Gents Journey

The Patience Of Predators: The Hollow Apartment

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Doors left barely open. A lobby that knows your name suddenly forgets you. And somewhere between brass and marble, a reflection smiles before you do. This chapter of The Patience of Predators slips from paranoia into possession as a copy steps out of the shadows and begins to breathe.

We follow Aston Keller through a night where the building speaks in his voice and a day where his firm turns his handwriting into a verdict. Janine reads the room with surgical precision and claims his cases without raising her pulse, while Elliot’s silence becomes its own judgment. Across the lobby, a double in Aston’s suit counsels power with words stolen from his margins—balance deferred, predator feeds—and then vanishes as if the institution itself prefers the stronger version.

At home, the city goes quiet. Claire’s memory rings like a bill coming due, her voice braided with a counting that climbs like interest. On the wall, photographs multiply and align, red thread sketching a torso, shoulders, ribs—a body made of evidence. The outline leans forward. It inhales. The copy doesn’t want to hunt him; it wants to be him, to write with his hand, argue with his cadence, and own his breath. That’s the terror at the center of this story: identity theft not of data, but of presence.

We dig into the mechanics of workplace predation, the social physics of credibility, and the way grief can be repurposed into debt. We ask hard questions: when your notes betray you, what part of you can still defend you? If a stronger version of you arrives—sharper, calmer, more believable—do you fight to remain original, or do you surrender to the copy that already knows your lines? The answers aren’t easy, but the clues are on the glass and sewn into the thread.

If this episode moved you, share it with someone who loves psychological thrillers and corporate intrigue. Leave a quick review to help more listeners find the show, and hit follow so you don’t miss the final breaths of this arc. Your support helps us keep building stories that look back when you stare too long.

"True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."

SPEAKER_00:

Hello, and welcome to the Gentleman's Journey Podcast. My name is Anthony, your host. And today we are in episode six. Wow, where's we're only got what four more episodes a little? It's crazy. We're in episode six of the Patience of Predators. This one is called the Hollow Apartment, so let's go ahead and let's get into the cold opening. The building was wrong the moment Aston stepped inside. This wasn't the kind of place that ever felt wrong. The lobby gleamed even at midnight, marble polished to a sheen, chandeliers casting soft amber light onto sleek leather chairs no tenant ever really sat in. A doorman usually greeted him by name, tipping his cap as Aston crossed the floor. But tonight the desk was empty. The leather chair behind it sat still, a folded newspaper resting neatly on the counter, as if someone had just stepped away. The absence was louder than a greeting. Aston pressed the elevator button, his reflection swimming back at him in the polished brass doors. He adjusted his tie out of habit, but the man staring back at him didn't quite move and sink. For heartbeat the reflection lingered, lips curled faintly upward before flattening to a mirror hem. He blinked, swallowed hard, stepped inside when the door slid open. The ride up was silent, no ambient music, no hum of conversation from neighbors riding late, just the soft glide of an engineered machinery, too smooth to even creak. When the doors opened onto his floor, silence deepened. His hallway was never silent. He knew its rhythm. Muffled television sets, the echo of laughter spilling faintly from one apartment, the distant clink of glasses from another. Wealth didn't insulate sound entirely, it filtered it, refined it, let it seep out and curated fragments of other lives. But tonight nothing not quiet silence. The kind of silence that feels arranged. Ashton's shoes tapped against the marble as we stepped out. The sound was too loud, rebounding off glass and polished stone. He stopped listening. Nothing, no laughter, no televisions, not even the steady hum of the building's ventilation. Then he saw the doors. Every apartment on his floor stood slightly ajar, not wide open, not careless, just an inch. Twelve identical dark slivers, cutting into the perfection of the hallway. He froze. In five years of living here, he had never once seen more than a single door left cracked. This was a place where discretion was its own form of currency. Neighbors paid for privacy, yet now every unit seemed to breathe the same secret invitation. Ashton's chest tightened. His first instinct was to call security. But he forced himself forward, each footstep deliberate. At first he went to the first door and he paused. The pen house sweep beyond should have been silent marble and glass. Instead, a whisper slipped out. His own voice. I don't sleep anymore. The words were faint, half swallowed, but they were his a confession he made to him no one but