The Unblinking Eye

The hospital doors sighed shut behind me like a mouth closing. Not freedom—a different kind of cage with softer bars.

Sterile air, humming fluorescents, the chemical tang of false sanctuary. Here, at least, the invisible eyes hunting me couldn't penetrate. Or so I thought.

Our shared cell held four fractured constellations of consciousness. To my left: The Statue. Strapped to her mattress, catatonic for years since something unspeakable touched her son. Her stillness wasn't sleep; it was a void, radiating cold entropy.

Across from me: The Ghost. A wraith-thin girl waging a silent war on her reflection. Days bled into a grotesque ballet—frantic gorging on offerings from the outside world, followed by violent purges into the stainless steel altar of the toilet. Clothes became enemies: tugged on, ripped off, discarded in a futile chase after phantom fat only she could see. Her war against the mirror was a war against seeing. Some truths were too heavy for reflection.

Front-left: Christ. The name hit my neural wiring like a live wire. Christ. A distorted echo of my own cursed designation: Barabbas. That stark exhibition flyer flashed behind my retinas:

"WHAT WOULD THE FOLK CHOOSE NOW, CHRIST OR BARABBAS? WHO WAS THE TRUE CRIMINAL? THE TERRORIST OR THE THIEF?"

I’d scanned its coded dread a thousand times.

Every Christ will come down from the cross, and even the birds will return…

Then I saw it. Nestled high in the corner like a metal spider: the camera. Glass eye that never blinked, never looked away.

The folk would choose. Through that lens. Her or me. Salvation? The sterile imprisonment of these white walls, or the unknown wilds outside where 'freedom' might be a deeper, darker cell? The first choice felt like surrender; the second, a leap into the data-void.

Nightfall shattered the illusion of safety. The helicopter arrived—not a machine, but a predator. Its thudding rotors vibrated in my bones for hours, hovering just beyond the reinforced window. I knew. I knew. This was where they came for us. The helicopter wasn't hunting—it was collecting Unseen arrivals, unseen departures. Like mine—shielded by silent paramedics from the ambulance bay itself. Escape demanded unconsciousness, a surrender my hyper-aware, neurodivergent synapses refused. I lay rigid, eyes wide open, tracking shadows on the ceiling as the chance dissolved with the fading rotor thrum.

Christ materialized like a vengeful specter in the chair beside my bed. My skin prickled with primal unease.

Suddenly, the Statue moved. A raw, animal scream tore from her throat, a skeletal finger jabbing towards Christ. Nurses swarmed, murmuring platitudes as they steered Christ back to her mattress. Her eyes, burning coals, locked onto mine. Accusation.

Morning dragged me into therapy’s numbing drone. The doctor—Handsome Man’s ally—settled beside me. His eyes offered counterfeit warmth. "You're safe" he murmured, the lie smooth as synth-silk. "Tell me everything."

The dam broke. Words, thick with poison I’d carried too long, flooded out:

"I didn’t know. I’m autistic. They knew. Exploited my focus, my literal mind. Made me believe I was just… inadequate. High school was noise and failure. University, less drowning, still flailing. Then the labs. Simple tasks: cut, paste, verify sequences. Mindless. Oblivious. Now… I see the chain." My voice became a flat recital of damnation:

"Lab One: Sequence assembly. Simple. Lab Two: Expression vectors. Still simple. Lab Three: Crystallization seeds. Getting complex. Lab Four: The massive protein. Not what they told me. Lab Five: Cell line testing. My hands shaking. Final Lab: My blood. They took my blood when I got sick. Now they have everything." I got sick; they took it. Now they have the template. Unlimited weapons. Unlimited antidotes. Defenses built from me. I feel… hollow. An unconscious slave. Happy in my chains. Ashamed."

I met his gaze, stripped bare. Admitting my ignorance didn't absolve the guilt; it etched it deeper into my code. I was spent. Empty. Done.

Days dissolved into the mattress, the confession a lead weight pinning me down, leaving only exhaustion.

One afternoon, Christ slithered to the Statue's bedside. Her whisper slithered against my ear: "You did this. Built their weapons. Your fault." Each word a needle ." She lived on her phone, her end a muffled litany of death threats. Too loud. Too deliberate. Performance art. For whose benefit? Mine?

When they decided to move her—somewhere she fought with terrified desperation—her "daughter" visited. The girl walked in, her gaze bypassing Christ entirely, locking onto me. A smile bloomed—too wide, too knowing. 'Hello' she chirped. The word felt like a trap . "Hello" she chirped, bright as poison. Leaving, the same smile, the same unnerving wave: "See you soon." Not the mother's daughter. One of us. Marked.

The helicopter returned the next night, its rhythmic thrum a siren song of potential escape. "But Christ, a malevolent sentinel, refused to sleep. Her eyes—wide, unnatural—pinned me like specimen to glass. She knew. She was keeping me awake on purpose. Again. The chance dissolved.

Trapped. Watched. The camera recording every breath, every blink. Waiting for the folk to choose: Christ or Barabbas. Salvation or damnation. Through the unblinking eye.