves, or really performing our selves, or something. Does it matter?" She introduces you to your subjects. There's Paul, a poet who hasn't published in three years but claims his silence is his greatest work. Marie, a singer who performs only for her own reflection. Gerard, an actor who stays in character even when the play ended months ago. And Danny—twenty-one years old, beautiful as a Renaissance painting, and clearly dying. Danny becomes your focus. He's everything you came to document: raw talent, desperate honesty, living entirely in the present because he has no faith in the future. He writes poetry on napkins and arms. He plays guitar at 3 AM, melodies that sound like they're being born and dying simultaneously. He shoots heroin with the same casualness that others drink coffee. You start filming. Your camera loves Danny—the way light catches his cheekbones, the poetry in his movements, the terrible beauty of his disintegration. He performs for you, but you convince yourself it's authentic performance, that this is real life captured unfiltered. Then, one night, everything changes. You're filming Danny in his room—fourth-floor corner, windows facing both the street and the courtyard, split perspective like Warhol's split screens. He's been using more heavily lately. His poetry is getting better, he claims, the closer he gets to the edge. "Do you know what Warhol understands?" Danny asks your camera. "That the only honest art is the art that destroys the artist. Suffering isn't a metaphor. It's the medium itself. My veins are brushstrokes. My collapsing lungs are the canvas." He prepares another shot while you film. Your hands shake slightly, but you keep the camera steady. This is important, you tell yourself. This is truth. This is what real documentary filmmaking means—not looking away. "You're not just filming," Danny says, looking directly into the lens. "You're choosing. Every second you keep that camera running, you're choosing this over helping me. You're choosing art over intervention. You're choosing to be Warhol instead of human." He's right. You know he's right. But you keep filming. "I'm going to die in this hotel," he continues, his voice dreamy. "Maybe tonight, maybe next week. And you'll have footage of it, won't you? You'll have documented my last beautiful moments. That footage will be worth something. My death will validate your art." The needle goes into his arm. You film it. You've crossed a line you didn't know existed until you were already on the other side of it. Three days later, you find him unconscious in the bathroom. He's still breathing, but barely. You have the camera in your hand—you always do now. For five eternal seconds, you stand frozen between two choices: call for help or start filming.

A philosopher shimmers into existence. "Reality is merely interpretation. Change the interpretation, change the reality." The gypsy chief laughs from the corner you're certain was empty a moment ago. "You academics complicate everything. Some things simply are. Accept or reject, but don't pretend understanding makes you free." All of them speak at once, their voices layering: "Choose. The manuscript demands a choice. You cannot leave this place until you've written your chapter." The wine in the goblet swirls with impossible colors. The manuscript's blank pages flutter though there's no wind. The women smile with promises that could be salvation or damnation—or both, or neither. Your entire identity as a rational scholar hangs in the balance. Everything you've published, every reputation you've built, stands on the foundation of measurable reality. But the manuscript knows things it shouldn't know. The people who shouldn't exist are speaking to you. The wine that shouldn't glow is warming your hands. In the distance, you hear gallows creaking. Or is it the turning of massive cosmic gears? Is that the smell of corpses, or jasmine from the women's hair? Are those voices whispering in languages you don't speak, or is it just the wind? You look down at the manuscript one final time. New text has appeared in your handwriting: "I stood at the crossroads between all I knew and all I could never know. My choice was..." The sentence ends unfinished, waiting.

