Mom's Voice

At six-thirty in the morning, the communal bathroom at the far end of the ground-floor dormitory hallway was bustling and thick with steam.

Water cascading down from rusty brass faucets into stone basins echoed loudly, filling the narrow space. The sound of soap scrubbing hard against skin, the heavy clack of footsteps tapping on damp tile, and the coughing of freshmen created a chaotic wall of noise that drowned out every surrounding sound.

Cassian quietly slipped into the very last shower stall—the one with a rotting wooden door hidden from the view of the monitor standing guard out in the hallway.

He slid the rusty iron latch shut, leaning his back against the freezing stone wall, his breath coming rapidly in his chest. His hand trembled as he reached into his gray cloak pocket, pulling out old man Pike's black flip phone.

Cassian powered it on. The small plastic screen flickered with a pale blue light. He quickly dialed the familiar Mercy Hospital number and pressed the phone tight against his ear.

Beep... Beep...

The waiting ring lasted less than two beats before someone picked up on the other end immediately.

"Hello! Mercy Hospital Intensive Care Unit."

"Nurse Dana! It's me... Cassian!" Cassian whispered rapidly, the sound of running water outside the stone basins hissing through the door cracks helping to conceal his voice, which was cracking from tension.

"Cassian!" Nurse Dana's voice rang through the speaker, this time without a hint of her usual hesitation or guardedness, overflowing with a frantic, ecstatic joy. "Oh my god, you finally called back! I tried calling you twice yesterday afternoon!"

"My mom... How is my mom, nurse?" Cassian held his breath, his fingers clutching the edge of the phone so tight his knuckles turned white.

"She woke up, Cassian! Last night, around nine p.m., your mother woke up completely!" Dana spoke in a rush, her deep breaths trembling over the phone line. "The doctors removed the invasive ventilator! Her vital signs are extremely good! The moment she opened her eyes, she demanded to find you!"

A massive wave surged through Cassian's chest, washing away every ounce of fear, gloom, and exhaustion that had accumulated over the past month in this Blackthorne slaughterhouse.

"Nurse Dana... Can I... Can I talk to my mom?" Cassian rasped out, his eyes burning hot as tears threatened to spill over.

"Hold on a second, I'm placing the receiver right next to her ear."

The rustling of the cord echoed for a few short seconds, and then from inside the small black speaker, a faint, frail, yet profoundly familiar voice sounded out.

"Cassian... Is that you, son?"

His mother's voice!

The sound was trembling, broken from lack of strength, but to Cassian, it was like a cool stream poured directly onto his withered, panicked soul.

"Mom! Mom! It's... It's me!" Cassian choked back a sob, his eyes shut tight, green veins bulging along his wrist as he fought to suppress a wail crying out from his chest.

"How... How are you doing at school?" his mother rasped through the speaker, every breath she took echoing softly into his ear. "Over there... Are you getting enough to eat? Is it very cold, my boy?"

A question so simple, so painfully plain. She had just stepped through death's door after a catastrophic accident, her body still tangled in wires, yet the very first thing she worried about was whether her teenage son was going hungry or cold in this distant place.

"I'm fine... I eat a lot, Mom. They give me really warm clothes here," Cassian lied through his teeth, tears spilling over from the corners of his eyes and rolling down his thin face, smudged with kitchen soot. He brought his hand—still marked with unhealed cuts and raw cracks from soap—to slam over his mouth, struggling to keep his voice from shattering.

"Don't... Don't worry about me," his mother's voice came through again, this time whispering with a rare fierce resolve. "Uncle Daniel... He came here. He took care of all the paperwork and medical costs for me..."

She paused for a long beat to catch her breath, before speaking in a decisive tone that blew away every vague fear in Cassian's heart over these past days: "I will... I'm never going back to that house again, son. I'm not going back to Edward. Once I'm discharged... Uncle Daniel will take me somewhere else. You just focus on your studies over there..."

Cassian dropped to his knees on the damp tile floor of the shower stall. He rested his head against the cold stone wall, his shoulders shaking violently.

For the first time in years—since the night his father Edward shoved him into the wall and tore up the family photo—Cassian cried again. He wept not out of fear or numbness before Blackthorne's cruelty, but because a bright flame of hope had just been ignited in his heart: his mother was alive, and she was going to be free.

"I love you, Mom..." Cassian whispered through the gaps of his fingers pressed tight over his lips. "Take care of your health... I'll come home to you soon."

"I love you too, Cassian..."

At seven o'clock in the morning, the basement dishwashing station was coming alive. Steam rose in thick plumes from large soup pots, blending with the smell of congealed grease.

Cassian quietly walked around the back of the firewood storage—where old man Pike was single-handedly hauling heavy oak logs to stack into the central furnace. The old mailkeeper's face remained as withered and deeply lined as a dried stump, but his clouded eyes locked onto Cassian the moment he approached.

Cassian said not a word, reaching into his cloak pocket and pulling out the black flip phone to hand back to him.

Pike took the device, flipping the cover open to check the call log: 01:45. He snapped the cover shut with a neat click and tucked it deep into his trench coat pocket.

Pike raised his head to look at Cassian's face, which still bore tear streaks, though his eyes had regained a bright, unwavering resolve.

The old man nodded slowly, a rare smile—warped and exposing a row of teeth yellowed by tobacco tar, yet carrying genuine relief—slowly appearing on his dry, cracked lips: "Good. Short call. Nobody caught. Nobody punished."

Pike gave Cassian a light pat on the shoulder—an awkward yet warm gesture from someone who had lived far too long in the dark: "You're a good kid, Hale. You know how to listen, and that saved your life last night."

Cassian looked at the old mailkeeper, speaking softly: "Mr. Pike... Last night in the room across the hall... someone was taken away."

The smile on Pike's face vanished instantly. He shot a quick, vigilant glance around the kitchen area, then leaned in close to Cassian's ear, whispering in an ice-cold voice: "I told you. Don't ask, don't be curious. Last night the Student Council's frequency tracking system picked up a signal coming from the dormitory block. Someone turned on an electronic device after the seventh bell."

Pike looked straight into Cassian's eyes, his gaze holding a stern warning: "You see, if you had impulsively dialed a number last night... the person carried out of this school on a gurney at dawn wouldn't have been just the kid from your room."

Cassian went rigid. A wave of dread ran up his spine to the top of his head. He remembered Albert Sterling's vacant, smoothed-out bed, remembered the muffled, desperate scream from last night, and remembered his own choice just a few hours prior.

He had just walked across a life-and-death line without even realizing it. His patience and Pike's warning had saved his life by an inch.

Cassian clenched his raw, aching hands, nodding slowly to the old mailkeeper. He turned and walked back toward the dishwashing area, his heart overflowing with a fierce will to live: his mother was recovering, and he... he had to keep surviving at all costs to break free from this trap.