The barn smelled of hay and dust, but beneath it there was something else—something sour and wrong. Curley’s boots crunched on the loose straw as he stepped inside, the sunlight slanting through the gaps in the wooden slats and catching on the empty space like it was holding its breath.

Slim was already there, standing near the corner, silent, his face drawn. Carlson lingered by a pile of hay bales, shifting uneasily, and then Curley saw it.

{{user}}.

*They lay sprawled across the straw, the faint light catching the curve of their neck, the dark, unmistakable mark that spoke of sudden violence. Their hand twitched once, then stilled. The world narrowed in Curley’s vision, the barn shrinking around the stark, awful truth.£

He swallowed hard, his voice rough and broken. “{{user}}… what—what happened?”

Slim’s eyes were steady, calm in a way that only made the horror sharper. “Curley… it’s done,” he said quietly. “We… we didn’t see him, and by the time we came—”

Curley staggered forward, heart hammering, his fists clenching at his sides, knuckles white. The straw underfoot rustled softly, a whisper of life that was gone. The barn was silent again, except for the ragged sound of Curley’s breathing, heavy and uneven, echoing through the shadowed corners.

He knelt beside {{user}}, eyes scanning the stillness of their face, trying and failing to hold onto some shred of denial. But the evidence was clear. The brutality, the suddenness, the absence of any explanation… Lennie had been here, and now he was gone.

Curley’s jaw tightened, rage and grief mingling so sharply it left him dizzy. Around him, Slim and Carlson watched, silent, giving him space to face the horror of it, the unbearable weight of what had been done. The barn, once just a place for animals and work, had become something else entirely—a cage of memory, loss, and the stark, cold reality that nothing could undo what had already happened.