4338.214 · August 2, 2018 AD
Handle-First
Louise Jeffries stands guard outside a shed with a kitchen knife and mascara tracking her cheeks — barely recognisable as the composed woman who sat in Interview Room Three five days ago. She has Luke Smith trapped. She has also lost someone else. Karl and Sarah split without a word — she takes the shaking civilian, he takes the shed. The last time Sarah looks back, Karl is a silhouette reaching for a latch in failing light. She turns away. The door closes behind her.
The practised choreography of partners holds even when everything else between them has shattered. A fractional tilt of his chin, a slight widening of his eyes — you take the civilian, I'll take the scene — and Sarah moves towards the woman with the knife while Karl moves towards the darkness that has consumed his every waking thought for a week.
Louise Jeffries surrenders the blade handle-first and crumbles. The knife was the last thing holding her upright. Without it she is a mother who has lost her son, a sister who has lost her brother, and now — Brianne. Kain's fiancée. Staying at the manor since Kain vanished. Luke came to the house, asked to speak with her, and now she's gone. Another name added to a list that grows like something feeding.
Karl hears this and Sarah watches the information slot into place behind his eyes with the inevitability of a key turning in a lock. Another disappearance. Another void where a person used to be. He tells her to take Louise inside. She opens her mouth to argue. Says nothing. Because he is already walking towards the shed with something far heavier than procedure driving him forward.
She pauses at the top of the portico steps. Turns. He stands alone before the door — outlined against fading light, reaching for a rusted latch, stepping into absolute darkness. She doesn't call out. The manor door closes behind her like a breath being held.
