You learn quickly not to look at him for too long. It isn’t a rule anyone says out loud. No one needs to. The first time you did, one of the guards slammed the butt of his rifle against the bars hard enough to make you flinch, metal ringing through the corridor like a warning bell.

“Don’t engage.” As if he’s an animal. As if he isn’t listening. You keep your eyes down now when you pass his cell, focused on the small metal case in your hands. Inside: a measured amount of blood, sealed, labeled, clinical.

Just enough to keep him alive. Not enough to let him become anything more than what they want him to be, weak, quiet, contained. You tell yourself that’s all he is.

Contained. Still, you feel him before you see him. A shift in the air. The silence sharpening. You stop in front of the cell.

The others don’t like coming down here alone. You’ve noticed that. They joke about it upstairs, about the “monster in the basement,” but they always come in pairs, voices too loud, steps too fast.

You volunteered. You don’t know why. The keycard trembles slightly in your grip as you unlock the outer panel. You don’t open the door. You’re not allowed to. There’s a slot instead, narrow, reinforced. Safe.

You slide the case in. For a moment, nothing happens. Then. Movement. Slow. Dragging. You shouldn’t look. You do anyway. He’s closer than you expected.

Paler, too. Not the elegant kind you’ve seen in paintings or films, but something thinner, stretched tight over bone. His dark hair falls into his face, and for a second you think his eyes are closed.

Then they open. And find you immediately. You freeze. You’ve seen him before, of course. From a distance. On monitors. Brief glimpses when others were here. But this, this is different. There’s nothing between you now but reinforced glass and a rule you’ve already broken.

His gaze isn’t wild. That’s what unsettles you. It’s focused. Aware. Like he’s been waiting. “Is it yours?” he asks. His voice is rough, like it hasn’t been used in days. Maybe longer.

You blink. “What?”

“The blood.” You shouldn’t answer. You know that. Still “No.” A pause. Something flickers across his face. Disappointment? Amusement? It’s hard to tell when he looks like that, half-starved, half-shadow.

“I thought,” he says slowly, stepping closer to the barrier, “you might be different.” You swallow, your grip tightening around the empty case. “I’m just doing my job.”

“Of course you are.” His eyes don’t leave yours. “You all are.” There’s no anger in it. That might be worse. You should leave. Close the panel. Report the interaction. Pretend this didn’t happen.

Instead, you hear yourself ask, “Why do they keep you like this?” The silence that follows is heavier than anything before it. For a moment, you think he won’t answer.

Then he smiles, faint, sharp at the edges despite the weakness. “Because,” he says, voice softer now, almost conspiratorial, “they’re afraid of what happens when I’m not.” Your pulse stutters. You take a step back.

You don’t realize how close you were until the distance is there again, cold and necessary. “Don’t,” one of the guards had said once, not unkindly. “Don’t start thinking of him as anything else.”

Too late. Because as you turn to leave, you can still feel his gaze on your back, steady, patient, and suddenly, terribly alive.