They're threatening her to find a new victim.

Waking up in Evans' apartment was a slow return to a foreign reality. Magi opened her eyes, finding herself not in her messy bed, but in a room of meticulous order and the smell of mothballs. Evans' trench coat was still on her like a heavy second skin, the only thing covering her nakedness under the sheets.

Walking out to the living room, she found him already awake, reading the newspaper with a cup of coffee in hand, as if having his half-naked neighbor sleeping in his bed was the most normal routine in the world.

“You have to go,” he said, without looking up, his tone possessive but practical. “The outside world claims its turn. But remember where you slept.”

Magi nodded, feeling the cold morning air on her bare legs as she stood up. She adjusted Evans' trench coat tightly, crossing it over her chest to cover the tiny thong, and went out into the hall.

She walked the few meters separating door 3B from hers, feeling exposed in that brief passage, praying not to run into anyone. She entered her own apartment with urgency. The air was stale, silent. She didn't stop to think. She ran to her room, took off the heavy trench coat, and dressed in clean, loose clothes: jeans, a thick t-shirt, something that made her feel covered, armored.

She left Evans' trench coat folded on a chair near the entrance—a pending debt she would have to repay—and went out again, this time toward the street, toward work.

The commute to the aquarium was a blur. Crossing the glass doors, the smell of chlorine and brine hit her, waking her to her other nightmare. There was no time to process the night before. She had barely clocked in when a security guard intercepted her.

“May wants you in her office. Now.”

Magi walked through the corridors, feeling she was moving from the wolf's cage to the tiger's. Upon entering, the air in May's office was cold, air-conditioned to the point of discomfort.

Magi remained standing, her hands slightly sweaty despite the frigid climate. May finished giving her instructions to recruit the new student, Sofia. The tablet with the young sculptor's profile weighed in Magi's hands like a brick of anticipated guilt.

May looked up from her papers. Her gaze, sharp and calculating, fixed on Magi not as a superior, but as a scientist observing a lab rat that had developed an unexpected variable.

“Magi, I hope you've learned your lesson this time,” she said, her voice serene but charged with an underlying threat. “With Sofia, apply the same technique. Empathy, understanding, the promise of a way out... they are excellent tools. But remember: they are just tools. They are not bonds.”

She stood up and walked slowly around the desk, stopping right in front of her, too close. May's perfume, a woody and expensive fragrance, invaded Magi's personal space.

“The connection you developed with Julia was... a costly oversight. An operational risk. Sentimentality clouds judgment, and in our business, clear judgment is the only thing separating success from disaster.” She paused, letting her words sink in. “Sofia is a potential asset. A signature on a contract. A body for the performances. Nothing more.” Her tone became glacial. “I hope you don't get as attached to this one as you did to the other. Special favors and acts of solidarity”—she spat the word—“have a very clear limit, and you already crossed that line once. There won't be a second warning.”

The threat was clear and personal. It wasn't just about Sofia; it was about Julia. Any show of genuine concern for the new girl would be interpreted as a weakness and, worse, as a challenge to May's authority. The punishment would not only fall on Magi, but would extend and multiply onto Julia, the original "weakness."

“Now,” May concluded, pointing to the door with an elegant movement of her hand. “Go and do your job. Bring a new signature. And remember, keep professional distance. Compassion is a luxury my employees cannot afford.”

Magi nodded, unable to articulate a word. The order was unmistakable: she had to become the instrument of destruction for another young woman, but this time without the "luxury" of caring. She had to look at Sofia and see only a number, a body, a resource. She had to strip herself not only of her clothes but of the last vestiges of her empathy to survive.

Leaving the office, the tablet burned her hands. May was not only forcing her to recruit another victim; she was demanding she do it with the coldness of a true predator. She was ordering her to kill a fundamental part of herself to prove her loyalty. And the most terrifying thing was that, looking at Sofia's profile and seeing her dreams and her debts, Magi didn't know if she could obey.

Leaving the aquarium, the sunlight hit her face, but she felt no warmth. She walked toward the café where she would meet Sofia like an automaton. Julia's warning resonated in her ears: "Survive. Whatever it takes." Did that include condemning another?

Entering the café, she saw a young woman with clay-stained hands and an anxious expression, waiting at a table. Sofia. Magi took a deep breath, hardened her heart as May had ordered, and approached with a smile that wasn't hers. The conversation was about to begin, and every word would be a nail in the coffin of her own humanity.