MATURE. Adults only. Every named and speaking character is an adult with an age on the page: Callum Merrick 33, Douglas Merrick 59, Myrna Pritchard 74, Emrys Pritchard 79, Doreen Tattersall 70, Martin Ridehalgh 54, Aurelia Spence 24, Aisha Rehman 22, Nadia Whitlock 39, Peter 60, Gary 44, Tanvir Rehman 19 at his death, Roy Tattersall 44 at his death, Bronwen Pritchard 41 at her death, Vaughan Ollerenshaw 51 at his death, Yvette Merrick 67 at her death. Douglas Merrick is 59 and has not spoken since the eleventh of October 2019. No minor appears in any role, memory, photograph, joke, plan, or future reference. Sexual content: Callum Merrick and Douglas Merrick are both adults. What each of them wants and what stops it is said out loud before anything begins. The man who cannot speak gives his consent a second time in writing, in capitals, on a waxed pad, and uses it once to stop, and the stopping is honoured. The scene is written in full on the page, in a working preparation room, and is specific to these two men. It is not a reward, it is not gated on any choice, and no ending is unlocked by it. Death and violence: a death in 2019 is described from what two men said about it in 2026 and from the shape of what came back from a grave. A gravestone is lifted and the sound of it is described. No injury is depicted and no method of death, injury, or entry is described. There is no supernatural event anywhere in the novel. Prejudice appears as an assumption about a man who cannot speak and about a family in a valley, and is shown only through what people do with it. No slur is written. Fictional firm, streets, churchyard, people, forms, and documents. All music is instrumental, vocal playback is disabled, and lyrics are empty. No media is generated, fetched, or bundled with this project.