#Chapter 204: Wide Awake

Amelia When I opened my eyes, the ceiling was different. It wasn’t concrete or reinforced glass; the overhead beams were carved wood, honey-colored and familiar. The walls were painted a soft cream, far from the sterile white I had come to dread, and light filtered through real curtains, soft, diffuse, and warm, instead of the harsh flicker of containment fluorescents. I was in Richard’s room. Not a cell, not a sterile ward. A real room. His. It felt startlingly ordinary, the kind of room people lived in without fear or calculation. There was a desk with space for books, a bed that looked like it was meant for rest instead of restraint, and sunlight that didn’t hum with artificial tension. It wasn’t built to contain me. It just existed. I wasn’t alone. I could hear the guards just outside the door, their shifting weight and quiet comm exchanges muffled through the wood. Beneath that, a low thrum vibrated faintly in the air, Simon’s monitoring system, still active. It brushed al