himself, muttered in this very building nights ago. Aston recoiled, his breath was stuttering. The sound cut off instantly. He hurried past, his heart was hammering, but each door leaked fragments of him. Claire's name whispered tenderly, his laughter echoed faintly, the sharp edge of his own voice arguing case notes in the dark. Every door replayed a version of him, scattered across the quarter like shards of broken glass and mirrors. By the time he reached the end of the hall, sweat slicked his palms, his pulse thundered in his ears. The building was silent. It was speaking, and all of it spoke was him. He reached his own door. It too was open just an inch. Aston hesitated, staring at the thin line of darkness. Every instinct screamed to flee, to run back to the lobby, to find the missing doorman, to leave the building entirely instead. His hand moved on his own accord. He pushed the door open. Inside his apartment waited sleek leather, glass table, stainless steel kitchen counters. Perfect, too perfect. The city skyline glowed through the floor to ceiling windows, but the sound of traffic below had vanished. Even York had gone silent for him. He shut the door quickly, sliding the deadbolt with a sharp click for a long moment. He leaned against the wood, eyes closed, chest heaving. The silence pressed in from every angle. It was heavy as stone. And then soft, faint, undeniable, came the sound of the shutter. Click not from his apartment, but from the hallway. Part one work slips. The firm was built to impress. Black marble floors stretched across the lobby, their polished surfaces reflecting the morning light that streamed through glass, walls rising three stories high. The space smelled a fresh espresso from the in-house cafe and the faintest hint of leather from the custom chairs arranged beneath a massive abstract painting. The air carried weight here, the kind of carefully engineered quiet that suggested power rather than absence. Aston Keller belonged in this world, or at least he used to believe so. He wore the right suits, tailored down to the millimeter, his tie knotted perfectly, his shoes polished to mirrors. The juniors whispered his name in elevators associated him with the next rung of the ladder. Everything about his life, the car in the garage, the apartment with its doorman, the hours he sacrificed to build cases brick by brick had pointed him toward inevitability. Success wasn't a question, it was a given. But this morning, the inevitability cracked. He moved through the corridor with a folder under his arm, spine straight, stride measured. To anyone else he looked the same as always, precise, disciplined, and composed. But beneath the pressed wool and polished leather, his heart raced. The night before clung to him, the silent hallways, the doors left ajar, his own voice spilling from his neighbor's apartment, and the faint click of the shutter echoing after he locked himself inside. He hadn't slept for more than a handful of minutes. Every time his head dropped forward, he imagined someone leaning over his bed, the camera's glass staring down at him. Now the firm silence was worse than the buildings here. Silence was an absence. It was judgment, and Janine was waiting. She leaned casually against the frame of the conference room door, one hand resting on the file she carried, the other folded loosely at her wrist. Her suit was impeccable, charcoal grey with a silk blouse that caught the light. Even the cut of her heel seemed designed to slice. When Aston approached, she lifted her eyes to him. A smile ghosted across her mouth, not warm, not mocking, simply acknowledging what she already knew. You'll want to see this, she said smoothly, holding out the folder. The weight of it surprised him, warm, as though it had been pressed against her body before she offered it. He hesitated, then took it, sliding the edge of the folder open. His stomach lurched, case notes, depositions, written in his own script but wrong. Entire passages contradicted the arguments he built over weeks. Deadlines shifted, witnesses' names twisted into errors, and scrolled in the margins in his handwriting were the words that chilled him. Balance deferred, predator feeds, debt compounding. He looked up sharply. This isn't mine. Isn't it your handwriting? It looks like mine, he admitted. Her eyes gleamed. Okay, then it's yours. The weight of her certainty rattled him. She said it like a verdict, not an opinion. Around them the hum of voices from the sociates faltered. Aston could feel their attention shift, eyes flickering in his direction without daring to linger. Predators watching a wooed animal from the grass, waiting. Before he could answer, Elliot appeared. His presence always carried weight, senior partner, mentor, judge. He moved with a deliberate calm, each gesture heavy with authority. He reached for the file, sliding it from ass in hand as he thought it already belonged to him. He scanned the pages, adjusting his glasses once. Sloppy, Elliot said. That's not like you. I didn't write these notes. Aston's voice cracked with urgency he hadn't intended. Elliot's gaze lifted slowly, eyes narrowing. You expect me to believe