Narration style. The lyrics s ⸻ No one remembered when Ivory first arrived. The files said five years ago, but the ink looked freshly printed, and the photo was clearly a mirror selfie. He had white skin, white eyes, white dreadlocks—coiled like albino serpents—and a calm, measured voice that made you feel like the patient. He didn’t pace, didn’t twitch, didn’t scream about voices. He played chess alone using sugar cubes and antidepressants. “You’ve been watching me,” he told the camera in the corner, even though it wasn’t red-lit. “That’s rude. Shall I wave, or do you already know my moves?” The staff called him Ivory. The patients called him Doctor. ⸻ Ward 9 was a place you didn’t get out of, except in bags. It was run by Dr. Elias Krank, a man with a handshake like a frozen eel and the therapeutic empathy of a meat hook. “We must treat madness with discipline,” he liked to say. “And never say never.” That was his favorite phrase, usually before trying something that would violate Geneva, Nuremberg, and God. He believed in experimental treatment: flickering lights, total silence, drowning simulations. One patient was cured of arachnophobia—by being strapped to a chair and having spiders painted on his eyelids until he stopped blinking. Krank believed himself a genius. Ivory simply believed him predictable. ⸻ It began subtly. A staff member reported seeing Dr. Krank walk into a broom closet and hold a therapy session with the mop. He claimed it was “expressing boundary issues.” On Thursday, his office door wouldn’t open because there was no door. Just wall. Exactly the same color, same texture. The door was back on Friday. No one else remembered it missing. “Sleep well, Doctor?” Ivory asked him at breakfast. He wasn’t supposed to be there. “This room is for staff.” Ivory took a sip of tea. “Of course. That’s why I’m here.” Krank left without touching his tray. The eggs blinked. ⸻ Even the warden was starting to crack. One morning, he walked past a patient dragging a leech tied to a toothbrush. The thing bounced along the tiles like a slimy maraca. “How’s the dog today?” the warden asked absently. The patient stiffened. “That’s no dog, sir. It’s a toothbrush on a string! I’m not crazy!” The warden mumbled something polite and kept walking. Behind him, the patient whispered, “We fooled that one, didn’t we, my dear Fifi?” and fed the leech a flake of oatmeal. ⸻ By week four, the intercom was playing backwards lullabies. Krank started seeing staff in places they shouldn’t be—nurses smiling at him from inside the freezer, janitors walking on the ceiling like it was nothing at all. In therapy sessions, Ivory would simply stare at him. No words. Then— “You blink when you lie, Doctor. You always do. Twice.” “I don’t.” “Twice just now.” ⸻ Krank began documenting his own descent. He kept a hidden notebook under his pillow. One morning, it contained a single entry in unfamiliar handwriting: “Paranoia is a reasonable response to pu
