The moment the zipper sealed completely behind her neck, Giulia’s eyes snapped open, and for an instant, the world seemed to collapse beneath her. The silence thickened. The already-muffled sounds of the shop vanished entirely, as if the suit had sealed not only her body but her senses too. Panic.

She tried moving her hands, arms, legs. She could, but with a strange delay, as if a thin gap existed between thought and action, as if something were filtering her commands.

“Lara?” she whispered, but the sound echoed only in her head, or perhaps she hadn’t spoken at all.
Turning, she reached for the zipper, trying to reopen it, but her fingers slid uselessly over the seamless, perfect surface. No zipper. No opening. Her breath grew short. Her heart pounded in her throat.

“Take it off, take it off,” she thought. But no words escaped her lips.

Then, like a slow, subtle wave, a new sensation rose along her spine, not fear. Not yet. A creeping warmth, like waking from a deep dream: disorientation and a hint of peace.

The voice didn’t come from Lara. It came from within. Giulia squeezed her eyes shut.

“Obedience is safety.”
“Obedience is pleasure.”
“Obey. Relax.”

The phrases didn’t sound like commands. They sounded like thoughts. Hers. But she’d never had them before.

She looked at her hands. No skin lines remained, only perfectly fitted gloves. The glossy surface faintly reflected the shop’s soft light like a hazy mirror, and her body, her body now seemed like an object, a shape, a casing.

She turned to Lara, who watched her in silence, statue-still. And then something worse than panic happened: calm. Deep, unexpected, unnatural calm.

Giulia felt her mind loosen, as if hanging by a thread, and that thread was fraying. Lara stood there, perfect, mute, waiting. An anchor in a collapsing world.

“Obeying is easier than thinking.”
“Obey. Relax.”
“Obedience is pleasure.”

A part of her still screamed, but faintly, drowning slowly beneath the weight of latex. As she looked at Lara, she felt something like gravitational attraction, not physical desire, but a deeper impulse: the instinct to conform, to mimic, to belong.

And she understood: the real trap wasn’t the suit. It was Lara. Or what she had become. Silence was absolute. Giulia stared at Lara, torn between what she was and what she was becoming.

Then a sound, faint, mechanical: a hiss of air and a metallic click. From the far wall, invisible until that moment, a perfectly geometric slit opened, a hidden door with no handle or frame. Behind it: only darkness. And from that darkness, something emerged.

A tall, slender figure. It didn’t walk. It glided.

A drone entirely covered in black latex, its surface smooth as liquid glass, with no visible joints. Its face, if one could call it that, was masked by an oval casing resembling a spacesuit helmet, but with no transparency. Only reflections, opaque spirals, and a pulsing glow at the center of the forehead. In its hands, it held two masks identical to its own.

It stopped before the girls. Lara lowered her gaze as if recognizing it. Giulia trembled. The part of her that still remembered the real world tried to scream, to flee, but she had no control, only fragmented thoughts. “I’m not ready.” “This isn’t right.” “Obey. Relax.”

The drone slowly raised its hands. The first mask was gently placed over Lara’s face. No reaction, only a small sigh, like final relief. Then it was Giulia’s turn.

The mask was cold for just an instant. The moment it touched her skin, something activated, a jolt, a hiss, an internal release. A heavy, sweet odor filled her nostrils, not perfume, but a substance. A chemical mist spreading between mask and skin. Her heartbeat slowed. Her mind turned liquid. Inside the visor’s darkness, a spiral of light glowed, slow, hypnotic, and words appeared:

“OBEDIENCE IS SILENCE”
“SILENCE IS ORDER”
“ORDER HAS NO FACE”

Giulia tried to move, but her legs no longer responded. Her hands felt light as paper. And then the final blow: her name vanished. Not from sound, but from her mind. Giulia no longer existed, only a unit, a perfectly clad body, a container.

The drone retreated slowly. The door closed with the same geometric silence with which it had opened. Now, in the shop, two new figures stood motionless, faceless, thoughtless, in perfect symmetry. Part of the collection.