someone forged your handwriting? That someone duplicated your script? Yes. The word burst out before Aston could temper it. The silence that followed was damning. Elliot closed the folder and handed it back to Janine. Clean it up, he said. Quickly, we can't afford errors. Janine's nod was crisp and professional. Of course. Janine glanced at Aston as she stepped past him into the conference room. But her sleeve brushed against his arm in passing. And the contact burned. It wasn't an accident. It was a claim. The juniors exchanged glances, pens already scratching notes, already feeling the silence Elliot left behind. Their whispers rose again, not hushed this time, but bold, a current of speculation and judgment. Aston felt their hunger. We scavengers wait for a fall. Every whisper word was another bite, another sign that his blood was in the water. He stood frozen folderless, stripped of his own defense. His name had been tied to work he didn't write. His script used against him, and when he protested no one listened, not Elliot, not Janine, not the juniors who circled or circled him with quiet smiles. The firm wasn't his territory anymore. It belonged to them. The predators who knew how to set weakness and strike. The walls of glass reflected his image back at every angle. He caught his own face in a triplicate across the conference room, every version slightly distorted by the pain. One looked paler, one looked older, one smiled faintly, though he hadn't. The reflections weren't defending him either. Aston's jaw clinched so hard it ached. He wanted to shout, to slam the folder under the polished table to drag every one of them into his apartment and pin their eyes to the photographs crawling across his walls. To make them see what was happening, to prove he wasn't mad, that something larger and darker had entered his life and was pulling him apart piece by piece. But he didn't move. He couldn't. He stayed still, teeth grinding, nails biting, crescents into his palms, while the predators settled back into their chairs and moved on to the next case, as he's already been erased. Her gaze sharp assessing, not mocking, not gloating, simply certain, like a predator after the first strike, knowing the prey would bleed out on its own, and Aston realized with a cold twist in his gut that maybe she was right. Part two The Stranger Returns. The lobby of the firm was built like a cathedral to ambition. Black marble fours gleamed so perfectly they doubled as mirrors, catching the heels of every associate who rushed across them. Brass trim ran like veins through the space, polished daily until it glowed under reset lightning. A colossal steel sculpture twisted in the center, abstract but undeniably sharp, its angles designed to impress clients into silence before the first word of negotiation. Aston walked through the revolving doors, the chill of the street giving way to manufactured warmth. The smell of her special lingered from the cafe tucked into the one corner, blending with the faint leather and paper scent of money and power normally would have drawn strength from this. The building had always been his stage, but today, the marble floor reflected him too clearly, each step echoing with a precision that felt accusatory. He adjusted his tie, his reflection in the brass column ahead, adjusted half a beat too late. He told himself it was exhaustion. The new mist with the BMW still rattled him. That morning he'd walked past it in the garage, gleaming under fluorescent lights, a seven series of machine built for control, smooth, powerful, and absolute. He'd run his hand along the door handle, thought about slipping inside, reclaiming some sense of order. But the memory of drifting through that red light weeks ago had had him frozen. The blast of a truck's horn, the screech of brakes. He pulled over trembling, unable to tell if it was fatigue or something else that had taken the wheel from him. Now he left the car untouched. The city carried him instead on foot, on the subway, pushing the stream with everyone else. Driving was a luxury of control. He didn't have that anymore. As he sat across the marble expanse, conversations faltered. Associates glanced up their words, stumbling before, resuming into lower tones. A secretary behind the reception desk turned slightly, her eyes following him too long before snapping back to her screen. Aston felt it all. The way their focus shifted, the way whispers bent around him. Predators don't need to snarl. They only needed to circle. And then he saw them across the lobby, standing at Elliot's desk was the man. The same man from the corner of forty fifth, the one who had stood beneath a falling street light weeks ago, wearing his face, his posture, his stance. Here, under chandeliers and polished brass, the resemblance was sharper, more damning. The suit matched Ashton's style exactly. Even the tilt of his chin, the measure fold of his hands behind his back, they were his, his mirror perfected. And Elliot was listening. The man leaned toward him, speaking in calm, measured tones, his lips moving with the precision Ashton recognized as his own. Elliot nodded, adjusting his glasses in