It started with a map and a red marker. Emily Brooks had circled every commercial plane crash that year, a scatter of crimson dots stretching across continents.
"Look at the clustering," she said, spreading the paper across the table in the dimly lit common room. "It's not random."
Mike Robinson leaned over, chewing a cold French fry. “Maybe it’s just a bad year for aviation.”
“No,” Emily said. “It’s not that there are more crashes — it’s that we’re being made to see them. Every news cycle. Headlines. Hashtags. It’s psychological conditioning. Fear conditioning.”
Stanley blinked, confused. “Surely they wouldn’t… I mean, the government looks out for us.”
Emily snorted. “You still believe that?”
“For once,” Ricky Kiley muttered, arms crossed in the shadows, “I actually agree with you, man-eater.”
That shut everyone up for a second. Ricky never agreed with anyone, least of all Emily. But tonight was different.
Mike leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing. “So you think they’re doing it to control movement? Keep people grounded?”
“Grounded people are easier to track. Easier to contain,” Emily whispered. “No migrations. No escapes. No truth leaking out.”
Just then, the door creaked open.
In stepped Merrick Maher — small, silent, with hair so black it looked like oil, streaked with blinding blond. He didn’t speak.
The room fell into sudden silence. Something about his eyes, knowing, too old for a child, made their theories feel less like speculation…
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