Chapter Two: The Tattoo That Shouldn't Exist
POV: Michael Scofield
Michael woke at 5:30 AM with purpose burning through exhaustion.
He'd slept maybe two hours, and those hours had been filled with dreams that felt more like memories—corridors that looped back on themselves, voices speaking words he almost understood but backwards, his own face staring at him from mirrors that reflected rooms he'd never entered. He shook them off. Dreams were noise. Data was signal. And today, he needed data.
Sucre snored softly on the bunk below, still deep in whatever peace sleep offered. Guards wouldn't come for morning count until six. Thirty minutes. Enough time.
Michael moved quietly to the small metal sink, using its scratched surface as a makeshift mirror. First light filtered through the narrow window—dim, gray, but sufficient. He angled his head, pulling back his ear to examine the symbol he'd discovered last night.
It was still there. Not a hallucination. Not a trick of exhaustion and stress.
Three overlapping circles, geometric, precise. Lines extended outward from the center point where all three intersected, radiating at specific angles. The design looked architectural—like something from a blueprint legend or an engineering schematic. Michael knew architectural symbols. His profession had required memorizing hundreds of them.
This one wasn't standard.
He photographed it mentally, cataloguing every detail: approximately one inch in diameter, positioned behind his left ear where the hairline would normally hide it, rendered in ink that matched the density and style of his other tattoos. As if the same artist had done it. As if it belonged.
But he hadn't gotten it.
Michael knew every piece of ink on his body. His last tattoo session had been eight weeks ago—the koi fish on his left forearm, completing the sleeve that encoded guard rotation schedules in its scales. Nothing since. His body was his canvas, his blueprint, his contingency plan made flesh. He would know if someone had added to it.
Yet here it was.
He removed his shirt carefully, watching the door, listening for any change in Sucre's breathing. The examination had to be systematic. Thorough. He needed to understand what had changed.
Using the sink's reflection and direct visual inspection, he catalogued each major piece:
Angel on back right shoulder blade—as he remembered it. Wings spread, feathers detailed, his mother's memorial. Demon on back left shoulder—as he remembered it. Balance to the angel, representing his father's failures. Koi fish on left forearm—as he remembered it. Architectural blueprints spreading across his ribs—as he remembered them. Dates and names hidden in decorative script, religious imagery across his shoulders, the rose for his mother on his chest—all exactly as designed.
Everything seemed correct.
Until he looked closer. Really looked.
The angel's wings: one feather in the upper left section had extra detail he didn't remember approving. A subtle addition, but there—more line work, more depth, as if someone had enhanced it without his knowledge.
The blueprint section across his ribs: it showed a room that hadn't been in his reference material. A small chamber, rectangular, positioned below the main structure. Below the prison.
The numbers hidden in a decorative border near his hip: the sequence had changed. He'd designed it as 40-36-18—cell block coordinates, part of his escape route calculation. Now it read 40-36-18-13. An extra number he hadn't added.
Thirteen.
And scattered across various tattoos, so subtle he'd missed them before: small scratch marks within the larger designs. Tally marks. He counted them carefully, tracing each with his fingertip.
Seventeen. Seventeen marks distributed across his body like a message written in a language he didn't speak.
His mind raced through possibilities:
Option one: I'm remembering wrong. Unlikely. His memory was eidetic—a gift and a curse that had made him invaluable as an engineer and insufferable as a colleague. He didn't forget details.
Option two: The tattoos were altered somehow. Impossible. He would have noticed during healing. You couldn't modify healed ink without the recipient knowing.
Option three: I'm losing my mind. Possible. Stress-induced delusion. The pressure of the plan, the sight of Lincoln condemned, the guilt of what he'd sacrificed—any of it could crack a psyche.
Option four: Something else.
Unknown. Terrifying.
He pressed his fingers to the angel's wings, feeling for the raised lines he'd discovered last night. They were still there—Braille-like patterns hidden in the feathers. His fingertips traced them, and though he couldn't read them visually in this light, he could feel their shapes. Letters. Words. Messages encoded in his own skin.
"Morning already?"
Michael pulled his shirt on in one fluid motion, turning as Sucre stirred on the lower bunk. "Almost. Count in twenty minutes."
Sucre sat up, yawning, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. "You sleep at all?"
"Some."
