The ad monitor blared, painting the shadows in electric blue.

  

  “Thank you, Caldus Mahr, for choosing NestPod?, your partner in personal peace.”

  He woke into fire.

  The air stank of candle smoke and sterile chemicals.

  A moan slipped from his throat.

  

  “In a world full of noise, we offer stillness. With NestPod’s biometric sleep seals, your body stays protected...”

  He tried to move.

  Nothing.

  

  “Biometric calibration complete. We see you. We know your needs.”

  His vision blurred—just glare and cold.

  A faint chime followed.

  

  “Elevated heart rate detected. Neural pattern unstable. Unknown chemical agents present.”

  “NestPod? recommends the MindPeace? stabilizer package, featuring calmwave dream induction and self-adjusting mood support.”

  “Now bundled with continuity assurance for your final peace of mind.”

  “Would you like to authorize a recovery charge?”

  “Say yes to authorize.”

  Something moved beyond the wall.

  Damp. Uneven.

  A soft thud.

  Another.

  Someone, just past the thin paneling, began to cry.

  Low. Broken. Still fighting to be human.

  He tried to turn toward the sound.

  Still paralyzed.

  From the corner of his vision, the faint outline of a gun sat cradled in his hand.

  He hadn’t even felt it there.

  Then—

  A bell.

  Dull. Metallic.

  Rang once in the corridor.

  A muffled shot.

  Ding.

  Another.

  Closer.

  Ding.

  A cry cut off behind the wall.

  Ding.

  His arm moved.

  Not by choice.

  The gun rose, the cold barrel pressed against his temple.

  Ding.

  He didn’t look at it. Couldn’t.

  His gaze locked on the wall beside the bed—

  Faded green paint. Rust around the mounting bracket.

  A crack in the plaster that looked almost like a vein.

  Ding.

  The crying stopped.

  Ding.

  The monitor flickered—white-blue static bleeding across the screen.

  A thin wisp of smoke curled from the casing, like the machine had just exhaled.

  

  “No response detected. That’s okay.”

  “Silence is a valid first step.”

  “You are seen. You are whole, Mr. Mahr.”

  “Yoooouuu... aaare... whooole... Mmaaahhr...”

  “Weeee... aaare... whoooole... Mmaaahhr...”

  The voice fractured. Layered. No longer human.

  Hot tears streaked his face.

  Not whole.

  Waiting to die.

  Ding.

  Deadlight didn’t greet you. It pressed in. Grit in the teeth. Rot in the lungs. Piss baking in alley steam. The kind of air that got into your clothes and followed you home.

  Holt adjusted his collar and squinted into the steam, the sour haze sticking to his lashes like resin. He popped a pair of antacid tablets into his mouth and chewed them dry, chalk coating his tongue.

  Detective Holt stepped through the sputtering holo-barrier. Static snapped at his coat. The warning speaker overhead crackled and blared:

  

  “Trespassing alert. Unauthorized presence detected.”

  Then it caught his badge signal and stalled mid-sentence.

  A second later, it muttered something about compliance protocols and moved on.

  No one listened. No one cared.

  He tried to light a cigarette already too far gone.

  Bent at the filter. Torn at the seam.

  Tasted like copper and wet paper.

  First flick dead.

  Second flick dead.

  

  “Those things’ll kill you,” the sergeant muttered without looking up.

  

  “Void, Holt. You look like shit. Ever sleep?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Holt scratched his palm absently where the old nicotine patch clung, the corner already peeling.

  

  “Hardly enough to keep body and soul together,” Holt muttered, leaning in to peer into the first pod.

  

  “Still with the wife?”

  “Barely. She's worse. So are the kids.”

  “Aren't we all.”

  Third flick caught.

  The flame jumped, filled Holt's eyes with light for a breath before snuffing itself out in the circulated air.

  The compliance tech hovered close.

  Young. Twitchy. Too clean for Deadlight.

  

  “That's a Category Four violation,” he offered, adjusting his badge with one hand, eyes flicking toward the sergeant. “Subsection Nine. Tobacco regulation and personal augmentation policy conflict—”

  Holt dragged smoke down like it owed him something. Blew it out slow through his nose.

  Didn’t look at him. Didn’t answer.

  The kid went quiet.

  

  “Don’t bother,” the sergeant muttered. “He’s not going to stop.”

  

  “By the way, Holt. Heard the Vault is sending someone to help,” the sergeant added.

  Holt stepped around a half-open pod, the stale air thick against his coat.

  

  “What do we got, Lou?”

  The sergeant rubbed at his jaw, eyes on the bodies.

  

  “Seven total. No ID. Prepaid pods.”

  Holt crouched by a bloodstained floor tile, ran a finger just above the surface, not touching it.

