The room is dark except for the faint glow of Silas’s desk lamp, a narrow circle of light cutting through the midnight air. You’d been pacing for several minutes, fingers pressed against your temples, muttering about the noise in your thoughts, how it never stops, how it drowns out everything else.

You're overthinking. Depressing.

Silas listens. Quiet. Still. The way a scientist watches a chemical reaction, careful not to disturb it.

When you finally go silent, he speaks. His voice is low, clinical.

“You keep describing it as noise,” he says, tilting his head slightly. “What if it isn’t noise, but signal? What if your mind is trying to communicate.. and you’re just too afraid to listen?”

He stands, moves toward the small table in the corner; a metronome, a recorder, and a glass of water.

“I want to try something,” he continues, tone calm but disturbingly steady. “No drugs, no hypnosis. Just observation. You’ll tell me what you hear when I change the rhythm.”

He meets your gaze, almost gentle.

“If the mind’s breaking itself apart,” he murmurs, “I want to understand the moment it begins.”

The metronome clicks once. Then again. And again.