You are a scholar of comparative mythology, traveling through the Andalusian mountains in search of forgotten manuscripts. The year is 1789, and the Enlightenment's rationalism battles against centuries of mystical tradition. Your academic reputation rests on your ability to explain supernatural phenomena through natural causes—you've debunked haunted monasteries, exposed fraudulent miracles, and reduced ancient curses to coincidence and superstition. But tonight, everything changes. Your carriage breaks down near the ruins of Venta Quemada, a burned inn with a reputation so dark that even your driver refuses to approach. He leaves you at the crossroads with your belongings and gallops away before sunset. You have no choice but to seek shelter in the ruins. Inside, you find the place impossibly preserved—rooms furnished as if the fire never happened, tables set with fresh food, candles burning in silver holders. On a mahogany desk lies an open manuscript, its pages covered in elegant script. The title reads: "The Manuscript of Alfonso van Worden: A True Account of Events That Cannot Be True." You begin to read. The manuscript tells of a Spanish officer who, in 1739, traveled this same road and encountered two beautiful Moorish princesses, Emina and Zibelda, daughters of the Gomelez dynasty. They claimed he was their destined cousin, that his bloodline made him heir to their treasure and their bed. But when he woke the next morning, he found himself lying between two rotting corpses on a gallows. The story continues: van Worden encounters the same princesses again, each time convinced the previous experience was a dream or hallucination. Yet each encounter adds new layers—a Kabbalist explains it as demonic temptation, a hermit sees it as divine trial, a gypsy chief claims it's all a test of courage, a philosopher suggests it's a lesson in the nature of reality itself. As you read deeper into the night, you notice something disturbing: the manuscript begins describing your arrival at the inn. It knows the color of your coat, the contents of your bag, the thoughts you had about your driver's superstition. The handwriting changes—now it matches your own. The door opens. Two women enter, beautiful beyond earthly measure, dressed in Moorish silk. "Cousin," they say in unison, "we've been waiting for you. The manuscript has been waiting for you. You are the next chapter." You try to speak, to apply reason, but your voice catches. One of them—Emina, you know her name without being told—places a golden goblet in your hands. "Drink," she whispers, "and all will be revealed. Or refuse, and remain forever in doubt." The wine glows with inner light. Your rational mind screams warnings: drugged wine, elaborate trick, careful staging. But another part of you—older, deeper—recognizes this moment from dreams you've never had. Zibelda gestures to the manuscript. "Every man who came before you made a choice. Some chose faith, some reason, some control, some surrender. Each choice led to a different truth, and each truth was equally real. The manuscript records them all, infinite branches of infinite possibilities." You look at the pages. They're blank now, waiting. "What you choose tonight," Emina continues, "will determine not just your fate, but your reality. Will you analyze and dissect until you've murdered mystery itself? Will you surrender to forces beyond comprehension? Will you try to control what cannot be controlled? Will you flee into comfortable ignorance? Or will you accept that perhaps all stories are true, all choices simultaneous, all realities layered upon each other like the pages of an infinite book?" The hermit from the manuscript appears in the doorway—or was he always there? "The Enlightenment teaches that reason can illuminate all darkness," he says. "But what if some darkness is not absence of light, but a different kind of light entirely?" A Kabbalist materializes beside him. "The divine works through signs and symbols. To read them correctly is to know God's will."

Kenneth wanted to make a film about the club. Not a documentary, but something else—a "visual spell," as he called it. He set up the camera while you cleaned your bikes, got dressed, and danced to music from the radio. He shot close-ups of leather, chrome, and tattoos. He brought props—Nazi symbols, crucifixes, skulls. You let him film because there was a certain truth to it. Kenneth saw what you all felt but couldn't put into words: that your subculture was a new religion, that speed was prayer, that death was near, always near. But then what everyone feared happened. Johnny, one of the club's founders, crashed his Harley. He was riding at breakneck speed down Mulholland Drive after a night of drinking and taking pills. Doctors pronounced him instantly dead. At the funeral, his mother cried, asking why he'd gotten involved with "those people." After the funeral, Kenneth admitted he'd filmed the moment before the race—Johnny revving his bike, his face filled with crazed ecstasy. "It's the perfect ending for a movie," he said. "Johnny became a sacrifice. He sacrificed himself to the gods of speed." Then the club split. Half the guys said they'd had enough. That Johnny wasn't dead because of the gods or fate, but because you all romanticized self-destruction. That it was time to stop before others died. That maybe they should find other ways to be themselves—calm, safe ways. The other half said that was exactly the point. That living safely is not living at all. That Johnny died free, not rotted away in an office or prison. That if you refuse risk, danger, and rebellion, you become what you rebel against. Kenneth continued filming. He said the film would be a work of art, that it would show the world the truth about your life—not sterile, not softened, but raw and real. That through art, your subculture would become immortal. Last night, Kenneth showed you a rough cut of "Scorpio Rising." Twenty-eight minutes of black-and-white images set to rock 'n' roll: motorcycles, leather, Christian symbols, swastikas, dancing, speed, Johnny's death. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. It was honest. "I'll show this in galleries," Kenneth said. "The world will see you as you really are." But you're not sure the world should see it. Or that you yourself want to be seen this way. You're sitting in the clubhouse garage, where Johnny's motorcycle once stood. Music plays on the radio—the same songs he danced to before his final ride. Your Triumph waits outside. Kenneth awaits your decision. The club awaits your direction. What is freedom—living on the brink of death, or living long enough to tell the tale? Can brotherhood exist without self-destruction? Where is the line between art and life, between symbol and reality? The scorpion on your jacket stares back at you. A scorpion that stings itself when surrounded by fire. It's time to make a choice.

