Page 43 of Discordant Cultivation

“I know.” Vale crouched in front of him, his hand finding the back of his neck again. “But it doesn’t stop. It transforms. You learn to find meaning in it, the beauty in it. That’s what our lessons are for.”

“I don’t w-want meaning—”

“Yes, you do. You just don’t realize it yet. Come on. It’s past time for your lesson.”

He helped Kieran stand and guided him away from the door that wouldn’t break, past the rolling pin that had accomplished nothing, toward the basement stairs where he was supposed to find meaning in the things Vale’s hands did to him in the dark.

There’s no way out. There’s no way out. There’s no way out.

The words repeated in his mind like a mantra. Like a death sentence.

Like truth.

Kieran kept his eyes away from every clock in the house.

He stared at his breakfast plate instead of the microwave display.

He focused on his notebook, on writing lyrics that got more desperate and confused with each line.

In the early afternoon, he found himself in the living room without remembering how he got there, his body moving through the handful of unlocked rooms in the house like a ghost.

He didn’t want to know what time it was. He didn’t want to watch the minutes count down toward the inevitable. He didn’t want that spike of dread that came from seeing 1:50, 1:55, 1:58...

If he didn’t look at the clock, maybe two o’clock wouldn’t arrive. Maybe time would just... stop.

But he felt it anyway. Two o’clock approached like a physical thing, pressure building in the air and making his body shake with anticipation.

“It’s time, sweetheart.”

Kieran’s eyes squeezed shut. “Please.”

The word came out so quiet it barely qualified as sound. Just breath shaped into a desperate syllable.

“Please, what?”

“Please d-don’t—” His voice cracked. “Please, I c-can’t—not today, please—”

“Yes, you can.” Vale’s footsteps approached. “You go down there every day. You’re getting stronger every time.”

“I’m n-not—” Tears leaked from his closed eyes. “I’m not g-getting stronger, I’m—I’m falling ap-apart—”

“Sweetheart.” Vale’s voice dropped lower, soft but immovable. “We’re going to the basement. You can walk down the stairs, or I can carry you. But we’re going.”

“I c-can’t—”

“Yes. You can.” Vale’s hand slid to the back of his neck. That familiar pressure that made his nervous system go quiet and made his body stop listening to his mind’s desperate protests. “Walk.”

Kieran’s feet moved.

Whenever Kieran tried to count the days, his mind fractured. Time became a thing measured in moments instead of numbers—the bite of Vale’s reprimands when Kieran told him to fuck himself, the velvet warmth when he murmuredgood boyafter compliance. Sometimes Kieran existed in the space between those extremes, untethered and drifting, watching himself from a distance that felt safer than being present in his own skin.

Vale would ask him questions. Evening questions, morning questions—he couldn’t tell anymore. The light through the windows could have meant anything. Dawn. Dusk. The spaces in between where time folded in on itself and refused to make sense.

And then there was the basement.

Two o’clock came again with its usual inevitability.

Vale appeared in the kitchen doorway. “It’s time.”