Conversation · Payphone

11 -- 17 -- 361 -- your fingers keep moving like a spider, every time the ring rotates back with a little ring of metal, like a bell tolling.

There's more?

Yes. 451 -- 67 -- 451 -- you are going deeper now, into some unknown place. Far away from this island of matter and its telecommunication networks....

Finish it.

451 -- you have dialled god knows how many numbers. The headset has been waiting silently to relay a signal -- surely nothing can come of this, you think. But it does. A connection.

An ultra-long-distance call. Your ear fills with a crackle, the wash of a strange ocean full of white noise. A little bird starts ringing in there, not like the local calling tone before. No, a small ring in a cage of distortion, far away, a distant network of phones...

Calling...

Calling in the night....

The saddest sound in the world.

Both pitiful and terrifying. You feel your pulse rising with each ring...

Calling still...

Ringing by the bedside of a dark but capacious apartment with long windows... you know this to be true.

The handset starts slipping from your sweaty palm... your breathing is heavy.

"Kim..."

The lieutenant is too far away to hear your yelp. The sea wind blows...

Let it call more.

Calling...

Calling...

Calling...

Calling...

Calling still...

Then the ocean breaks. Out of the depths, a woman's voice emerges. Small. The dearest thing you've ever heard.

"Hello." She sounds sleepy.

"I am the last faithful kingsman. I will free the city of Revachol. I will turn back the sea. I will reverse time." (Proceed.)

"You're not a kingsman, Harry... You're drunk."

You only have two, maybe three things left to say before the change runs out.

"I'm not drunk."

"Oh god..." There's silence, it's heavy as tin. The white noise howls.

"Ooo... are you there?"

"Do you know what time it is? It's so late here..." Sounds like she's looking for a clock on the night stand.

"It's four o'clock, Harry! I need to wake up in two hours."

"I want to talk about me. Who am I? You sound like you know me."

"What do you want to talk about? That we haven't talked about already..."

This is bad, you feel your right hand on the handset cramping up with pain...

No. We're not gonna do this. Your hand is not going to cramp up, not now.

"My heart hurts. I'm gonna have a heart attack."

"Oh no... please stop. Please let's just hang up..."

(Hang up.)

Your hand isn't moving. The headset hisses in your ear with evil sadness.

Right now. I'm gonna give you one chance.

Push the headset in the cradle with all the strength you have!

Smash the headset into the cradle.

The cord dangles in the wind like a sickening worm.

No. I can't. I need the pain.

Static sings inside the phone glued to your ear. Ancient, sticky...

"I am the law. I'm a detective. I'm doing a case. There's a hanged man."

She does not answer anymore.

"I'm gonna solve it."

"Harry..."

Disconnect tone -- the machine ran out of money.

Run. To the church. Home. Anywhere but here. Anything but calling her again.

"None of it matters -- not anymore."

"Can you help me solve it? I need to solve it. They won't take me back if I don't."

"It doesn't matter. This case doesn't matter."

"Where are you? You sound like you're in another world."

"I'm in Mirova. Sleeping."

Twenty-two million people live in Mirova, the capital city of Graad. It is the capital of the world after Revachol was destroyed.

"Is someone there with you?"

"Yes."

"You're in Mirova, right?"