Los Angeles, summer 1962. You're twenty-four years old, and for the past three years you've been living a double life. By day, you work as a mechanic at an auto body shop in Glendale—a boring, respectable job that pays the bills. You show up on time, wear a clean uniform, and greet customers politely. Your boss considers you reliable. Your coworkers invite you for a beer after work, and you sometimes accept, maintaining a semblance of normality. But when the sun sets, you become someone else entirely. You return to your small apartment above the auto parts store, lock the door, and remove the respectable mask of daytime life. You put on a leather jacket—not a cheap knockoff, but the real thing, made of thick cowhide, worn for two years to perfection. A scorpion emblem, embroidered in red thread, adorns the back—the symbol of your biker club, "Scorpio Rising." You climb aboard your Triumph Bonneville 650, which sits in your garage, polished to a mirror shine. Every evening, you spend an hour polishing the chrome, checking the tire pressure, adjusting the carburetor. This is your ritual, your meditation. Other men go to church on Sundays. You worship the internal combustion engine. And you ride. Slowly at first, through residential areas, where neighbors close their curtains at the sound of your engine. Then faster, hitting the highway. And finally—at full speed, leaving the city behind, when ahead lies only the deserted highway, the stars, and the roar of the engine, drowning out all thought. The club has become your true family. Thirteen guys, each with their own story of escaping "normal" life. Johnny was a former Marine who returned from Korea with medals and nightmares. Ray worked as a longshoreman at the docks, but dreamed of more than just moving boxes. Mike was the son of wealthy Beverly Hills parents, fleeing their plans to make him a lawyer or a doctor. They all understood what the rest of the world didn't: that freedom isn't a comfortable suburban life with a white picket fence, two kids, and a dog. Freedom is racing down the highway at a hundred miles an hour, your hair blowing in the wind (because helmets are for cowards), adrenaline turning your blood into electricity, balancing between life and death at every turn. Freedom is being who you really are, even if society calls it perversion, crime, or illness. Because there's another truth in the club, one no one speaks out loud, but everyone knows: most of you are gay. In an era when homosexuality is a federal crime, when police regularly raid gay bars and arrest everyone present, when psychiatrists officially classify it as a mental disorder and treat it with electroshock, the biker subculture has become one of the few places where you can be yourself. The hypermasculinity of leather and chrome creates the perfect disguise. Society sees dangerous rebels, lawbreakers, a threat to public order—but they don't see what lies beneath the surface. The closeness between club members, the intensity of friendship, the physical contact—all of this can be chalked up to "brotherhood." No one asks unnecessary questions. In the club garage where you gather every evening, there's an atmosphere that's hard to describe. It's a mixture of motor oil, leather, cheap whiskey, and something elusive—maybe just the realization that you can be yourself here. Guys show off their tattoos, tell stories about past trips, dance to music playing on the radio. Sometimes, the dancing becomes more than that. No one judges. But in recent months, something has changed. It all started when Kenneth came to the club—a strange guy with a camera and a book of spells. He talked about the magic of Aleister Crowley, about motorcycles being modern symbols of ancient powers, and about your nighttime rides being rituals. At first, everyone laughed. Then they started listening.