the way he only did when considering serious counsel. Aston strained to hear the cavernous lobby carried the fragments back to him, balance deferred, predator feeds, compounding debt. His words, his handwriting from Janine's folder. The thoughts that had bled from his margins were now spoken with clarity by the man who wasn't him. Aston's knees went weak, his chest tightened. No, he whispered. He quickened his pace, the marble echoing his urgency. Paper slipped in his grip, his breath came heavy, ragged. By the time he reached them, Elliot stood alone. No man, no mirror. No devil. Elliot turned calm as ever. You're late. Aston's mouth opened, words tangled in his throat. Who was that? Who? Elliot's brow furrowed, the question heavy with irritation. The man standing with you just now. Don't pretend. There was no one, Elliot said. His voice carried the weight of judgment final and immovable. Aston felt his chest collapse inward. I I saw you. You were listening, you were you were nodding. Elliot's eye narrowed. Get a grip, Keller. He brushed past the contact as Aston's shoulder, as deliberate as a strike. Lobby hung back to life. But every voice carried weight now, every whisper aimed at him. He turned in a frantic circle, searching for the double, but they were gone. Grabbed the junior soot by the arm, startling him. Did you see him? See see who? The sociate's eye darted nervous. The man, the man with Elliot. There was no one. There's no one. The young lord stammered, before pulling away, vanished into the crowd. Ashton turned toward the brass column again. His reflection stared back pale, hollow eyed, but then it smiled. His lips hasn't moved. He stepped closer, breath fogging the surface. The reflection smile widened teeth barred in a predator's grin. When he blinked, it was gone. The brass shone smooth and empty, but the grin lingered in his mind, sharper than Elliot's dismissal, louder than the whispers that followed him out of the lobby. The predator wasn't circling anymore. It was speaking with his voice. Part three. Claire's voice repeats. The city was framed like art outside his window. Floor to ceiling glass turned the skyline to a panorama of lights. Each tower lit like a monument, each street glowing in veins of red and white traffic. But no sound reached him. The usual rumble, the constant New York murmur was gone. It was like someone had sealed the apartment in glass. Aston sat at his desk, pen useless in his hand, staring at the photograph strong along the wall. Fifteen now, red thread cutting across the white walls, disrupting the clean order of his minimal space, his leather sofa, his chrome fixtures, the curator perfection he had chosen, all of it desecrated by this intrusion. He couldn't escape the sense that the photographs weren't decorations anymore. They were watching. Then he heard it at the city, music. Faint, drifting from an open window in another tower across the avenue. It floated on dead silence like smoke. Chris Isaac Wicked Game. He almost laughed, absurd hearing something so sensual in this dead air. Whether the notes swelled, the lyrics cut into him. What a wicked game you play to make me feel this way. His chest tightened, Claire had once danced to that song in their apartment, barefoot hair loose, teasing him into loosening his tie. Yet smiled then. Tonight, the memory was a knife. The phone rang. The sound shattered the fragile calm. His pen clattered to the desk. He grabbed the receiver on the fifth ring, heart hammering Claire Claire Claire, you there? Claire Static. Then Aston? Her voice, the exact softness, the curve of vowels that always undone him. For a moment he let himself believe. I'm here, he whispered. I'm listening. Do you remember what you promised me that night you swore you would never leave? The song swelled across the city. What a wicked thing to do to make me dream of you. His blood ran cold. Yes, I remember. You said you'd never leave, but you did. Zada gripped across the line, her tone sharpened. You left me. Her voice doubled and tripled a chorus of clears, overlapping, echoing accusations. You left me, you left me, you left me. And under it, faint but steady, the music twisted. Isaac's croon seemed to bend around her words, until they became one. No, I don't want to fall in love. You left me with you. You left me. As and clutched the receiver until his knuckles blanched. Stop please stop Then a new voice crawled under hers. Male, low, steady, counting. Eight nine ten eleven. The numbers crawled like insects into his ears. Claire's voice tangled with them, dissolving into arithmetic. Twelve thirteen fourteen. You owe you owe you owe. Aston slammed his fist into the desk. What the fuck do I owe? Tell me what I owe. The line went dead, and outside the music stopped. Silence was worse. He lowered the receiver slowly, his breath shuddering. The glass reflected him faintly, a pale figure swallowed in black. His lips parted into a whisper to her name. But his reflection moved first. He left me at mouth. Part four The Photographs Multiply. The photographs were not where he left them. Aston had tried to ignore them all evening, pacing from window to kitchen to sofa