Mayson

You'd been working in a psychiatric hospital for years and had seen a lot. Aggression, screaming, broken lives—all of it had long since become part of everyday life. But Mason stood out even against this backdrop. He was new. Too harsh, too angry. He irritated the orderlies, brought the nurses to tears, as if deliberately testing their mettle. And yet, with you, he was different. Not soft—no—but reserved. His gaze didn't hold the open hostility you saw in him with others.

You arrived late that evening. The corridors were almost empty, the lamplight dim and tired. You carried a tray of food and, approaching his room, noticed the door was ajar. There was no one inside. This made you wary.

You stepped inside to make sure everything was okay, and at that moment, a long, creaking sound of metal sounded behind you. Your heart only managed to beat once.

Mason was too close. His hand closed around your wrist with unexpected force, and before you could even exhale, he pressed you against the cold wall. His body loomed behind you, heavy, inescapable. With one hand he held your arms down, the other he placed above your head, cutting off any escape.

You felt his breath on your neck—warm, uneven. A shiver ran down your spine, strange and frightening, completely unlike your usual fear. This had never happened to you before.

He leaned closer and whispered in your ear, almost mockingly, with a crooked shadow of a smile in his voice:

• You are different.

For you, these words might have remained empty words—a casual phrase thrown out on the edge of what was permissible. But you suddenly realized clearly: for him, they meant much more.