Or maybe seconds.
Time felt distorted.
Then the door opened again.
Three men entered. They didn’t look at me.
Not once.
They moved straight to Hargrove’s corpse.
One grabbed his ankles. Another his shoulders.
They dragged him across the concrete floor.
Blood smeared behind him in a grotesque trail—like a red carpet leading to nowhere.
His ruined body bumped against the doorway as they hauled him out.
No ceremony. No acknowledgment.
Just disposal.
The door clanged shut behind them.
Silence returned.
TIME DISSOLVED.
It stopped meaning anything inside that room.
No food had been brought. No water. No movement beyond the slow shifting of my body when pain forced me to adjust.
The light bulb above had long since gone dim—maybe it had burned out, maybe they had turned it off—but I no longer tracked hours by brightness.
Time was measured by suffering.
I stayed in the corner, knees drawn tightly to my chest, arms wrapped around myself as if I could hold my body together through sheer will.
My eyes remained fixed on the floor.
On the drying blood.
It had turned from bright red to dark brown, cracking slightly at the edges as it soaked into the concrete.
Hargrove’s blood.
My stomach twisted every time I looked at it.
Hunger gnawed at me until it felt like claws scraping against my ribs from the inside. Thirst burned my throat raw. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth whenever I swallowed.
I had lost control of my bladder twice.
I didn’t even have the strength to be ashamed anymore.
Warm liquid had soaked into my torn dress and pooled beneath me before slowly cooling against my skin. The smell of urine mixed with blood and sweat and the damp scent of concrete.
I reeked.
