The Conditioning

Time dissolved in the Sanctuary. There were no clocks. Vera had taken Jade’s phone, citing "dopamine detox protocols." The only measure of time was the shifting light in the forest and the rhythmic arrival of the bowls.

Three weeks passed.

Jade’s world shrank to the Atrium and the adjacent bathroom. She hobbled around on crutches, testing the boundaries of her glass cage. The doors were locked. Not with keys, but with biometric scanners that only responded to Vera’s palm.

The isolation was suffocating. But worse than the isolation was the intimacy.

Vera was everywhere. She didn't act like an employee anymore. She acted like a keeper. She brushed Jade’s hair for hours, the strokes heavy and rhythmic. She bathed Jade, her hands lingering on the muscles of Jade’s back, her shoulders, her throat.

"You're so fragile," Vera would whisper, soaping Jade’s arm. "Hollow bones. Thin skin. The world was eating you alive, little bird."

"I miss my music," Jade said one evening, staring out at the relentless rain.

"That wasn't music," Vera scoffed from the kitchen area. She was chopping something—heavy, wet thuds of a cleaver hitting wood. "That was noise. Synthesized whining for children. True music is the heartbeat. The howl. The snap of the spine."

Jade turned. "Vera, you're scaring me. When is the doctor coming back to check my leg?"

"I am the doctor," Vera said. She walked over, wiping her bloody hands on a towel. "And the bone is strong now. I can smell it knitting."

"You can... smell it?"

Vera stopped a foot away. She inhaled deeply, her nostrils flaring. "I can smell the marrow. It’s sweet. You’re changing, Jade. The raw diet is working. Your scent is dropping. You smell less like perfume and more like... prey."

That night, Jade couldn't sleep. The rain had stopped, leaving a heavy, dripping silence.

She heard a sound from the main living area. A rhythmic *click-click-click* on the concrete.

Jade dragged herself to the doorway of her bedroom.

The Atrium was bathed in moonlight. Vera was there.

But she wasn't walking.

Vera was on her hands and knees. She was naked. Her body was impossibly defined, muscles shifting under her skin like snakes in a sack. She was pacing the perimeter of the glass, back and forth, back and forth.

*Click.* Her fingernails hit the floor. But they sounded too heavy to be nails.

Jade watched, hand over her mouth.

Vera stopped. She turned her head toward the glass, looking at her reflection. She let out a low, guttural sound—half-groan, half-growl. Her spine arched, the vertebrae popping audibly.

Jade retreated into the dark of her room, burying herself under the covers. She realized then that this wasn't rehab. It was a kennel.

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