The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, pale as skim milk, washing the police conference room in a sickly glow.
Liam Thomas, wearing a wrinkled gray suit and bruised shadows beneath his eyes, tapped his bandaged fingers against a lukewarm glass of water. His mind spiraled through every detail of the previous night. He felt like an insect pinned beneath a magnifying glass—observed, judged, and scorched by the heat of suspicion.
The voices outside blurred into distant echoes; inside, only anxiety remained, tightly coiled, and the heavy certainty that no matter what he said, no one would believe him.
Across the table, Inspector Sommer flipped through the case file of Mason Fraser's death for what must have been the hundredth time. It wasn't a formal interrogation, they claimed—just a conversation to "clarify inconsistencies."
But the greenish reflection of the walls and the surveillance camera fixed in the corner turned that "conversation" into a quiet public trial.
"Mr. Thomas, your account lacks… narrative solidity," Sommer muttered, chewing on the end of his pen.
Liam swallowed hard. The wound beneath the bandage throbbed—an ember of broken glass and memories he wished he could unlive.
"I've told you everything," he said, each word measured. "I was in the guest room. I heard a crash, came out, and found him… dead."
The inspector narrowed his eyes.
"There are no fingerprints of yours on the knife. But will you explain why your blood was found along the hallway, splattered across the scene?"
Liam opened his palm. Ten stitches crossed it like the crooked lips of a wound that refused to close.
"I broke a vase. Fear makes men clumsy, wouldn't you agree?"
Behind him, the door burst open. Elyse Marchant, his attorney—pearl blouse, sharp eyes—entered like a command made flesh.
"Inspector, my client has cooperated enough," she declared, dropping her briefcase onto the table with a decisive thud. "You have no grounds to keep him here a minute longer."
Sommer's jaw tightened. He knew the forensic evidence didn't match Liam to the crime. He also knew the prosecution had nothing solid.
But the Fraser family demanded a face—a culprit to mourn against. Mason had been a "model son," according to the papers, not a libertine chasing flirtation in smoky bars.
social media, hungry for blood, had already chosen its villain:
#ThomasTheKiller.
Each letter of that hashtag felt like a nail hammered into Liam's skin. His chest grew heavy, his throat constricted as if a noose of public judgment had tightened around it.
How long before even he started believing their version?
Sometimes public trial hurt more than any prison sentence.
When he finally signed the statement and walked down the main corridor, the murmurs of officers and citizens sounded like a murder of crows circling fresh meat.
No witness had seen a woman leave the apartment that night. Kyra, the only person who could confirm his story, remained sedated in the psychiatric wing of St. Paul's Hospital—laughing in bursts or mumbling about "black eyes" and "teeth of glass."
Outside, the damp air smelled of old rain and resignation.
They all think I did it, he thought.
The office of Dr. Miroslava Novak smelled of mint and new paper.
Panoramic windows offered a fragment of Vancouver drowned in fog—buildings rising like ghosts from the mist.
Miroslava, in her thirties though her calm made her seem timeless, had a voice like velvet brushing the edge of each sentence. Her perfume—a faint blend of lavender and almond cream—floated as she greeted him with a smile almost too gentle to bear.
"Liam," she said, gesturing toward the gray velvet sofa. "How's your quarterly balance war going?"
He shrugged. "Surviving… still negotiating my personal truce with spreadsheets."
Her smile deepened, professional yet warm. She handed him a steaming cup.
"Jasmine tea. I promise it keeps the daily ghosts away."
He held the cup between his palms; its warmth brought faint color to his knuckles.
"If it works, I'll buy a box."
"And the traffic?" she asked, crossing her legs with unstudied grace.
"Horrible. Vancouver collapses exactly when you need it not to."
They shared a brief laugh, a polite climate of ease. When it settled, she tilted her head with quiet intent.
"Now," she said softly, "tell me what's haunting your sleep."
Liam stared at the abstract painting on the wall, trying not to drown in memory.
When he spoke, his voice came low, reverent—like confessing to a ghost.
He described the music, the sharp perfume of gardenias, the portrait of Mason's father gleaming above his son's spilled blood.
He described her face—first beauty, then terror—how her eyes shifted from icy blue to black void.
"It wasn't just fear," he murmured. "It was fascination. Like staring at an ancient goddess who had just remembered how to kill. Her pupils… they devoured everything. And the fangs—God, Doctor—they were real. They tore."
Miroslava crossed her legs again, pen tracing idle notes.
"Would you say you were under the influence of alcohol, recreational drugs, or severe sleep deprivation?"
"I'd been drinking, yes. But not enough to dream with my eyes open."
He showed her the bandaged hand, the stitches drawn tight.
"I'm not crazy. This is real—as real as these wounds."
She didn't argue. Her green eyes glimmered, calm and unreadable.
"Sometimes," she said, her voice a whisper between comfort and prophecy, "the seams of reality split like poorly stitched fabric. And something impossible peeks through. You opened a door, Liam. Whatever it is—it's still ajar.
We need to see what waits on the other side."