The atmosphere in the room instantly shifted following Lucas Hill's statement. It was no longer the palpable tension of a heated argument, nor was it the heavy, suffocating silence of difficult decisions.
It was the atmosphere of an abyss that had just opened its maw right beneath everyone's feet, pitch-black and unfathomably deep, a place where a mere downward glance was enough to send a dizzying wave of vertigo washing over them.
"A private psychiatric hospital."
Those words echoed within his mind like the long, resonant tolling of a bell, and with each lingering chime, a shattered fragment of memory drifted backward toward his childhood.
