Kneel to Continue // 02 [ENG]
Albert wakes up cold before he wakes up conscious. Porcelain against his spine. Neck twisted against the lip of the tub. The apartment still dark except for the bathroom light he must have left on during the night. A Sickly yellow bulb, buzzing faintly, casting exhaustion everywhere.
For a moment he doesn’t move. His body arrives in pieces. Left foot first. Then shoulder. Then the dull ache in his jaw from grinding his teeth. He stares upward.
The ache in his neck. Then the numbness in one arm. Dryness behind his eyes. Stubble. His stomach tight with bad sleep and colder than the rest of him. Then the rest of it. Still hard. Albert closes his eyes. Not desire. Just momentum. His body overlapping with last night. The last stupid electrical echo of wherever he’d been. He exhales slowly through his nose.
The erection feels strangely impersonal in the weak bathroom light. Less lust. More evidence. A system process refusing to shut down cleanly.
Full Memory Bleed. Residual continuity after disconnection. He remembers skimming the warning months ago without reading it carefully.
For one second, he looks down expecting something altered. Improved. Rendered. Some remaining corruption from the night before.
Nothing. Just himself again.
The ceiling vent rattles. Someone upstairs drags furniture or a body. Pipes knock once, twice inside the wall.
Long Beach waking up. A cargo horn moans somewhere beyond the buildings. Albert blinks slowly. The tub is dry. That bothers him immediately. He doesn’t know why.
His phone lies facedown on his stomach, warm from being there too long. Naked skin against glass. The screen black. His hand resting over it instinctively, protectively, like he fell asleep guarding something. Or waiting for it to speak again. A fruit fly lands on his knee.
He closes his eyes. Bad idea. The silhouette returns instantly behind them. Not fully her. Just outline. Mouth first.
“You always arrive pretending you’re new here.”
Albert inhales sharply and sits upright too fast. Pain flashes through his neck. The phone slides from his stomach into the empty tub with a loud crack in the tiny bathroom.
Silence afterward. His breathing. The drone of the fan. The refrigerator running in the other room. Reality reassembles itself slowly, reluctantly, like it’s bitter about being called back.