HELENA POV
I didn’t know what day it was anymore.
At the beginning, I tried to count. I would wake up and tell myself it had been one night. Maybe two. I told myself I would remember, that I would keep track, that time was still something I could hold on to.
Then I started counting meals instead.
Breakfast trays. Dinner trays. Glasses of something dark and bitter that wasn’t coffee but close enough that my body accepted it without protesting too much.
That didn’t last either.
Now time felt slippery. It slid around me, through me, without ever sticking. The light in this place never changed the way real light did. There was no sunrise, no sunset, no shadows stretching or shrinking. Just a constant, artificial glow that made my skin itch, like I was being watched even when I was alone.
