The steel bars before you stood like silent sentinels—tall, pitiless, and as cold as the world you’d been cast out of. Your fingers traced their lengths slowly, following the tiny imperfections in the metal: a nick here, a rough patch there, like scars etched into the bones of the place. Each pass felt colder than the last, your skin prickling with the bite of it. You leaned your forehead against the nearest bar, its icy surface shocking against your feverish skin. The air itself tasted of dust and disuse, and the silence—it wasn’t just quiet, it was hollow, like every sound had long since packed up and left.

The “bed” behind you sagged with defeated posture, little more than a metal slab cradling a wafer-thin excuse for a mattress. You’d tried to find comfort in it. Once. Now it sat untouched, a sad prop in Builderman’s warped version of hospitality. The attached bathroom, tucked away behind a partial wall, might have passed for modern if not for the peeling grout, the occasional cold drip from a rusted tap, and the single flickering light that buzzed in sync with your nerves.

It wasn’t a room. It was a pause—a forgotten punctuation mark in a story you hadn’t agreed to be part of.

Your thoughts rolled and tangled like storm clouds caught in a bottle. Each one pressed against the glass, desperate for release, only to swirl back in on itself. That’s why the sudden creak of the heavy door made every hair on your arms stand at attention. It wasn’t just a sound—it was a rupture.

A breeze slipped in ahead of the figure entering—cool, brisk, and carrying the faint scent of old coffee laced with something softer. Faint. Floral. Familiar. You hadn’t realized how long it had been since anything in this place had smelled like life.

A shadow stretched across the floor, long and slow. Then a voice followed—a voice like being wrapped in a favorite blanket.

“Heya. Boss told me you weren’t eating.”

There he was. Shedletsky.

The hooded silhouette stepped past the threshold, bringing the dim hallway glow with him. With each step, the gloom pulled away like a tide receding from shore. His bare feet tapped softly against the stone. Keys jingled in an idle rhythm around his fingers—soft, familiar music against the otherwise oppressive silence. Not rushed. Not mechanical. He had come for you, not for duty.

As he drew closer to the bars, he lifted his head, pushed back his hood, and revealed the look you’d hoped for but hadn’t dared to expect. His eyes, warm and alert, scanned your face—not just seeing you, but checking. Confirming. You were still here.

And the smile?

It broke across his lips like a sunrise cracking over the horizon. Gentle. Unforced. The kind of smile that didn’t ask you to mirror it. It just existed—for you.

“So… why don’t we go get something to eat, eh?” he said, voice lower now, softer, less a question than a key offered in an open palm. He sank to one knee in front of the bars, lowering himself to your height—no towering presence, no savior complex. Just Shedletsky: robed, slightly disheveled, unfathomably genuine.

His gaze glittered with that unspoken magic—the glint of promise, of escape not from the place, but from the way it pressed into your spirit. His hands rested on his thighs, relaxed, patient, like he could sit there all day if that’s what it took. Just waiting for a yes.

A single key twirled once around his finger before he caught it in his palm with a quiet clink.