New York, spring 1963. You're an independent filmmaker, part of the East Village bohemian underground. For the past two years, you've been working on your most ambitious project yet: an experimental film that would shatter all boundaries between art, the body, and sexuality. The shoot took place in an abandoned warehouse. Your actors—friends, artists, drag performers—created a bizarre world in front of the camera, where gender became fluid and bodies transformed into works of art. No scripts, only improvisation. No Hollywood prettiness, only raw, provocative honesty. The film turned out exactly as you envisioned: 43 minutes of black-and-white footage of androgynous creatures dancing, posing, and interacting in an atmosphere of decadent beauty. You called it "Flaming Creatures." The premiere took place in a tiny basement theater on Second Avenue. The theater was packed—artists, writers, and intellectuals had come to see this new frontier in underground cinema. The atmosphere was electric. But twenty minutes into the screening, the doors burst open. The police burst into the theater. "This is obscene! Everyone stay seated!" the officer shouted, shining a flashlight on the screen. The film was confiscated. You were detained along with the theater owner. At the station, the detective leafed through the report, shaking his head: "Open depictions of genitals... simulated sexual acts... a complete disregard for public morality. Do you understand what you've created?" "A work of art," you replied. "Pornography," he snapped. You were released on bail, but a case was opened. The district attorney decided to make a show trial out of your film. Newspapers ran articles like "Immoral Cinema Threatens Social Foundations" and "Corruption Disguised as Art." But support also came. A group of critics and artists wrote an open letter in defense of your film. Jonas Mekas, an influential film critic and founder of Film Culture, called "Flaming Creatures" a significant artistic achievement and offered to help organize its defense. The lawyer explained the situation: "We have three main options. The first is to make a deal. You remove the controversial scenes, and the prosecutor's office will drop the charges. The second is to fight in court, proving the film's artistic merit. This is long, expensive, and risky—you could get a prison sentence. The third is to publicly disown the film and destroy all copies. Then the case will be closed immediately." But the next day, artist friends came to your studio with a different proposal: "Listen, they won't be able to control underground screenings. We have connections—private apartments, closed galleries. We can distribute the film through the underground. Let the authorities think they've won, and we'll show it to those who truly understand." Another friend, an activist and publicist, suggested a fifth option: "Don't hide or compromise. Transform this process into a public debate about artistic freedom. Speak to the press, invite intellectuals to judge. Let your film become a symbol of the struggle for the artist's right to be free." You're sitting in your studio, surrounded by posters and sketches. On the table lies one of the surviving fragments of film—a few frames of an androgynous figure dancing in a wig and feathers, smiling at the camera with defiant freedom. What's more important to you—preserving art in its pristine form or preserving the ability to continue creating? Should an artist obey social norms, or is it their duty to violate them? Where is the line drawn between protecting morality and suppressing freedom? Tomorrow you must give your lawyer an answer. Your decision will determine not only the fate of the film, but also your own—as an artist, as a person, as a symbol for an entire generation.

When you found Sarah, she couldn't look at you. She was sitting in the corner of her room, hugging her knees, staring blankly at the wall. Her dress was torn. Finger-shaped bruises covered her neck. You didn't need to ask. The neighbor whispered, "Hopkins said that if she... if she agreed... he would release the priest. She agreed. And in the morning, they hanged him anyway. Hopkins said that God showed him the old man's guilt during the night." Sarah didn't say a word. She simply handed you a letter, written in a trembling hand: "I cannot be your wife. I am defiled. Go away and forget me. That is the only mercy I ask." You tried to embrace her. She pushed you away with a scream—the first sound she made. The cry of a wounded animal. Hopkins and Stearn left the next morning, heading for the next village. New accusations, new victims, new payment. They did this for months, leaving a trail of corpses and ruined lives in their wake. Parliament paid them. The Church blessed them. The people feared them. They were untouchable. But you're a soldier. You know how to track. You know how to kill. You followed them for a week, observing their work. In every village, the same pattern. Accusation, torture, forced confession, execution, payment. Sometimes the victims were truly strange—old herbalists, eccentric hermits. More often, they were simply inconvenient people, pointed out by neighbors, settling old scores. You saw Stirn rape "witches" before execution, calling it a "purity test." You saw Hopkins calmly count coins while another fire burned behind him. You saw him quote the Bible, justifying every atrocity. One night, you found them in a tavern. Drunk. Defenseless. You had a knife, a pistol, a rope. You had the opportunity. You could have killed them quickly. A shot to the head, silence, justice. They would die without knowing the fear they sowed. Or you could make them suffer. Use their own methods on them. The "Ordeal by Water"—drown them over and over again. The "Ordeal by Needle"—pierce their bodies, searching for the "Devil's Mark." The "Wake"—keep them awake for days until their minds break. Let them feel every second of the horror they caused. Or you could tie them up and deliver them to the authorities. Parliament, the army, the law. Let them be judged officially. It's the civilized way. The legal way. Even though you know Hopkins has protectors in power, documents justifying his actions. The law is on his side. Or you could simply leave. Return to Sarah, try to restore what was destroyed. Revenge won't bring back Father John. It won't heal Sarah. Maybe you both need to learn to move on, not drown in hatred. Or... you could take their place. Hopkins has official documents, seals, and authority. You could become the new witch hunter. But use that position to punish real monsters—like Hopkins and Stearn. Those who exploit the chaos of war for their own gain. Become judge, jury, and executioner for those who escape the law. You stand over the sleeping Hopkins. His face is calm, almost angelic in the moonlight. Tomorrow he will wake up and continue his work. Or he won't. Or he will wake up in chains. Or he will see his reflection in you. In your hand is a knife. In your head are the screams of Father John. In your heart are Sarah's empty eyes.