"You were making noise." Sucre's voice carried the careful neutrality of someone trying not to alarm. "Talking in your sleep."
Michael's attention sharpened. "What did I say?"
"Couldn't make most of it out. Numbers, maybe? And you kept saying something over and over. Two words."
"What words?"
"'Cell Zero.'" Sucre watched him carefully. "Repeated it like five times. 'Cell Zero. Cell Zero.' What is that?"
Michael's blood chilled. He had no memory of dreaming those words. No conscious knowledge of what they meant. But somewhere beneath his awareness, his subconscious had found them important enough to speak aloud.
"I don't know," he said. The truth, for once.
"What else did I say?"
"That was it, mostly. You sure you're okay, man? First night and you're already having prison nightmares."
"I'm fine. Just adjusting."
But he wasn't adjusting. He was unraveling, thread by thread, and he couldn't see the pattern in the fraying.
Count happened at six exactly. Guards walked cell to cell, checking faces against numbers, marking their clipboards with mechanical indifference. Michael and Sucre stood at attention, were noted, were dismissed. The guard moved on without a second glance.
After he left, Michael touched the symbol behind his ear.
It was warm. Not burning like last night—just warm. Like blood flowing close to the surface. Like something alive.
* * *
Prison Industries occupied a converted warehouse space on the facility's east side—high ceilings, industrial equipment, the smell of machine oil and male sweat. Michael had requested the assignment during processing, citing his engineering background. The request had been granted with suspicious ease.
He didn't trust easy. Easy meant someone wanted him here.
Forty to fifty inmates worked various stations: metalwork, woodworking, textile repair. The equipment represented opportunity—tools that could be repurposed, materials that could be hidden, access points that the blueprints suggested but guards might not monitor closely. This was where his escape would be built, piece by piece, day by day.
But first, he needed to understand the hierarchy.
Three guards watched the floor, armed and positioned at strategic intervals. They looked bored but alert—professionals who'd learned that prison tedium could erupt into violence without warning. Michael mapped their sight lines, identified the blind spots, catalogued the information for later use.
The real power, though, wasn't wearing a uniform.
John Abruzzi stood near the supervisor's station like he owned it—which, in every way that mattered, he did. Forty-five, Italian-American, with an expensive watch that had no business being in a prison and eyes that missed nothing. Mob connected, according to Michael's research. Ran Prison Industries through a combination of intimidation, bribery, and the kind of quiet authority that came from having people killed on the outside.
Abruzzi noticed Michael immediately. Fresh fish always drew attention.
"You're the new guy." It wasn't a question. "Scofield, right?"
"Yes sir."
"Sir." A flicker of something—approval, maybe, or amusement—crossed Abruzzi's face. "I like that. You got manners. Rare in here." He gestured toward a metalwork station in the corner. "You know your way around tools?"
"I'm a structural engineer. I know tools."
"Engineer." The word seemed to interest him. "Useful. We might get along, Scofield. Don't give me a reason to change my mind."
Michael nodded and moved to his assigned station. He needed Abruzzi's cooperation eventually—the man had outside connections, resources, the ability to move things in and out of Fox River that official channels couldn't touch. But showing his hand too early would be suicide. For now, he'd play respectful, competent, unthreatening.
The station next to his was occupied by a man whose posture screamed military even in prison orange. Benjamin Franklin—everyone called him C-Note, according to the intake orientation—worked with the methodical precision of someone who'd been trained to approach tasks systematically. Ex-military, thirty-three, intelligent eyes that were currently fixed on Michael with open assessment.
"You former military?" C-Note asked without preamble.
"No. Why?"
"You move like you got training. Aware of surroundings, checking exits. Most fish stumble around like they're lost. You mapped this room before you sat down."
Michael filed away the observation. He'd thought he was being subtle. "Just careful."
"Careful's good in here." C-Note's expression didn't change. "Paranoid's better."
They exchanged a nod of mutual acknowledgment—two men recognizing something similar in each other. C-Note would be useful, Michael decided. Organized mind, tactical thinking. The kind of person who noticed patterns.
But Michael sensed something else beneath the military bearing. C-Note was watching for something specific. Something beyond normal prison awareness.
Before he could pursue that thought, a shadow fell across his workstation.
"Well, well, well." The voice was honey poured over broken glass—Southern, performative, wrong. "Fresh meat in the machine shop. And such pretty meat."
