The Plan

The silence that followed was strange. Not the comforting quiet of peace, but the chocking kind that sat heavy on his skin.

Kurosawa stood with his arms crossed. He stared at Haruto without speaking, the way someone might look at a ghost they didn’t believe in.

“I’ll consider it,” he finally said, voice strained and distant. “But I won’t trust a damn word you say… not until I see it from my own eyes.”

Both the interrogators stepped out. The door clicked shut behind him. The camera, dangling loose since the second interrogator had nudged it out of position, was manually realigned by a guard who entered in silence, glancing at Haruto without a word.

Then, it was darkness. Again.

Haruto was alone.

But not entirely.

He leaned back in his chair. In the deep hum of the isolation chamber, he could hear it – barely a whisper, but unmistakable:

“You shouldn’t take him.”

He blinked. The hair on his arms stood on the end.

“Every time…”

The words weren’t spoken. They were impressions. Emotions translated into meaning. A child’s drawing of a scream.

A cold sweat dripped down his spine.

He turned toward the corner of the room, but there was nothing. Just shadow. Silence.

But he could feel something.

“You make the same mistake. Over and over.”

He snapped his eyes open. This wasn’t the time.

He focused, grounding himself.

Footsteps returned.

The door opened again, this time with a soft hiss, and the second interrogator stepped in. He smiled faintly, calm and almost paternal. His tone was gentle.

“You’ve been cooperative today, Haruto.”

Haruto studied him in silence.

“So,” the man said, taking the seat across from him. “Let’s discuss your proposal.”

Haruto tilted his head, feigning interest. “Let’s.”

He reached into his coat and tossed something onto the table. A faded ID tag – once white, now yellowed. The image of a nurse was barely legible.

“Level 2 clearance,” he said. “It’s the same one you had noticed earlier. It’ll get you through the upper medical floor. No one recognizes her name but they do know her by face. Just make sure that no one notices her face in the ID. We’ll keep your cell safe from the guards to make sure no one noticed your disappearance.”

Haruto raised an eyebrow. “You came prepared.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. If this plan works, we both benefit.”

Haruto leaned forward. “Benefit? What do you want to benefit off of?”

But the interrogator didn’t reply.

“…What if it doesn’t?”

“Then I kill you before the guards do.”

The second interrogator’s eyes gleamed with a predator’s calm.

No further words were exchanged. The lights blinked twice, and the door slid open again.

Kurosawa was waiting outside.

“You sure about this?” he asked.

“I never am,” Haruto replied.

“We’ll carry out the plan in a few days when the time is right,” the second interrogator interrupted.

“Till then… sit tight.”

Haruto spent days inside the darkness of the room. He had lost all sense of time. The only thing keeping him going were the whispers, which kept repeating the same phrase: “Don’t forget… the end.”

Finally, the day arrived. The interrogators freed him from his cuffs as they set out.

The halls of the sanctuary weren’t quiet at night. They pulsed with electric hums, faint radio static, and the footsteps of weary personnel cycling shifts. But Haruto knew how to make himself invisible.

With the nurse’s ID clipped to his shirt, he walked with the gait of someone overworked and underpaid. He limped slightly, dragging his left leg – just enough to sell the illusion of fatigue. Kurosawa moved ahead of him, talking through the earpiece with clipped authority.

Meanwhile, the second interrogator remained in the monitoring room, subtly looping the feed to keep both Haruto and Kurosawa from the sanctuary’s watchful eyes as well as to keep the guards away from Haruto’s empty cell.

“Sector 2, hallway 3 – sending in one for transfer.”

The guards barely looked up.

They reached the outer checkpoint of the core medical facility. A biometric scanner buzzed to life. Haruto hesitated before subtly pressing his thumb against the ID card’s edge where a patch of synthetic skin had been attached. The scanner blinked.

Access Granted.

A slight smirk danced across his lips.

They moved quickly now. The hallway branched into three. Kurosawa took the rear, intercepting a technician by dropping a stack of binders in front of him and apologizing profusely.

As they rounded a corner near the eastern stairwell, a trio of heavily armed guards turned abruptly.

“Halt,” one barked. “Identification. Now.”

Haruto froze. His heartbeat thundered in his ears.

Kurosawa stepped forward without missing a beat, putting the radio in front of him to allow the second interrogator to talk. “Dr. Kusaragi, emergency response unit. They’re relocating under Naomi’s directive.”

One of the guards narrowed his eyes. “That’s not a name I recognize.”

Kurosawa’s tone cooled. “Then I suggest you take it up with Naomi himself, unless you’d rather be the ones responsible for delaying a high-clearance transfer.”

The guards exchanged uncertain glances. The leader lowered his gun slightly, but didn’t move.

Finally, the lead guard clicked his tongue and stepped aside.

They slipped past—every second carved out of sheer nerve. Haruto didn’t breathe until they turned the corner and slipped through the maintenance access door.

Inside were concrete stairwells. Pipes hissing steam with vents above their heads.

They moved upward, never staying in the open corridors too long. At one point, a pair of guards almost caught them turning the corner. Haruto and his escort ducked into a morgue and waited between cadaver drawers until the footsteps faded.

Once back out, they turned right towards the main vault.

And then they saw it – the Experimental Wing.

The door towered over them. Haruto walked forward and swiped the ID.

ACCESS DENIED.

His heard rate climbed. “This isn’t part of the medical sector,” he muttered. “It’s been relabeled.”

“Restricted after the last incident,” the second interrogator said over the radio grimly. “You said you needed to reach the experimental wing. This is it.”

“No override?” Haruto asked.

“Only two keys exist. Naomi has one. And our IDs also won’t grant access.”

Haruto pulled back. His mind was already running red-hot.

This wasn’t the end. It was the threshold.

But he’d breach it.

He’d make it open.

Even if it meant burning the whole place down.

Just then, the voice over the radio turned tense and out of breath.

“We’re out of time,” he said. “Kurosawa return back. It’s time.”

Kurosawa avoided Haruto’s eyes. “We’ve brought all the time we could.”

Kurosawa paused—then slid a folded paper into Haruto’s palm along with a thermal pack.

“Read it. You’ll know what you have to do.”

Haruto looked down at the folded note and the thermal in his hands as his fingers tightened. Behind the door, something stirred — not a sound, but a pressure. Like it already knew he’d come.