Page 26 of Discordant Cultivation

“I have an idea.” Vale’s hand remained on his neck as Kieran stood, steering him like a child who couldn’t be trusted to walk in the right direction. “Something to help those gifts come more frequently.”

They moved through the house, Vale’s fingers maintaining constant contact with Kieran’s neck. Possessive. Controlling. A collar made of flesh and bone that guided him toward a door he hadn’t noticed before.

It opened to steep stairs, descending into darkness.

Kieran’s feet stopped moving without conscious decision. Every instinct screamed that nothing good waited in basements, that darkness plus isolation plus a man who cut him for not showing enough emotion equaled something worse than what had come before.

“I don’t—” His voice cracked. “What’s down there?”

“Another studio. More private. Better for intensive work.” Vale’s grip on his neck tightened. “Come on.”

“I don’t want to g-go down there.”

“I didn’t ask what you wanted.” Vale’s fingernails dug into his skin. “I said come with me.”

The message was clear: walk or be dragged.

Kieran walked.

The stairs were solid hardwood, with no creaking to mark their descent. Vale’s hand never left his neck, guiding him down into air that grew cooler with each step. The basement revealed itself in glimpses—exposed stone walls that looked original to the house’s foundation, professional acoustic panels mounted with perfect symmetry in an all glass sound booth, a small table with equipment that looked more medical than musical…

And in the center, a single chair with a guitar stand beside it.

The chair faced away from the stairs, positioned so whoever sat in it would see only stone wall. There were no windows. No other doors. Just a single exit behind where Kieran would be sitting, behind where Vale would be standing.

I’m trapped.

“Sit,” Vale said, finally releasing his neck.

Kieran sank into the chair on legs that felt disconnected from conscious control. The basement was too quiet, with the kind of silence that made his own heartbeat sound like thunder. Vale moved around the room at a languid pace, adjusting something on the small table, checking the guitar’s tuning with a gentle strum.

“You said your songs come like gifts,” Vale said, retrieving something from a shelf mounted on the stone wall. “But gifts can be cultivated. Coaxed. We just need to create the right conditions.”

He returned holding what looked like a cloth bag—black canvas, with a drawstring at the opening. The kind of thing that might hold laundry or gym equipment, but somehow looked sinister in Vale’s hands.

“What is th-that?”

“A focusing tool.” Vale set it on the guitar stand. “Sensory deprivation heightens other senses. Removes distractions. Forces the mind to turn inward.”

He wants to put that over my head.

The basement, the isolation, the chair facing nothing but wall—Vale was systematically removing every connection to the outside world, narrowing Kieran’s existence to just this room, just Vale’s voice, just whatever twisted lesson came next.

“No.” The word came out smaller than intended. “I’m n-not letting you put that on me.”

“You are.” Vale picked up the guitar and handed it to Kieran like he had already won. “Because the alternative is we work on your emotional accessibility through other methods.Hardermethods.”

Kieran’s arms ached where yesterday’s cuts still throbbed beneath the bandages. “This is insane,” he whispered.

“This is education.” Vale moved behind the chair, bag in hand. “You’re going to play something new. Something that comes from the darkness, from the isolation, from the fear you’re feeling right now.”

“I c-can’t create like that—”

“You can. You will.” The bag touched the top of Kieran’s forehead. “Because that’s where real art lives. In the spaces that terrify us.”

The bag slipped over his head.

The canvas smelled like nothing, like absence, like the inside of closed spaces never meant for breathing. Kieran’s hands tightened on the guitar neck instinctively, the familiar weight his only anchor as sight disappeared entirely.