Michael didn't look up. Didn't respond. Best to ignore predators; engagement only encouraged them.
The shadow moved closer. "Strong silent type. I appreciate that. Shows discipline." A face entered Michael's peripheral vision—weathered, calculating, with a smile that never reached the eyes. "I'm Theodore Bagwell, but folks call me T-Bag."
"Michael." Minimum engagement. Give nothing.
"Michael." T-Bag rolled the name around his mouth like wine. "Biblical name. The archangel. How fitting." His gaze dropped to Michael's arms, to the tattoos visible below the rolled sleeves. "And marked like a prophet too. All that ink. All those secrets written on your skin."
He circled Michael's station slowly, predator assessing prey, and Michael forced himself to keep working. Show no fear. Show no interest. Become boring.
It didn't work.
"You know what's peculiar, Michael?" T-Bag's voice dropped, intimate and unsettling. "I got the strangest sensation we've met before."
"We haven't."
"Oh, I know that. Logically, rationally, I know that." T-Bag tapped his temple with one finger. "But in here, in the dark twisted corners where reason don't visit... I remember you. Isn't that strange?"
Michael's hands stilled on the metal he'd been shaping. "Very."
"I dream sometimes. Same dream, over and over." T-Bag's voice had lost its theatrical edge, becoming almost hypnotic. "You're in it. Standing in a hallway that goes nowhere. Telling me something I can't quite hear. And then—" He snapped his fingers, the sound sharp in the industrial noise. "—you disappear. Like you were never there at all."
Michael's skin prickled. The pattern was expanding again. Guard's recognition. Sucre's déjà vu. The prisoner in the yard. And now this.
"What does that mean, you reckon?" T-Bag asked.
"It means dreams are dreams."
T-Bag leaned closer, close enough that Michael could smell cigarettes and something sour beneath. His whisper carried clearly despite the surrounding noise: "Or maybe it means some things happen more than once. Maybe it means we're stuck in a loop, pretty. A recurrence. You know that word? Recurrence?"
"T-Bag." Abruzzi's voice cut through from across the floor. "Get back to your station."
T-Bag straightened, the performative smile sliding back into place. But his eyes never left Michael's face. "See you around, Michael. Again and again and again."
He sauntered away, and Michael forced his hands to resume their work.
The pattern was solidifying. Multiple people experiencing the same impossible thing—recognition without meeting, memories without events, dreams that felt like something else entirely. Mass delusion seemed statistically unlikely across such different individuals. Coincidence strained credulity past breaking.
Which left something real. Something he couldn't explain.
His tattoos itched. All of them. Simultaneously. Not burning like last night—just awareness. Like they were listening to his thoughts. Like they knew what T-Bag had said.
Recurrence.
The word echoed in his mind as he worked through the morning shift, learning the tools, mapping the layout, cataloguing the possibilities.
But underneath the planning, the word kept repeating.
Recurrence.
And the tattoos kept itching.
* * *
The death row visiting area was designed to prevent hope.
Plexiglass barriers thick enough to stop bullets. Phone systems that recorded every word. Guards positioned to intervene at the first sign of emotional weakness. The room said: This person is already dead. You're just saying goodbye.
Lincoln was already seated when Michael entered, and the sight of his brother—the person he'd built his entire life around saving—hit him like a physical blow. Lincoln looked older than thirty-two. Worn down. The orange jumpsuit hung on a frame that had lost weight, and his eyes held the hollow look of someone who'd stopped expecting anything good.
Their gazes met through the barrier.
Lincoln's expression shifted from blank to shocked to something that looked terribly like despair.
They picked up the phones simultaneously.
Silence stretched between them. What did you say to a brother you'd sacrificed everything to save? What words existed for this moment?
"Jesus Christ, Michael." Lincoln's voice was rough, scraped raw by emotion he was trying to suppress.
"Linc—"
"What did you do?" The words exploded out of him. "What the fuck did you do?"
"I robbed a bank. Got arrested. Got sent here."
"Don't." Lincoln's free hand slammed against the plexiglass, making the barrier shudder. "Don't play games. I know you. You planned this."
"I needed to see you."
"You needed to—" Lincoln broke off, too angry to form complete sentences. "You threw away your entire life. Your career, your freedom, your future. For what?"
"For you."
