Chapter 8: Arrival in Prague

The days contract to a single pulse: the red notification dot, glowing, then multiplying, then fading to black until the next morning. Katie drifts through her last week as if her skin is made of wet paper, nerves thin and shredding. The children exist only at the corners of her vision—one in a Minecraft shirt, the other face-down in her phone, both so self-contained that Katie almost envies them. Brian, for his part, is a nonentity, even his passive-aggression has gone to seed. He stays out late, leaves coffee rings on the worktop, mumbles “big day at the lab tomorrow” as if anything about his job is real.

Thursday, 06:43. The first message of the new regimen lands before Katie even wakes. “Your mother looks healthy today. Maybe she walk a little slower.” The attached image is not overtly sinister: Svetlana at the tram stop, hair bundled, clutching a tartan shopping bag. But the perspective is telescopic, compressed by a lens meant for surveillance, not memories. In the foreground, a newspaper with today’s date, folded, just visible at the edge of the frame. Katie studies every detail, searching for a clue, a location, anything she can use to warn her mother without tipping the men off. There is nothing.

She doesn’t eat breakfast. She rinses out the twins’ bowls and stacks them with obsessive neatness, as if the order will keep the world at bay. Her phone is never more than arm’s reach from her body, not even when she pisses. She checks Telegram before she wipes, thumb twitching, eyes bloodshot.

Friday: “We see you walking your kids to school.” This one is a split-screen: on the left, Katie’s own back in the brown puffer, twins straggling behind her, and on the right, Svetlana in her kitchen, mouth open in laughter, unaware of the camera through the double-glazing. “Family resemblance,” says the caption, followed by three pig emojis. Katie feels the top of her scalp go cold. She double-checks every lock, every window. When the school sends home a permission slip for a field trip, she almost throws it away, convinced it’s a test.

Brian sits at the dining table with his laptop, reading something about a breakthrough in gene therapy, or maybe just doomscrolling. “What’s with the haunted look?” he asks when she hovers too long. She says, “Do you ever think about the girls in Turkey?” and he blinks at her like she’s spoken in tongues. “What are you talking about?”

She doesn’t answer. She wants to say: They are coming for me. Instead, she says: “The bins go out tonight. You forgot last week.” He grunts, turns a page, returns to his world.

The weekend is a blur. She tries to make memories with the twins, takes them to the park and watches from the bench, her body anchored but her mind unspooling. Brian doesn’t even try to parent, just sits at the edge of the playground with his phone, occasionally shouting “Careful!” without looking up. Katie wants to weep, but the tears have gone to dust. On Sunday, she finds herself in the laundry room, smoothing out the red lingerie. She holds it up, stares at it as if it might bite. It looks obscene, even limp on the hanger.

The next message: “You should shave. Nobody wants to see pig with hairy legs.” She shudders, checks the timestamp—3:09 AM. She pictures a man outside, watching the house in the moonlight, his breath fogging the car window. Or maybe he’s closer. Maybe he’s in the house.

She shaves in the shower, skin burning from the cheap blue razor, nicks pooling red on the tile. She is careful to get every patch. After, she stares at her legs, as if recognizing them for the first time.

Monday, 01:17. The message wakes her from a dead sleep, vibrating the nightstand so hard it nearly slides off. “Your mother did not sleep well. Shall we help her?” The photo is inside Svetlana’s bedroom, lights off, just a trace of silver hair on the pillow. There’s a glass of water next to the bed, beads of condensation shining in the flash. The implication is clear: they are in the house now, not just watching from afar. Katie lurches to the toilet and retches, the acid taste burning a line straight through her chest. Another message arrives “Wear red today to show your compliance”