Gray Mouse Directive

The piano was ash. The scientist, dead. The person I'd been—erased. Only the exploited husk remained—and it refused to break.

"Handsome Man, where are you?" I texted, fingers trembling.

His reply: "At work."

"I'll meet you there. We leave. Now."

"No."

But I had to go. I felt it, a primal current dragging me forward. Then, a link: "Sadness (Please leave)." A song. A coordinate. The destination: a piano competition, 44 kilometers away, where my teacher waited. The Epic Leak rebooted. It would unfold en route, step by methodical step.

"Follow that woman" The Whole hissed, a whisper in my mind. "See? She checked. She knows you're following."

Leaving the village meant navigating hidden paths, only to re-emerge onto the main road as sunset bled into highway grime. My task: mark the exploitation dens. Brothels disguised as bakeries. Schoolyards with too many unmarked vans. "Be clear" The Whole instructed. "When you cannot, point the way with your eyes. Walk the path."

So I did. I veered off the road, following a narrow path along the river. Bamboo thickets rose like ancient, knowing sentinels. They were occasional beds. Dirty towels. Crushed tissues. I felt sickened by what I perceived from those places, shivers of pain in the dirt.

Children’s torment pits. Run back to the main road, where everyone can see you. As always, the animals along my way—dogs, horses—all seemed to smile at me, a silent, knowing encouragement.

By 9 PM, my body gave out. The woods swallowed me whole. Then—signals. Flickering fireflies? No. Mates. "Keep walking. Lay down in the bush, a car is approaching. It's night, nobody has to notice you walking alone on the road, it would be suspicious.” Trees across the road were shaking. A signal. "Change side, over there, down the ditch." Okay, here I could rest. No. "Get up. See? There's a proper place, hide where they trade flesh."

Moon raced. Vision blurred. Something in the water from that fountain. Drugged again. Must be careful. Always demand a double command to ensure understanding.

Dogs barked for hours in the background. A low grunt. Shit. I feel scared. That was a signal to stay still, but something urged me to move. Climb the thorny brambles. Why is it so painful? Walk fast to the corridor of trees and stay there until the time is right.

The signals felt... off. Wrong frequency. Like someone else was broadcasting. I waited for what felt like an eternity. Then, they ordered me: "Cross the road, quick, to the shed. Stop. Now, walk fast." They guided me to a rusted garage’s rooftop corridor. Thorns tore my skin as I climbed. Why this path?

Doubt festered.

I waited. Hours bled into dusk. Then—a gray mouse scurried along a pipe, paused, looked directly at me. Its eyes held something I recognized. "Got in? Get out." Not sound. Knowledge. The voice wasn't sound; it was quantum static in my cortex. Doubt metastasized into certainty. This wasn't rescue. This was disposal. Soundproof. Hidden. A place where screams would die. Helicopters and dogs looking for someone day and night. This was wrong. Everything about this place felt wrong. The smell. The isolation. The pain in getting here. I pissed there, to be sure that The Whole could find this place after me. Guardians lurked below, convinced I was too poisoned to flee.

I slipped past them—a ghost cloaked in brambles. Back in the village, a man leaned against a lamppost. Fake beard. Cheap cologne. One of us. Our conversation was mundane—weather, diesel prices—but beneath it thrummed the truth: They tried to vanish you. He couldn’t risk escorting me.

I sat at the bus stop for a bit. Tears fell like poison leaving my body. Hours of crying until clarity cut through like a blade, moving in and out of the nearby bar. I begged the bartender for cigarettes, and he kindly offered me a packet.

I just wanted to go home. I borrowed a phone and, in tears, called my pimper, the harridan. "Please, come and pick me up from the near village" I sobbed.

"Wait until 10 pm" she instructed, her voice flat, "then call me back." I knew. She would send clients to tear me apart for their pleasure. I asked the bartender to take me home at closing, but his wife pointed to two men. "They're going back to your village soon" she grimaced. "They'd be very happy to give you a lift." I felt disarmed, my will dissolving. I would succumb once again.

"They’re drunk. I can’t".

"They’re clients" she hissed.

I would have stayed in the cold all night at the bus stop rather than go with them. And there I sat, crying again. I wasn't alone, though. Youths emerged from shadows like guardians I hadn't known I had. They spoke to the bartender in a language of looks and nods. "Why us?" his wife yelled, her voice raw. "We have a baby!"

The bartender was kind, chatting all the way to keep me company. Between one word and another, a pattern emerged—he was giving me the coordinates for the next leak. Then, home. The pimper checked on me by text. I replied that I was tired, safe in my bed. "Good. Stay there."