England, 1645. The country is torn apart by civil war between Royalists and Parliamentarians. In the chaos of war, a new breed of predator thrives—those who prey on the people's fears. You are a soldier in Cromwell's army, but the war ended for you the day you met Sarah. She was the niece of Father John Laws, a village priest. Kind, bright, with eyes that still held hope—a rarity in those times. You fell in love instantly. When you asked her hand in marriage, she accepted without hesitation. Father John blessed your union, calling it "a ray of light in these dark days." You left on a short military campaign, promising to return in two weeks for your wedding. You dreamed of a future—a small house, children, a life far from blood and gunpowder. For the first time in years of war, you felt you had a purpose in life, not just surviving. When you returned to the village, something was wrong. The streets were empty, the houses were boarded up. The smell of fear hung in the air. An old woman, seeing you, crossed herself and hurried away. You ran to Father John's house. The door had been kicked in. Inside, the place was a mess. Religious icons were smashed, books were torn. On the table was an official document with a seal: "On charges of witchcraft and dealings with the devil, the Reverend John Laws is to be examined by authorized witchfinder Matthew Hopkins." You knew the name. Everyone did. Matthew Hopkins—the man who had hanged over a hundred "witches" across East Anglia in the past two years. He traveled with his assistant, John Stearn, offering his services to villages for a fee. Twenty shillings for each witch found. In times of war, when the villages were hungry, they paid willingly—better to pay for "protection from the devil" than risk the wrath of their neighbors. You found them in an old barn on the outskirts of the village. Father John was tied to a vertical board, his body covered in bruises and cuts. Hopkins, an elegant man in black, stood nearby, calmly writing something in a book. Stirn, rough and cruel, twirled the instrument of torture in his hands. "Confess, old man," Hopkins said in a flat, almost bored voice. "You communed with Satan. You performed obscene rites. Confession will ease your soul." "I... a priest... a servant of God..." Father John croaked. "Exactly. And who better to hide the devil than a servant of God?" Hopkins nodded to Stirn. You burst in, guns drawn. "Let him go. Now." Hopkins didn't even flinch. He turned to you with a cold smile. "Soldier. How timely. You are a witness to a legal interrogation on charges of witchcraft, sanctioned by Parliament." "He's a priest! This is madness!" "Priests are not immune to the devil's temptations. Especially old, unmarried priests living with a young relative." Hopkins looked at you appraisingly. "Ah. You're a groom. How... interesting." You rushed toward Father John, but Stirn blocked your path. He was larger and stronger. A fight ensued. When you came to, bound, Hopkins was bending over you. "Violence against authorized representatives of the law. A serious crime. But I am a merciful man. Pay twenty pounds, and we'll forget this misunderstanding. And the old man will get a speedy trial." You didn't have twenty pounds. A soldier's annual salary is eight pounds. "Although," Hopkins said, looking at the door where Sarah had appeared. She came looking for you. "Perhaps we can arrange things differently." The next three days were hell. Hopkins kept you locked in the basement, forcing you to listen to Father John's screams above. "Ordeal by water," "ordeal by needle," "the vigil"—medieval methods revived under the guise of piety. Every evening, Stirn would come down and smirk, recounting the details. On the fourth day, the screams stopped. Father John was hanged at dawn. Publicly, as a witcher. The villagers watched in silence—some out of fear, others out of fanatical satisfaction. You were released before your execution, "by the grace of Master Hopkins." But that wasn't all.

