Episode 31: Time Is Running Out
"My fingers are shaking.... I know I shouldn’t be scared, but… why does it feel like this?"
Rae stared at the phone in her hand. The screen’s glow lit up her face, which looked uncertain. For the past ten minutes, she had been scrolling back and forth on the messaging app’s homepage, still not pressing that one name.
NATHAN...
She took a deep breath. Morning sunlight slipped through the thin curtains of her new room. The place was supposed to be comfortable, a soft bed, quiet space, all the best things you could ask for. But since last night, everything felt... wrong.
Kenny’s face flashed in her mind again. The way he had said, "Is there something you’re looking for, Rae?"
His voice flat, but sharp, like a knife hidden behind a smile.
“What is he hiding?” Rae whispered to herself.
She set the phone down slowly, as if it might explode in her hands.
Then she stood and walked to the window, looking out at the carefully arranged garden behind the house. Still too tidy. Even the birds seemed unwilling to fly past.
In another room, Kenny sat in a dark gray leather chair that reflected the light from the chandelier above. The room was quiet except for the soft hum of the air conditioner and the low buzz of a hidden server behind one of the walls.
A screen lit up in front of him. On it appeared the face of a blond man, his hair combed neatly back, his eyes cold, his voice heavy with a thick Eastern European accent.
“Mr. K,” the man said, getting straight to the point.
“We are six months behind our original projection. The council is pressing hard. Too many questions, too much delay. We need the land clearance finished in three months. Can you confirm that local resistance has been... handled?”
Kenny didn’t answer right away. His eyes flicked toward the second screen beside him, CCTV footage from the hallway near Rae’s room. Still empty. Still quiet....
He let out a slow breath and adjusted how he sat, folding his hands together like someone deep in thought.
“The person who led the protest... has been neutralized,” he said calmly. “She’s now in a more... controlled environment. We’re still monitoring her. So far, she’s compliant.”
The man narrowed his eyes slightly. “Neutralized? What does that mean exactly? She’s not gone??”
“She doesn’t need to be gone...” Kenny replied, his voice flatter this time. “She just needs to stop moving. Stop speaking. And now, she does.”
There was a pause on the other end. Then the man gave a short, stiff shrug, almost like a soldier.
“Fine… But I want clean progress. No more headlines, no more noise. We don’t buy land with blood on the front page.”
Kenny nodded. “Understood, Ivan. We’re keeping it quiet. She believes she’s being helped.”
The foreign man smiled faintly. “Ahh.... The best kind of prison is the one with warm lights and good food.”
“Exactly....” Kenny murmured. “And no bars.”
“Good,” the man said while typing something off screen.
“Send the confirmation report by the end of the week. I need three things clear: one, clearance must finish in three months. Two, the remaining protestors are scattered. And three, no media leaks. If you can guarantee that, you’ll have our full backing.”
“Consider it done, Ivan.” Kenny said quietly.
The call ended. The screen went black. Silence filled the room again.
Kenny stared at the empty monitor for a few seconds longer than necessary. His faint reflection looked back at him. His face blank, but his mind racing.
One sentence echoed inside his head, not from anyone else, but from somewhere deep within himself:
'Your time... is running out.'
“This is your coffee, Rae... light roast, one spoon of sugar, no more,” Kenny’s voice broke the silence as he placed the cup in front of Rae.
They were sitting in the back garden, under a large ivory-colored umbrella. The small marble table looked far too elegant for something called “casual.”
Rae nodded slightly. “Thanks, Kenny.”
She took a slow sip of the coffee, her eyes glancing at Kenny, who was calmly flipping through some documents while taking small bites f his sandwich.
Soft classical music played in the background, something that sounded like it belonged in a mafia film, a little too perfect.
Kenny closed the file and looked at Rae. “You seem calmer since you moved in here. I’m glad, Rae…”
She gave a small nod.
Then, he asked with a voice too gentle for the weight of his question: “Rae... If I asked you to stay here forever... would you?”
Rae froze. Her hand stopped mid-stirring. The question hung in the air between them like a quiet storm.
“I... I don’t know yet, Kenny.” she answered honestly.
Kenny smiled, but his eyes didn’t follow. “That’s okay... Just think about it, Rae.”
That day moved slowly. Rae tried reading. She tried writing. She even tried taking a nap. But her thoughts kept circling the same spot, like a needle stuck on a broken record.
In the late afternoon, while walking to the kitchen, she heard voices from behind a closed door in the west hallway.
“Stage two will involve full clearance. We can’t have public attention,” said a voice she didn’t recognize. The accent sounded like the man from the video call.
“We’re confident enough. She will do nothing more,” Kenny replied, calm and flat as always.
Rae stopped. Her heart began to beat faster.
She knocked on the door gently.
But, Silence....
The next second, the sound of keyboard typing stopped. Then… nothing at all.
She tried the doorknob.
But it's Locked...
That night, Rae sat in front of her microphone in the small studio. The camera light was on. The livestream had started. But tonight, she felt far away from everyone watching her.
“Hey everyone! I… just want to talk a little.”
Her voice sounded dull, even to her own ears.
“Sometimes, the quietest places… are the ones where our voices disappear completely.”
Comments began to show up slowly. Some were supportive. Some were confused, asking why she sounded different.
Rae opened an old sketchbook. On one of the pages, she found a drawing of a small house, part of the roof blackened as if it had been burned.
Her voice came out again, soft and quiet.... almost like a whisper to herself:
“Maybe the house that burned down back then… wasn’t the only thing I was meant to leave behind.”
Midnight....
Kenny stood on the upstairs balcony.
The night wind moved gently through the trees, carrying with it the damp smell of the garden and the distant hum of city traffic, faint, like it came from another world, a world that no longer mattered.
In his hand, his phone screen was glowing. On it was a photo of Rae’s old house.
The place was almost falling apart. The roof was crooked, the windows cracked, spray paint scrawled across one of the walls.
Just past the broken wooden fence, a red ribbon crossed in an X. The sign read: “Demolition Zone.”
A voice note arrived. A man’s voice, quick and cold:
“The excavator arrives the day after tomorrow. We’re just waiting on final confirmation.”
Kenny didn’t reply right away. He just looked at the screen. At the bottom of the photo was a smaller image, a file attachment from the survey team.
It was a photo of young Rae standing in front of the same house, her smile stiff. Her hair was braided into two, and one of her knees was scraped.
He zoomed in on the image, slowly spreading his fingers on the screen. His eyes lingered on Rae’s young face, as if trying to read something written there a long time ago.
“You held on to this place…” he whispered to no one but himself, “…even when it gave you nothing but fire and silence.”
He wiped the screen gently, like brushing off dust that wasn’t really there.
“The fewer things you have to remember…” he said softly, his voice almost lost in the breeze, “…the easier it’ll be for you to stay here.”
Silence....
Then came a smile, not a peaceful one, but the kind someone wears when they know what they’re doing is wrong, and choose to keep doing it anyway.
He typed a short reply:
“Proceed.”
And hit send.
In a second, his phone screen went dark again. But in the glass of the balcony door, Kenny saw his own reflection. Cold. Still. Alone.
And for some reason, that night, the sound of Rae’s bedroom door closing slowly echoed in his head, like a small memory refusing to fade.
Inside, Rae was already asleep, her hand still holding the sketch of her childhood home....
"I'm sorry, Rae.... But I have to."