"I don't want you here!" The shout drew glances from the guards. Lincoln lowered his voice with visible effort. "I don't want you sacrificing yourself for me."
"Too late."
"Michael, please." The anger cracked, revealing something raw beneath. "Please tell me there's a way to undo this. Tell them it was a mistake. Recant. Something."
"I can't do that."
"Why?"
"Because you're innocent. And they're going to kill you. And I can't let that happen."
Lincoln slumped in his chair, the fight draining out of him. "There is no way out. I've been over this a thousand times. Appeals denied. Evidence fabricated. Witnesses disappeared. The Company owns this whole thing."
"I know about the Company."
Lincoln's head snapped up. "You do?"
"I've been investigating. Terrence Steadman's murder was a political hit. You were the scapegoat. Vice President Reynolds needs you dead to cover her tracks."
"Then you know it's hopeless. You can't fight them."
"I'm not going to fight them."
"Then what?"
Michael leaned closer to the plexiglass, dropping his voice to barely above a whisper. "I'm going to get you out of here."
Lincoln stared at him. "Out? You mean—"
"I mean out. We're leaving Fox River. Both of us."
"That's insane."
"It's engineered."
"No one escapes Fox River."
"We will."
Something shifted in Lincoln's expression—a flicker of the hope he'd been suppressing, quickly buried beneath years of disappointment. But then his face changed again, confusion replacing skepticism.
"Have we..." He hesitated, shaking his head slightly. "Have we had this conversation before?"
Michael's pulse spiked. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know. Déjà vu, I guess. Like I've heard you say those exact words. 'We're leaving Fox River. Both of us.'"
"When?"
"That's the thing. I don't remember. In a dream, maybe?" Lincoln rubbed his forehead with his free hand. "But it felt real. More than real."
"What else do you remember from the dream?"
Lincoln thought for a long moment, his brow furrowed with concentration. "You were different. Older. Sad. You said something about trying to save me. That you'd always try to save me."
Michael's heart hammered against his ribs.
"And there was something about..." Lincoln's voice dropped to a whisper. "Iterations? Like we'd done this before?"
"Iterations."
"Yeah. Weird word to use, right? But that's what you—what dream you—said."
The guard's voice cut through: "Two minutes."
"Michael." Lincoln's eyes searched his face. "What's happening? Am I losing my mind?"
"No. I don't think so."
"Then what?"
"I don't know yet. But I'm going to find out." Michael paused, then asked the question that had been burning since yesterday. "Your scar. Above your eye. When did you get it?"
Lincoln touched it reflexively—two inches of raised tissue cutting through his eyebrow. "This? First week in here. Fight with another inmate."
"What happened?"
"I don't know. That's the weird part." Lincoln's expression tightened with frustration. "I remember the fight. Remember getting hit. But I don't remember who hit me. Face is blurry in my memory."
"Can you describe exactly how you got it? Angle of impact, type of weapon?"
"Why does it matter?"
"Humor me."
Lincoln tried, his face screwing up with effort. "It's fuzzy. I think it was a shank? But the angle... it came from above, like someone taller." He paused. "Actually, that doesn't make sense. I'm taller than most guys in here."
"Could it have been self-inflicted?"
"What? No." Lincoln looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "Why would I cut myself?"
"I don't know. But that scar... I feel like I've seen it before too."
"Time's up." The guard was moving toward them.
"Michael." Lincoln pressed his palm against the plexiglass. "Promise me something."
"What?"
"Don't do this for me. If the cost is your life, I'm not worth it."
Michael placed his own hand against the barrier, matching his brother's position through the glass. "You are to me."
They were separated. Michael escorted back to general population, Lincoln left alone in the visiting room.
Through the door, Michael caught one last glimpse of his brother. Lincoln sat motionless, hand still on the plexiglass, touching the scar above his eye.
Trying to remember.
Failing.
But somewhere deeper than memory, his body seemed to know something his mind had forgotten.
* * *
The infirmary smelled like antiseptic and bureaucratic indifference.
Michael had engineered his visit carefully. During yard time, he'd positioned himself near an inmate named Avocado—large, aggressive, quick to take offense. A carefully calculated bump, a muttered non-apology, and Avocado had shoved back hard enough to send Michael stumbling into a bench. The resulting scrape on his forearm was superficial but bloody enough to warrant medical attention.