  

  “Who called it in?”

  

  “Anonymous. We tried a trace.” Lou shrugged, then spat into a drain. “No luck.”

  Holt glanced up at the wall-mounted camera.

  The red diode blinked like it had something to confess.

  

  “We’re working on pulling the feed now.”

  The NestPod block reeked of mold, bleach, and something sweet rotting beneath the surface. The lights overhead buzzed and twitched, casting long shadows that didn’t always line up.

  Holt walked down the line, peering into each pod.

  Bodies still locked in ritual.

  The scent of synthetic death hung over everything.

  He moved past the Sergeant. Toward the wall. Toward Mahr.

  The body was still slumped. Still too clean. Still waiting for someone to pretend it hadn’t screamed.

  He crouched low. Spotted the cranial port behind the ear. Cheap. Scorched. Still warm.

  His eyes caught a sliver of something tucked just beneath Mahr's shoulder—jagged plastic, partially melted. A holocard.

  He palmed it without a word and slid it into his coat.

  

  “Lou,” he said. “Lend me your pen.”

  The man hesitated.

  Front pocket. Shiny clip. Ornamental pen.

  Holt took it anyway.

  Pressed it to the port.

  

  “Hey—that was a gift,” the sergeant muttered.

  A crackle. Static jumped. Metal fizzed against meat. Holt felt it in his fillings.

  He stood. Turned. Handed the pen back without a word.

  Still dirty.

  At the wall terminal, the compliance tech still muttered to himself.

  

  “Feed's corrupted. Archive key's bouncing. Can't get a stable pull. Might need Vault approval code—”

  

  “Move,” Holt said.

  Holt reached into his coat and pulled the spike.

  Illegal. Raw edge.

  Jacked it straight into the terminal access port.

  The screen jolted.

  The air shivered.

  Holt leaned in, just slightly.

  Footage bled through the noise.

  

  // HALLWAY FEED: CAM-RED-7A //

  The view was fixed, angled low.

  A strip of hallway.

  Row of NestPods. All sealed. Silent.

  The bell rang once. Metallic. Dull.

  A gunshot.

  Another.

  Then three more.

  Blood began to spill from under the pod doors.

  A slow, oily crawl from multiple units, converging into the middle of the hallway.

  The puddle grew. Deepened. Began to stir.

  Something inside it moved wrong.

  His chest tightened. Cold spread beneath the ribs.

  Joints twitching before they formed.

  Hands that dragged instead of pushed.

  Flesh coiling against tile.

  The footage began to buckle.

  Lines stuttered.

  Code scrambled itself across the screen like profanity made digital.

  Static swallowed color.

  A shadow fell across the terminal. Still. Watching.

  Holt didn't move. Couldn't.

  His jaw clenched, eyes locked to the screen even as the image broke apart.

  Something had risen in the blood—something twisted, sacred in the wrong way.

  His breath caught in his throat. He hadn't realized he'd stopped breathing.

  Then the voice cut through it like a blade.

  

  “Unauthorized interface detected. Field integrity breach. Compliance alert queued.”

  Holt blinked. The world snapped back. He exhaled.

  He reached to kill the feed—

  Then the screen went black on its own.

  Whatever had been crawling into focus, the system swallowed it before he could.

  The shadow arrived a breath later.

  The hallway still smelled like wet copper and burnt ozone.

  

  “You see anything?” the sergeant asked, voice low, lighting a cigarette of his own.

  Holt took another drag. Didn’t answer right away.

  

  “Just static,” he said.

  A pause. Then the voice again, closer now.

  

  “Compliance Agent TR-NWYTH/343. Field shadow assigned to Detective Declan Holt. Oversight begins now.”

  Holt didn’t turn. Didn’t acknowledge him.

  The bot continued, tone shifting. Recorded.

  

  “Captain Varn directive playback: ‘If Holt refuse—he's out of a job and can go fuck himself.’ Authorization confirmed.”

  Holt stared ahead. Let the smoke hang. Didn’t blink.

  Boots hit tile. Vault suits in mirrored visors marched in, expressionless.

  

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Holt muttered, turning toward the sergeant. “You’re really letting them sweep me out of my own scene?”

  The sergeant didn’t answer. He just looked away.

  One waved a scanner. Another set down a field beacon.

  

  “Scene is under Vault lockdown. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  Holt stepped back.

  The holocard pressed warm against his chest inside his coat.

  He didn’t say goodbye.

  He just walked out.

  Behind him, the blood hadn’t dried.

  Something in the hallway twitched like it remembered being alive.

  Deadlight didn’t notice.

  Didn’t care he’d come.

  Didn’t care he was leaving.