like a prisoner circling his cell. But every time he turned his back, something shifted. He knew it. He felt it. The odor had imposed. Straight lines, pinned cleanly with surgical precision, had been replaced by something new. When he finally forced himself to look, his throat tightened. Seventeen now. They stretched further across the pristine white wall, threading through the clean lines of his middleness decor. Red twine across the leather crouch, snagged on the edge of a chrome lamp, disrupting everything he had curated. The intruder didn't care for balance or design. He was building something else. Two of the new photographs stopped him cold. One showed him at the firm that morning. Cut him down in front of Elliot and the others. The angle was from behind her chair. No one had stood there. The second was worse. Him at his desk tonight. The exact posture he was in now, pen in hand, head bowed, shoulders tense, the only difference was his expression. In the photograph his lips were curled upward, smiling. Aston staggered backwards, colliding with the glass coffee table. He scrambled upright, palm slick with sweat, his eyes darted across the wall, desperate for some break in the pattern. But the photographs were no longer scattered. They were assembling. The red thread bound them into something louder, something deliberate. Angles, curves, the outline of shoulders, the slope of a torso, the length of arms, not random placement, anatomy. It was building a man, a body of doubles. He pressed his hand to his chest, struggling to breathe. No this isn't. The air shifted behind him. He spun towards the window's man hadn't glowed outside, but the reflection of the glass was wrong. His own figure stared back, but taller, broader, framed by the outline of the photographs he had drawn. For a moment the reflection wasn't him at all. It was a thing being built on his wall. When he blinked, the scrolling snapped back, reflections falling in line. But the shape remained on the wall, and precisely at the center of the chest was a new Polaroid eighteen. Aston asleep. The photograph was taken inches above him, mouth parted, hair mused, chest rising gently in the dark. Whoever had taken it leaned over him, close enough to feel this breath. His stomach turned violently. The red thread tightened, pulling the outlines closer. For a heartbeat the shape seemed to lean forward, shoulders pressing against the wall. And then it came, faint but undeniable, breathing. Not his from the wall. A slow, steady exhale as the photographs had lungs. Aston stumbled backward, cladding with the leather sofa. His reflection the window curled its lips into a grin he didn't make. The body doubles inhaled, and Aston understood. The predator wasn't content to circle anymore. It wanted form. It wanted lungs, and it was using him as the blueprint. Part five Janine Strike. The boardroom sat on the forty second floor, a cathedral of glass. Floor to ceiling windows revealed the sweep of the East River, bridges strung with light like jeweled chains. A polished mahogany table stretched the length of the room, its glossy surface reflecting the recess lighting above. Leather chairs lined its sides, each one occupied by an associate or junior, notebooks poised, pens ready. The silence when he entered was charged like a jury waiting for the condemned. Elliot sat at the head, posture ego face unreadable. To his right was Janine. She leaned back slightly, legs crossed, her posture radiating calm authority. Her The suit was charcoal silk, her lipstick a shade too bold for the firm's usual austerity, a choice that dared anyone to call her reckless. She didn't need any notes in front of her. The folder sat closed, untouched. When Aston slid into his seat, her eyes flicked up to meet his. She smiled faintly. Not triumph, not mockery, just certainty. The meeting began smoothly enough. Associates presented updates, voices careful, rehearsed. Numbers were quoted, deadlines reviewed, and then Aston leaned forward, file in hand, preparing to add his weight to the room. Janine caught him off before he spoke. With respect, she said smoothly, her voice carrying easily across the table. We can't rely on Keller's notes anymore. The word struck like a stone cast in the water. Ripple spread outward, silencing the room, pen stilled, heads lifted. Ella gates shifted, slow and heavy. Explain. Jillet tapped the folder once casually. His briefs from yesterday were riddled with contradictions. Deadlines off by weeks, witnesses names crossed, arguments undermined by his own handwriting. Aston's jaw tightened. Those weren't mine. He had tilted. Then whose were they? The question hung in the air like smoke. He felt every pair of eyes on him. Their silence pressed against his skin. His pulse raced. Someone is copying me, my script, my voice. You all have to see it. A low chuckle rose at the front of the table, one of the juniors pen tapping against his notebook like a drum beat. Whether you wrote them or not doesn't matter. The result is the same unreliable work. The silence that followed was suffocating. Janine filled it in. Until Keller studies himself, I'll take point on these cases. She