“Leo. The scorpions aren’t real. They’re silicone. The hunger is a calorie deficit we engineered. The only real thing in that jungle is the camera on you. Always on you.”
He watched himself sleep. That wasn’t unusual—the camp had cameras everywhere. But this wasn’t the usual static angle. The camera moved. It breathed. Someone was holding it. Someone had snuck into the sleeping quarters at 2:47 AM and stood over his hammock for eleven minutes. “Leo
He slid disc one into the player. The menu screen loaded instantly—no trailers, no warnings about flashing lights or epileptic seizures. Just a static shot of the Greek camp at dawn: the ruined amphitheater they’d used as a shelter, the black sand beach, the distant, unforgiving Aegean Sea. The hunger is a calorie deficit we engineered
And on that star, written in greasepaint: “Get yourself out, mate. We’re not done.” That wasn’t unusual—the camp had cameras everywhere
Leo paused the disc. He walked to his window. The rain had stopped. Outside, on the street below, a man in a high-vis vest stood perfectly still, staring up at his flat. The man wasn't holding a phone. He wasn't smoking a cigarette. He was just… waiting.
Leo turned off the TV. The screen went black. But the reflection staring back at him was not his own.
He hadn’t slept in three days.