If madness had an office, I spent the last week working in its lobby.
Nothing felt real—just a maze of signatures, faces, and fluorescent lies.
And through it all, I smiled.
That's how you survive bureaucracy: become a ghost in your own body.
I argued. Negotiated. Convinced.
Somewhere in between meetings, I also fixed her music box.
The thing is ancient—its gears grind like old bones—but it's irreplaceable. Not because it's beautiful, but because it carries a sound that doesn't belong to this time. Like a whisper from a memory that's slowly decaying…
A fragile echo we both cherish without ever admitting why.
A keepsake we trespass into with quiet hands.
I told her I'd be going on a research trip.
Near a mountain. Dangerous terrain.
And that dummy actually got nervous.
She packed warm clothes into my bag like I was some lost teenager going to a science camp.
If she knew I was heading to Ebonveil, she would've thrown herself into traffic just to block the door.
But the lie held. Barely.
I'd left enough breadcrumbs to justify this trip. As a high-ranking official, I knew how to shape the narrative.
Even lies become truth if you say them with enough calmness and conviction.
At dawn on Friday, the journey began.
We boarded the boat in silence.
No air vehicles—those were suicide. Anything above the sea crashes. The electromagnetic field near Ebonveil scrambles everything—navigation, signals, even birds lose their sense of direction.
The Argo Sigma awaited us at the bay, resting like a sleek predator waiting to exhale.
Military-grade. No rust. No soul.
Painted matte-black, its edges were smooth as polished bone and sealed tighter than a coffin. The hull had no markings, no flags—only a serial code etched so shallow it felt like a whisper someone tried to erase.
Inside, it was colder than outside.
The corridors smelled of salt and oil, dimly lit by thin yellow strips that flickered just enough to remind you they could fail.
Rooms were small—almost claustrophobic. Metal benches. Fold-down beds. Everything folded, locked, or clicked shut. Even the bathroom mirror was made of polished aluminum. No reflections. No luxuries. Just function, form, and fear.
Nine people. Each a specialist in their own field.
No grand recruitment. No glorious mission.
Just curiosity dressed as courage. In this world, that was enough.
I walked the central passageway slowly, my boots clicking on the steel floor as I passed closed doors. My room was at the bow. Small window. No stars. Only fog.
I have a habit
Not pacing. Not fidgeting. Just… stillness.
I breathe. I watch. I count.
It's how I detect fault lines in people.
Everyone's calm until silence stays too long.
Later, I walked across the deck, boots thudding softly. The sea stretched endlessly in all directions—a dark blanket pulled tight across a dying world.
Near the stern, two voices broke the silence.
"You're wrong," a woman said, her tone sharp.
"You just don't get the basics," a man replied, too calm to care.
She was tall, coiled like a spring. Dr. Imra Said, biologist, reputed for her brilliance and her brutality in arguments.
The man hunched in a thick jacket, cigarette barely lit against the wind. Koro Dan—an engineer of machine minds. According to rumors, he once made an AI believe it was human... just to see how long it would take to beg.
I leaned on the railing, catching the tail end of their argument.
"Sounds like a friendly chat," I said, pretending to stretch.
Koro glanced at me. "You ever tried explaining time loops to a hammer?"
Imra scoffed. "You're calling me a hammer now?"
I held up my hands. "Just passing by. Not judging. Though I'm curious—what's the actual debate?"
Koro flicked ash overboard. "She thinks consciousness can't emerge in twisted ecosystems. I say that's exactly where it does."
Imra crossed her arms. "And I say that makes no sense."
"Depends on what you mean by 'sense,'" I said. "Biology isn't logical. It just works. Sometimes even chaos has rules."
That made Koro grin. "Now he gets it."
Imra rolled her eyes, but her lips twitched—like she was trying not to smile.
"You're Kamanuzzaman, right?" Koro asked.
I nodded. "You must be Koro."
"Guilty."
"I'm Imra," she added. "Try not to say anything stupid."
"I'll try," I said. "No promises."
They were brilliant minds, chasing truth like it was a prize.
But I've learned something most geniuses never do:
Intelligence isn't a gift. It's a trap.
The smarter you are, the faster you dig your own grave.
Because smart people think they can outplay the world.
But the world doesn't care how smart you are.
Some geniuses burn out.
Some break.
And some come to places like this—
Thinking they'll find answers.
But this island isn't here to give answers.
It's here to bury them.
Let's see who digs deepest...
And who gets buried first.
That night, I couldn't sleep.
The Argo Sigma was steady, but the silence felt rehearsed—like the boat knew we were listening for trouble. I wandered the narrow halls, fingers grazing cold walls. Then I stepped onto the upper deck.
No moon. No stars.
Just… black.
Water and sky blurred into one giant abyss.
I moved to the prow, alone again.
There's that habit of mine.
Stillness.
I breathe. I watch. I count.
Below me, the sea whispered in a language no one should hear.
And I thought:
What if the only reason the abyss feels empty... is because it's waiting for you to speak first?
The darkness out here didn't feel passive.
It watched.
And it remembered.
It's strange. Back in the city, I always felt surrounded by stories.
Here, they feel buried.
Waiting for the right silence to bloom.
By Sunday morning, we reached it.
Ebonveil Island.
The boat engine hummed to a stop, and the sea grew silent.
No seagulls. No wind.
The clouds above formed a perfect spiral, like something had twisted the sky itself.
We stepped onto land.
The earth hissed beneath our boots—like it wanted to reject us.
Air shimmered with unseen radiation.
The trees swayed wrong.
Too slow. Too still.
Like they were pretending to be alive.
No birds. No insects.
Just the whine of Geiger counters.
And silence.
Not the kind that means peace—
The kind that means something is listening.
I took a slow breath.
This was it.
The gates have opened.
The game has begun.
And somewhere beneath this cursed soil,
An answer waits to be found.
At that same moment—somewhere off the grid of reality—
An old man sat at a desk that looked like it had grown from the floor, twisted and bone-white.
A sickly beam of light slipped through a crack in the boarded window, slicing across his face like a surgical knife.
Shadows clung to the walls, too still to be natural.
The air buzzed, faintly wrong—like something was humming beneath the surface of reality, out of tune.
He flipped through brittle files with fingers that moved too calmly.
Someone—something—sat across from him, unseen, silent. Or maybe not there at all.
Then, in that flicker of light, his face came clear.
The cab driver.
Kamanuzzaman's driver.
But here, in this room, he didn't wear a hat.
He didn't fake a smile.
He didn't blink.
He grinned.
"Things have gotten... interesting," he murmured.
"The boy's walked straight into humanity's greatest graveyard. Claims it's research."
He leaned back, talons gripping the chair's arms.
"But I doubt he even believes that."
"Ebonveil. Humanity's most forbidden lung."
The chair creaked. The room listened.
He exhaled slowly—like a man sealing a coffin.
"Still. Everything moves just as expected."
Not planned.
Expected.
As if he wasn't predicting the future—
He'd seen it before.