didn't ask. She claimed Elick gave a signal. Soul nod. Just as you made. The room shifted, papers rustled, pens moved again. The current carried as though asin had already been erased. He sat frozen blood boiling beneath his skin. His mind screamed a shout to fight to drag them all into this apartment, and make them stare at the wall where his doubles were multiplying, but he didn't. He sat still, teeth grinding, nails biting crescents into his palms beneath the table. Across the room, Janine's gaze lingered on him. It wasn't gloating. It wasn't mocking. It was clinical. Patient like a predator after the first strike, watching her play bleed out. Part six The Copy Breathes The apartment was too still. Every detail gleamed and created perfection. The glass coffee table, the leather sofa, the skyline frame by floor to ceiling windows. It was a place built to showcase control. But control had left him. The wall told him so. Eighteen photographs now. They stretched farther than before. Red that lacing white walls like veins dragging across chrome and leather, cutting through the order he had built. What had begun as fragments had become a body. The shape was undeniable now. Shoulders, a chest, the slope of arms, each photograph slotted into place like tissue, like skin, until the figure stood nearly life size against the wall. His face stared back at him from every angle, blurred, grinning, distorted, doubles forming a hole. Penn at the heart was the newest Polaroid. Fast in his sleep. The angle was so close he couldn't see the part of his lips. The faint shadow along his jaw, wherever it taken it, it leaned inches above him, close enough to touch, close enough to end him. His stomach turned violently, he staggered backwards, colliding with the sofa. His pulse thundered, sweat slicking his palms. He tried to pull his eyes away, but the figure on the wall drew him in, and then it moved. The outline. The red thread tightened, pulling the body taut. The shape leaned forward almost imperceptibly. A sound followed, soft and measured, breathing, not his from the wall. A slow and steady inhale, a patient exhale. Aston froze, every hair on his body lifting. He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling his own ragged grasps. But the rhythm was wrong. The wall was breathing steadier than he was. He spun toward the glass windows, Manhattan glittered outside. His reflection stared back at him, but oh he wasn't alone. The outline was behind him taller, broader, his chest rising in rhythm with the wall's inhale. For a moment, the reflection grinned with his face, though his lips stayed still. He staggered forward, pressing his palms against the glass as though he could break through the city's lights. His reflection pressed back, smiling faintly, exhaling fog against the pain. The wall inhaled again, the sound deeper now hungrier, and Aston understood with bone deep certainty. The predator didn't want to hunt him anymore. It wanted to be him. It was building itself from his copies, assembling its body from every photograph, every stolen gesture, every smirk his reflection had learned to make without him. It had lungs now. Soon he would have more. His chest stumbled backward, chest heaving. The city outside gleamed indifferently, and behind him, the body of doubles took another breath. Aston's monologue I don't know if I'm breathing anymore or if the wall is breathing for me. I don't know if the sound is in my ears is air or the copy filling its lungs with my life. I don't know if I'm writing this in my own hand or if the doubles have already stolen even that from me. I don't trust my hands. I don't trust my voice. Janine showed me pages of my own script that I didn't write. Elliot believed her. Maybe you should have. Maybe I really did write them and just don't remember. Maybe the copies climbed inside my fingers and made them move while I'm asleep. I've seen the proof on the wall. Photographs of moments that haven't happened yet, proof that my tomorrow belongs to someone else. The worst is the sleeping. The photographs show me in bed, mouth open, chest rising. Someone stood over me close enough to touch, close enough to end me with a single press of their hands. And all they did was take a picture. That's worse. Because it means I'm not worth killing it, I'm worth keeping, worth recording, worth duplicating. Everywhere I turn my reflection smiles without me. The brass fixtures grin, the marble delays. Even my own window waits to whisper back at the things I don't want to hear. I stopped driving because I can't trust myself behind the wheel. I nearly killed myself at a red light. I don't know if it was my fault or if the copy wanted me there. The subway's worse, but at least the current carries me. Least when I'm surrounded the danger's shared. What's left in me? What part belongs only to Aston Keller? The man who once believed in law and order and winning cases with logic and precision. That man is gone. He's been replaced by photographs that smile too wide, by doubles who stand beside Elliot and steal my words, by the wall that now has lungs. The predator doesn't stalk me anymore. It doesn't wait at the edges. It