Exactly as planned. The infirmary connected to the old staff quarters, which connected to maintenance corridors, which connected to—
The plan didn't matter right now. What mattered was access.
Dr. Sara Tancredi looked up when the guard escorted him in, and Michael's first thought was that she didn't belong here. Dark hair pulled back practically, intelligent eyes that assessed him with professional detachment, a face that still held idealism despite three years in a maximum-security prison. Twenty-nine years old, according to his research. Governor's daughter turned prison physician. A reformer in a system designed to resist reform.
She was beautiful. He filed that observation away as irrelevant and dangerous.
"This doesn't look too bad." She examined his arm with gentle, competent hands. "How did it happen?"
"Accident. Clumsy."
Her eyes flicked up to meet his, and her expression made clear she wasn't fooled. "In prison, there are no accidents."
"Then maybe I was testing something."
"Testing what? How much pain you can handle?"
"How easy it is to get into this office."
She paused, reassessing him. Most inmates lied constantly—about their crimes, their intentions, their reasons for being wherever they were. Honesty was unusual enough to warrant attention.
"You're honest," she said. "Most inmates lie."
"Lies are work. Truth is easier."
"That's refreshing. And concerning."
"Why concerning?"
"Because honest people don't usually end up in maximum security."
"Maybe I'm the exception."
"Or maybe you're not as honest as you think."
Smart. Sharp. Michael liked her immediately, which was dangerous. Attraction was a variable he couldn't afford. But something about her directness, her refusal to play the expected games—it resonated.
She noticed the tattoos while cleaning his wound. Her fingers brushed the edge of the angel wing visible beneath his sleeve.
"That's extensive artwork. How long did that take?"
"About a year. Multiple sessions."
"Each one has meaning?"
"Each one represents someone important. Or a choice I made."
"Which is the angel?"
"My mother. She left when I was young."
"I'm sorry."
"She had her reasons."
Sara's finger traced the edge of a blueprint tattoo visible on his ribs where his shirt had ridden up during the examination. The touch was professional—she was checking for infection, for hidden wounds—but something about it felt intimate.
"This one's different," she observed. "Architectural?"
"I'm a structural engineer. Buildings are my language."
"Were. Past tense."
"Still am. Just different structures now."
"Like prisons?"
He allowed himself a small smile. "Like prisons."
"You don't seem like you belong here."
"Neither do you."
She stiffened slightly, defensive. "I chose to work here. Prison medicine serves people who need it."
"Idealist."
"Is that an insult?"
"It's an observation. And a compliment. Idealism is rare."
"So is genuine intelligence." She finished bandaging his arm, her professional distance returning. "What brings a structural engineer to armed robbery?"
"Love."
The word hung between them, unexpected and raw.
"Love?" she repeated.
"I had to save someone. This was the only way."
She studied him for a long moment, then stood, putting space between them. "You're all set. Try to avoid more 'accidents.'"
"I'll try."
Michael rose to leave, but her voice stopped him at the door.
"Wait."
He turned back. She stood by her desk, one hand pressed to her temple, her expression confused.
"I'm sorry. This is going to sound strange."
"What?"
"Have we met before? Outside of here?"
Michael's pulse quickened, but he kept his voice steady. "No. This is my first time in Fox River."
"Right. Of course." She shook her head slightly, as if trying to clear it. "I just... you look familiar. Very familiar."
"I have one of those faces?"
"No. It's specific." Her eyes met his, and he saw genuine confusion there, maybe even fear. "Like I've treated you before. But that's impossible."
"Why impossible?"
"Because I'd remember. I remember all my patients." She paused. "But you... I feel like I've had this exact conversation. In this room. About your tattoos."
The pattern. Again. Expanding.
"Sorry." She forced a smile. "Long shift. I must be tired."
"Maybe," Michael said carefully. "Or maybe you're remembering something."
"Remembering what?"
"I don't know yet."
He left before she could ask more questions. Questions he couldn't answer.
Behind him, Sara Tancredi sat at her desk and opened her patient files. She flipped to the S section, found the folder she was looking for.
SCOFIELD, MICHAEL. File created today's date.
But underneath the fresh intake form, something else. Faint impressions. Ghost writing pressed through from pages that had been removed.
She held the paper to the light.
The words were barely legible: "...Patient presents with... bilateral tattoos... iteration 11... advised against..."
