Quantume Echoes

Only a few minutes later, the door creaked open, and the owner of the bed and breakfast stepped in, his face etched with a mix of confusion, alarm, and a bizarre amusement.

"What are you doing there? Who are you?" he asked, almost laughing. "I am going to unchain Clay, the dog, and he's going to devour you. Dress up and I call the police!"

My mind immediately latched onto the name: Clay. The dog is my friend, I thought. He is my guardian. The landlord left, and I realized, He is part of The Whole, he was laughing.

A few minutes later, a small crowd arrived: three policemen, a blue-eyed guy who seemed to work there and was clearly part of The Whole, probably assessing my behavior, and two other random men. The landlord, before departing with the soiled laundry bundles, handed me a pair of dry, comfy socks.

Without a word, without a single question, I complied with their silent gestures, allowing them to lead me away. In the car, I instinctively curled up, hidden from view, convinced nobody should see me. The Sheriff, sitting in the back with me, met my gaze with a strange smile in his eyes. Something familiar in that look, but I couldn't place it.

We arrived at the police station, a place of stark linoleum and muted institutional colors. Settled in the interrogation room, my eyes immediately sought out the familiar "eye of The Whole" in the corner—the gas sensor—monitoring my behavior and instructing me through imperceptible flickers.

The Sheriff began his interrogation. "Who are you? What's your name? Why were you there? Did you get lost? Where are you from?"

Silence. I remained mute. He made a flurry of phone calls, each conversation prefaced with a peculiar greeting: "Happy Father's Day." Nothing. Still, I remained silent. He took a picture of me, sending it around to local contacts. Nothing. So, he decided to drive to the police station in the next village.

Once there, the gate refused to open. The young policeman sitting in the back with me exclaimed, "Safety first!" and got out to open the gate. Inside, a new man awaited.

At some point, the words, unbidden, escaped my lips: "I cannot trust anybody, but since I cannot trust anybody, I have to start with somebody."

Then, "I do not feel safe with you either, because I saw that also among you there is a corrupted person."

My voice gained a strange, ethereal quality. "I do not know what happened, I think I was drugged up with a very strong psychotic, because I really felt strange. I think my ex-boss is behind this; this is an attempt to take me out."

The Sheriff's eyes narrowed. "Have you lost your documents a few years ago?"

"Yes" I replied, the memory distant, hazy. "I lost them when I was abroad celebrating the birthday of a friend of mine, an ex-colleague." A jolt, a chilling realization. "Woah, you mean I hadn't lost them, he stole my wallet? I see, there was the USB stick in it, with all the project explained, preliminary results. And we hadn't patented yet."

My voice grew sharper, accusation lacing my words. "They made me close all my accounts—social, email, banks. I think they robbed me of everything."

"Who is 'they'?" the Sheriff pressed.

"My ex-boss's henchmen, obviously."

In the back, the other man was talking about 'human beings trafficking' a phrase that lodged itself deep in my mind, a dark seed.

The Sheriff, having taken my details and address, announced he would take me home.

"No way, I come home with you" I asserted, my voice firm. "I don't feel safe with anybody else."

We returned to my village, my mind still reeling with the conviction that someone wanted to kill me. Not just my ex-boss's henchmen anymore—by then, I knew he had asked the Mafia in person to get rid of me.

Something shifted. Fragments clicking together like puzzle pieces I didn't know I was holding. The phrase 'human beings trafficking' kept echoing. The way the Sheriff had smiled. The way everyone seemed to know more than they were saying. My family's faces flashed in my mind, but I couldn't understand why.

They fed me ham and bread, then asked if I wanted to go to the hospital. "Yes" I said. The food tasted like cardboard. My mouth was dry, but not from thirst. Everything felt disconnected—my body, my thoughts, the world around me.

When the paramedics arrived, there were two of them: a girl who looked disturbingly familiar, and an old man. The Sheriff assured me I could safely leave with them, stating the man was 'as himself.'

