The dream is always the same, and it is always wrong. I am standing in the hallway of the Whitmore Institute, the wallpaper peeling in long, yellow strips that look like shed skin. The air smells of wet wool and antiseptic. My sister, Clara, is gone. She is not dead, not yet. She is just... absent. A hole in the fabric of the room. I reach out to touch the wall, but my hand passes through it. It is cold. It is hollow. I am hollow.

I wake up in the real hallway, which is not peeling, but it is cold. The floorboards creak under my bare feet. It is early. The light is the color of bruised plums. I go to the kitchen. I make tea. I drink it while it is still hot, scalding my tongue. I like the pain. It is the only thing that feels solid.

Margaret is waiting for me. She is always waiting. She sits in the corner of the lounge, her knees pulled up to her chest, her fingers interlaced so tightly that the knuckles are white. She does not look up when I enter. She is looking at the floor. There is a stain on the carpet there. It looks like a small, dark flower.

"You didn't sleep," she says. Her voice is low. It is the voice of a child who has learned to speak in whispers so as not to wake the monsters.

"I dreamt," I say. I sit down. The chair is hard. It presses against my spine. I can feel the vertebrae, one by one. They are grinding together. They are wearing down.

"Do you remember the temple?" she asks.

"No," I say. "I don't remember anything."

But I do. I remember the temple. It is in my head. It is in my teeth. It is in the way my jaw aches when I try to speak. The temple is a place where we go to be fixed. We are broken. That is the only reason we are here. The Whitmore Institute for the Restoration of Character. It is a polite name for a place where they break you further, just to see if they can put you back together in a different shape.

Director Ashworth is coming today. He is the one who decides. He is the one who signs the papers. He is the one who smiles with his mouth but not with his eyes. He is the one who wears suits that cost more than our mothers made in a lifetime. He is the one who calls us "dears" and "children" and "projects."

"He is late," Margaret says. She is still looking at the floor. "He is always late. It is a trick. It makes you feel small. It makes you feel like you are waiting for a god who cannot be bothered to look down."

I want to tell her that it is not a trick. I want to tell her that it is worse. It is a mercy. If he came on time, we would have to face him. If he comes late, we have time to forget who we are. We have time to become the empty shells they want us to be.

The clock on the wall ticks. It is a loud, mechanical sound. It is the sound of my bones cracking. It is the sound of the years slipping away. I am thirty-two years old. I feel like I am a hundred. I feel like I am a child. I feel like I am nothing.

The door opens.

It is not Ashworth. It is a young man. He is thin. He has pale skin and hair that is the color of dirt. He looks at us with an expression that I do not know how to read. It is not kindness. It is not cruelty. It is something else. It is attention. It is the look of a scientist observing a specimen under a microscope.

"Margaret," he says. "You are Margaret, are you not?"

She does not answer. She does not move.

"I am Margaret," I say.

He looks at me. His eyes are gray. They are the color of the sky before a storm. "And you are Eleanor," he says. It is not a question.

"Yes," I say.

"Come with me," he says. "The Director is busy. He will see you later. For now, you need to be prepared."

Prepared. That is the word. Prepared for what? For the end? For the beginning? For the silence?

I stand up. My legs are stiff. They protest. They are wearing down. They are becoming dust. I walk behind him. Margaret stays in the chair. She is small. She is fragile. She is the only thing that keeps me tethered to the ground. If she goes, I go. If she breaks, I break.

We walk down the hallway. The walls are white. They are too white. They are blinding. They reflect our faces back at us, but the faces are distorted. They are stretched. They are thin. They are not ours.

"Is this a dream?" Margaret’s voice comes from behind me. I turn around. She is standing up. She is following us. She is barefoot. She is shivering.

"Stay where you are," the young man says. His voice is soft. It is the voice of a doctor. It is the voice of a father. It is the voice of a monster.

"Clara is gone," Margaret says. Her voice is shaking. "You took her. You took her and you didn't tell us. You just... let her go."

"Clara was not well," the young man says. "She was in pain. We gave her peace."

"Pain is not a disease," Margaret says. "Pain is a fact. Pain is proof that we are alive. You don't understand. You sit in your office and you sign your papers and you think that pain is a problem to be solved. But it is not. It is us. It is who we are."

The young man stops. He turns to look at her. He does not look angry. He looks sad. He looks tired. He looks like he has heard this before. He has heard it a thousand times. He is tired of it. He is tired of us.

"Come with me," he says again. "Now."

I walk. I do not look back. I do not want to see her face. I do not want to see the fear in her eyes. I do not want to see the hope. Hope is the most dangerous thing in this place. Hope is what they feed you so that you will keep walking. Hope is the chain that binds you to the wheel.

We enter a room. It is small. It is round. There are no windows. There is a table in the center. It is made of steel. It is cold. It is hard. There is a chair on the table. It is padded. It is white. It looks like a throne. It looks like an altar.

"Sit down," the young man says.

I sit. The chair is comfortable. It is too comfortable. It feels like a trap. It feels like a coffin.

"What is this place?" I ask. My voice is small. It is barely a whisper.

"This is the temple," he says.

I close my eyes. I remember the dream. I remember the wall. I remember the cold. I remember the hollow.

"Is it real?" I ask.

"Everything is real," he says. "Especially the pain."

He reaches into his pocket. He takes out a small object. It is a key. It is silver. It is old. It is worn. It is smooth. It is the color of bone.

"This is for you," he says. He places it on the table. It makes a small, sharp sound. It sounds like a bone breaking.

"What is it for?" I ask.

"It is for the door," he says. "The door to the other side."

"The other side?"

"Where Clara is."

I look at the key. I do not touch it. I am afraid to touch it. I am afraid that if I touch it, it will burn me. I am afraid that if I touch it, I will have to make a choice. I am afraid that if I make a choice, I will lose everything.

"Margaret," I say. "Why did you follow me?"

She is standing in the doorway. She is not moving. She is looking at me. Her face is blank. Her eyes are empty. They are full.

"Because I love you," she says. "Because I cannot let you go. Because I would rather be broken with you than whole without you."

I look at the key. I look at Margaret. I look at the young man. He is watching me. He is waiting. He is not going to force me. He is not going to help me. He is going to let me choose. He is going to let me break.

I pick up the key. It is warm. It is heavy. It is alive. It is pulsing. It is beating. It is my heart. It is her heart. It is our heart.

I stand up. I walk to the door. It is there. It is hidden behind the wall. It is invisible. I can feel it. I can feel the cold. I can feel the hollow.

I put the key in the lock. It fits. It turns. It is smooth. It is easy. It is inevitable.

I open the door.

There is no light. There is no dark. There is only silence. It is a thick, heavy silence. It is the silence of the grave. It is the silence of the womb. It is the silence of the end.

I step through.

The door closes behind me.

I am alone.

I am not alone.

I am with her.

I am with the pain.

I am with the truth.

I am with the temple.

The key is in my hand. It is melting. It is becoming water. It is becoming steam. It is becoming nothing.

I am nothing.

I am everything.

The silence is loud.

The silence is kind.

The silence is mine.