Iteration.
Her hands began to shake.
* * *
Evening. Lockdown. Cell 40 reduced to shadows and the fluorescent bleed from the hallway.
Michael had prepared for this moment all day. During the PI shift, he'd traded commissary credit for a small LED flashlight—contraband, technically, but minor enough that guards rarely bothered confiscating them. Sucre had asked what he needed it for.
"Reading," Michael had said.
"In the dark?"
"Less distracting."
Sucre had accepted this with the casual disbelief of someone who knew better than to push. Prison was full of things you didn't ask about.
Now Sucre slept, and Michael positioned himself by the sink with the flashlight clutched in his hand. The symbol behind his ear first. He angled the light, adjusting intensity, watching the reflection in the scratched metal.
At certain angles, the symbol seemed to have depth. Layers beneath the surface. Like looking through water at something hidden below.
UV-reactive ink. He knew it existed—some tattoo artists used it for hidden designs, images that only appeared under blacklight. Michael hadn't used it. Hadn't requested it. But what if he had and forgot? Or what if someone had added it without his knowledge?
Both options were impossible.
Both felt true.
He didn't have a UV light. But LED at extreme angles could create a partial effect, revealing hints of what blacklight would show fully. He adjusted the flashlight, tilting it until—
There.
Additional lines emerged within the symbol. Numbers. Letters. An alphanumeric sequence hidden in the geometric design:
D-13-MJS.
The same designation he'd seen on the older man's jumpsuit.
Michael's blood ran cold.
He checked other tattoos with the same technique, angling the light until the hidden layers emerged. The blueprint section across his ribs revealed room layouts he hadn't designed—not Fox River's structure, but something else. Something deeper. Something below.
The angel's wings held text hidden in the feathers. He could barely make it out, straining to read the reflection:
CELL ZERO.
The demon tattoo on his other shoulder: ITERATION 12.
The rose for his mother on his chest, the memorial he'd designed himself: SARA DIES ITERATION 4.
Michael dropped the flashlight. It clattered against the concrete floor, the sound impossibly loud in the sleeping cell block.
"What was that?" Sucre's voice, groggy.
"Dropped it." Michael retrieved the flashlight with numb fingers. "Sorry."
"You okay? You look pale."
"Fine."
"You sure?"
"Go back to sleep."
Sucre didn't believe him—Michael could see that clearly—but exhaustion won over curiosity. He rolled over, back to sleep within minutes.
Michael stood frozen, the flashlight trembling in his grip.
Then he forced himself to continue. Methodically. Completely. He had to know.
The hidden messages spread across his body like a map of horrors:
STOP TRYING TO SAVE HIM.
CELL ZERO IS REAL.
THEY'RE WATCHING.
YOU'VE FAILED BEFORE.
ESCAPE = TRAP.
ITERATION 12 OR 13.
MICHAEL PRIME IS IN BASEMENT.
SARA HAS IMMUNITY.
LINCOLN ALWAYS DIES.
Each message was impossible. Each message was horror. Each message felt true.
His tattoos were speaking to him. Across time. From himself. Warning himself about cycles he didn't remember, about deaths he hadn't died, about a plan that had already failed.
How many times? How many iterations? How many versions of Michael Scofield had walked into Fox River with absolute certainty, only to discover that certainty was a lie?
He sank to the floor, back against the bunk, and stared at his tattooed arms in the darkness.
The ink he'd thought was his plan. His map. His salvation.
It was a graveyard.
Messages from dead versions of himself, warning the living one.
From somewhere down the hall—down and down and down, deeper than the prison should go—that scream came again:
"YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO COME BACK!"
Louder this time. Closer.
Michael whispered to his tattoos, to the ghosts encoded in his skin: "Who am I?"
The angel burned in response, hot enough to make him gasp.
The demon stayed cold.
And hidden in the rose—his mother's memorial, the one piece he thought was purely his—one more message he'd almost missed:
SOME PRISONS YOU ESCAPE BY BURNING THEM.
THIS ONE YOU ESCAPE BY BECOMING IT.
Michael sat in the dark and let the horror wash over him.
Tomorrow, he would have to decide: believe the impossible, or deny what his own body was telling him.
Tonight, he just sat with the truth.
He had been here before.
He had failed before.
And somewhere beneath this prison, another version of himself was screaming.