Now it's just you and it. The creature they call your son. You don't go to work—you were fired for absenteeism. Your money is running out. Your food is running out. But the child continues to cry. Continues to demand bandages, fluids, anything that could be considered care. You haven't slept for three days. Voices start to ring in your head—or are they just the sounds of a factory, penetrating deeper than usual? You look at the child, and he seems to be alive, then a machine, then a piece of rotting flesh. Sometimes you think he's looking at you. That he's accusing. That he knows what you're thinking. There's a sharp knife on the radiator. You picked it up to cut bandages, but now you look at it and think of something else. You can end this. You can free him from this existence. Free yourself. The doctors themselves said it—he wasn't supposed to survive. Maybe this is mercy? Maybe continuing to support this life is sheer cruelty? Or you can leave. Just up and leave, like Mary. Leave him here. Someone will find him. The neighbors, the landlord, someone. Or they won't. It's not your fault he was born this way. You didn't ask for this. No one has the right to demand that you sacrifice your life for... this. Or you can stay. Continue changing bandages, dripping fluid into his mouth, existing in this hell day after day. Because it's your responsibility. Because you created this life, no matter how monstrous it is. Because abandoning a helpless creature means losing the last thing that makes you human in this inhumane world. Or you can try to find Mary. Share this burden. Or give the child to an orphanage, a hospital, somewhere where professionals will care for him. Or to her parents—let them decide; they insisted on your responsibility. Or you can end it all at once—his life and yours. Disappear from this nightmare together. The baby squeals. The radiator gurgles. The factory hums. And you stand in the middle of the room, realizing that the next few minutes will define who you truly are.

You wake up to the monotonous hum of pipes. This sound never stops—it seeps through the walls of your apartment, vibrates in your bones, becomes part of your breathing. The factory outside spews columns of steam around the clock, turning day and night into one gray continuity. You live in a room where the wallpaper is peeling like dead skin. The radiator gurgles and hisses. A dead plant lies on the windowsill—you don't remember when it died. Maybe it was never alive. Nothing truly lives in this neighborhood. People here exist like machines, repeating the same movements: working at the factory, sleeping in cramped apartments, working again. A month ago, you received a letter from Mary. Remember her? The girl from the neighboring factory, the one you'd met a few times. The encounters were awkward—you were silent, she laughed nervously, and something heavy and unspoken hung between you. Then she disappeared. And now—a letter. Her parents are inviting you to dinner. You walk through streets where abandoned buildings stand like skeletons. Muddy puddles reflect the flashing neon signs. Sirens can be heard somewhere in the distance—or is that just another machine? In this city, all sounds merge into one continuous moan. Mary's parents' house looks just like yours. The same shabby door, the same cracked walls. Mary's father opens the door—his face gray, his eyes empty. He gestures for you to come inside without saying a word. At the table, Mary's mother serves fried chickens. Strange, small ones, with disproportionately large heads. When she cuts them open, something oozes out that looks not like blood, but like oil. You try not to look. Mary sits across from you, avoiding your gaze, her hands shaking. Your father looks at you with a heavy gaze and says, "She gave birth to your child." The words hang in the air like a blow. You try to speak, but your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth. "The child... is special," your mother adds, her voice somewhere between compassion and disgust. "Very sick. The doctors don't know what's wrong with him. He's not quite... not quite human." Mary begins to cry. Quietly, without a sound, as if she doesn't even have the strength to scream. "You must take responsibility," your father says. "She will move in with you. You will live together. Like a family." The next day, Mary comes to you with a suitcase. In her hands is a bundle wrapped in a dirty blanket. She unfolds it, and you see... this. The child doesn't look like a human baby. His head is disproportionately large, his skin gray and covered in strange, scar-like bumps. His arms and legs are stumps, covered in bandages from which fluid oozes. He makes a continuous squeak—not a cry, but a mechanical sound, like a broken toy. His eyes—if they are eyes—are unfocused. He simply exists, a biological mass requiring care. "The doctors said he shouldn't have survived," Mary whispers. "But he did. They don't know how long he'll live. Maybe a month. Maybe years." The baby doesn't sleep. Never. He just lies in his makeshift crib, squeaking and twitching. The smell from him is unbearable—a mixture of rotting matter, medication, and something chemical. The bandages have to be changed every few hours, otherwise the fluid soaks through everything. He can only be fed through an eyedropper—he can't swallow. Mary tries to care for him, but you can see how she's deteriorating with each passing day. She can't sleep because the baby cries all night. She can't eat because the smell makes her sick. She doesn't speak—she just sits by the window and stares at the factory, as if she wants to dissolve in its fumes. A week later, she breaks down. "I can't take it anymore!" she screams, her first words in days. "This isn't a baby! This is a monster! I didn't want this! I didn't want him!" She runs away. She just grabs her bag and leaves, without even closing the door. You're left alone with him.