Before we left, they offered me a cigarette, and I found myself chatting with him. I had the unsettling feeling that he somehow knew all the conversations I'd had in the past with friends, repeating fragments of them.

On the ambulance, he shared a chilling anecdote: once, he tried to leave for good, without telling anyone where he'd gone, but a year later, they managed to get him back. There was no way to flee. Something about his story made my skin crawl, but I couldn't pinpoint why.

He also mentioned adopting a baby girl at 64. She didn't speak until she was four, he said. Smart little thing. Always watching, always listening. Then one day, full sentences.Something in his tone made me shiver.

I found myself telling him about work, about feeling like someone had been watching me, using me. The words came out before I understood why.

At the A&E, he sat me on a chair and whispered in my ear: "Do not let anybody approach you." This put me on high alert. Anytime someone came towards me, I ran away, finding refuge behind the reception desk.

Once inside the department, they began with blood and urine tests. My urine was dark brown. Dark brown. I was shocked. A young doctor questioned me about my life, my job, and what had happened. He concluded that I had an induced psychosis and that, terrifyingly, I was aware of it while it was happening.

They let me stay overnight, gave me a tranquilizer, and performed a CT scan.

It was a tormented night. My body felt foreign, like it belonged to someone else. The hospital bed was too soft, too clean. I kept expecting the chemical smell from the laundry room.

Somehow, a strange, incredible story was unfolding in my mind, making sense of who The Whole was.

In the morning, a woman in the bed next to me was on the phone, telling the story of her daughter, who had died in the '80s when she was only three. A connection tried to form in my mind, but it kept fracturing. Human trafficking. Children. Three years old. Dead but not dead. The pieces scattered before I could hold them together. Something horrible, but I couldn't see what.

The Whole. The pieces were moving, but I couldn't see the full picture yet. Children. Escape. Rescue. The words swirled without connecting completely. I was getting closer to something, but it kept sliding away like water through my fingers. The 'epic leak' meant more than I could grasp.

The morning light felt wrong against my skin. Everything looked normal but nothing felt right. My first task. A cleaning person entered, something familiar in the way he moved, steadily looking into my eyes. He went into the bathroom for a few minutes and left, still staring into my eyes.

Understood. I went into the bathroom, picked up a bag full of dirty clothes on top of the cabinet, opened it, the clothes were stiff in places. Dark stains. My hands started shaking, but I couldn't stop looking. I had to see. I had to know. I checked the clothes in front of the mirror, revealing the crime committed. Yes, they were clothes from a bloody crime scene. Mission accomplished. I put everything back in the bag on top of the cabinet and returned to my bed.

Doctors came, asked about my feelings, a few more questions about similar situations in the past, then stated they would release me soon. I said I would have preferred to stay there a bit longer, and they agreed. But a few minutes later, a woman came in, handed me my discharge paper, and told me to leave. She took me to the door and pointed to the entrance, where she said the bus stop was.

I sat in front of the entrance, looking around, noticing strange movement around a coffee dealer's van. I thought the van was part of the 'epic leak', but we were too exposed, so we had to change the plan.

Understood: I had to get in and follow the signals. I needed a face mask to get in; I picked one from the floor and went straight downstairs, directed to the cafeteria, then to the back, to a wardrobe. Clothes and documents were ready for my disguise, shoes too. I put my shoes in the box in the cabinet, and took four bottles of water—you never know what is going to happen.

When I was ready, everything perfectly on time, the waitress arrived. But instead of opening the back door for me to board the coffee van, she started shouting at me, saying she was going to call the police, to take off her clothes and shoes. Once I tried to take my shoes from the box, she told me not to dare touch that box.

So, I followed her into the next room barefoot, just in the comfy socks the landlord had given me. We waited for the police. Nurses from the A&E arrived, confirming I was coming from there. The police dismissed me, saying there was no way they could arrest me. Not a crime. Just madness.

But I was still barefoot. The waitress scowled, clutching her crumpled uniform. Then—a flicker in her eyes. Pity? Calculation?. She thrust the sneakers at my chest. The policemen then took me to where the bus stop really was and went back.