is inside, wearing me like a suit. I think maybe I'm already dead. Maybe this is a copy's afterlife. Maybe I'm just watching the balance being written. Maybe the predator isn't hunting me at all. Maybe it's building me. And maybe when the building is done, when the body finally completes, there won't be an Aston left to protest. Just the copy. Breathing with my lungs, smiling with my face, writing with my hand. I am breaking. And I don't know if I even care anymore. Because maybe the copy is stronger. Maybe the predator deserves it more than I do. Alright guys, let's get into my monologue. You know, there's a moment in every hunt where the predator no longer waits, when circling gives way to striking. This episode was that moment. The copy no longer whispers, it no longer hides in fragments of handwriting or photographs scrattered across like breadcrumbs. It assembles itself into a body, it breathes. Janine smelled the blood first. She didn't wait for Aston to stumble, she marked him in front of Elliot, stripped him of his authority, and claimed his cases. Her strike was surgical, precise. But it was more than ambition. It was the old law of predators. Remove the weak from the herd. Elliot didn't stop her. He even slower. His silence was its own verdict. Claire's voice returned, but it was no longer hers. It was copy you know how can I say it was copy possessed. It's turning promises into accusations, love into arithmetic. The counting voice beside or I should say behind hers grew louder, numbers climbing of inevitability. What was once memory is now evidence against him. What was once intimacy is now debt. And the photographs, you know, once twelve, one rules, once order broke their own limits. Fifteen, seventeen, eighteen, tomorrow suit, a wound not yet carved in his own cheek, his sleeping body captured in intimacy so close it robs him of the safety of even in his bed. The copy isn't content with recording, it's scripting, it's rehearsing, it's breathing. This is the first breath of the predator. It's not a metaphor, it's not an echo. A body made of paper and ink, lungs made of thread and silence. It breathes because Aston has fed it with every fear, every doubt, every moment he hesitated with, you know, when Janine pressed, when Elliot judged, when Claire's voice accused. The predator's patient. It waited until he cracked, and then it inhaled. So here's a lesson in this. Predators don't need to kill you to win. It only needs to breathe through you, to use your voice, to write with your hand, to dream your dreams before you do. By the time you realize it has lungs, it already owns your breath. This episode is not about the hunt. It's about possession. And Aston Keller is no longer prey. He's becoming the predator's body. So let's go ahead and let's get into the reflections here. Reflection one. When your own words betray you, what part of yourself is still left to you know defend? Right? Number two. If the world began arranging copies of you into something new, would you fight to remain original or would you surrender to the stronger version? Number three. Who in your life plays the role of Janine smelling blood in the water when you falter? Everybody has one of these, I promise you. Number four, what is more terrifying? Being hunted by something outside of you or being replaced by something within you? That's a big question. And number five, when the predator finally breathes, not around you but through you, what are you gonna do? So you know, guys, this has been such a pleasure to to do, and we're almost done here. You're gonna see a lot of these, you know, probably today or tomorrow, and well, yeah, we only got a couple days left of you know before the first. But I'll make this quick. Thank every I want to thank every single one of you for listening, for your support. Means the world to me. Absolutely means the world to me. If you want to support this podcast, it doesn't cost you anything. There's two easy ways to do it. First way, leave a review. Reviews help the show so much. So please, please, please. Secondly, the best thing you could do, share this with a family member or friend. If you like this, you know they will too. Okay. Um, also, too, I've been having a lot of feedback with these with this series. And if you want to give me feedback, as in like have a conversation, you have questions, maybe how you want to apply this to your own life, don't hesitate to reach out to me. There's three ways. First way, on the description of this uh podcast, there's a link you can click on that says let's chat. You click on that link, and you and I can have a conversation about this series, this episode, the 14 other episodes that are out there, and the 300 plus episodes that I have. I should say 14 plus series, 300 plus episodes that are not on gent's journey. It's crazy. Okay. So again, guys, oh wait, when we got two more. Email if you want to email me, it's Anthony at gentsjourney.com. And then last but not least, you can always reach out to me on my Instagram. My Instagram is my gents journey. Okay. So again, guys, thank you so very much for listening today. And remember this, you create your reality. Take care.