DYER Morning does not forgive.

It arrives the same way it always does, light bleeding through high windows, the den stirring back to life with dutiful rhythm, but something fundamental has shifted. The air feels thinner. Sharper. As if the night took something with it and left the space hollowed in its wake.

I rise before the guards change watch.

Sleep never truly came. It circled, hovered, pressed its weight against my skull until I surrendered to stillness instead. My body aches with it now, ...