They called her empty. But they gave her every reason to be full of rage.
She didn't know how long she'd been down here, not at first.
There was no sun. No moon. No voice that didn't come with blades.
But she counted.
Not days.
Not hours.
Cuts.
One for every time they opened her back.
One for every time they pierced her spine.
They never called her by name. Just Seventy-Three.
A number. A subject. A body on a table that wouldn't die fast enough.
She was always naked except the thin see through piece of underwear she was spared
Iron cuffs bit into her ankles and wrists, chained to the corners of a room too small to stand in quickly. Her back pressed to cold stone, her knees drawn to her chest, hair tangled and rotting at the ends.
Her cell smelled of old blood and rust. Her own.
Twice a day, they came.
Always in twos. Always silent. Faces hidden behind masks.
They never spoke to her. Never fed her directly.
A bowl of gray slop slid in after the second round. Water only when she was too weak to crawl.
When she screamed, they wrote it down.
When she didn't, they cut deeper.
She learned quickly.
Silence earned fewer cuts.
But silence couldn't protect her from the pain.
The worst was the table.
They unshackled her slowly. One limb at a time. She never struggled, not anymore. Her fight had long ago been stripped away with her skin.
The straps on the table were thick, padded with cloth so the bruises wouldn't show. But they bruised anyway.
The table was always cold.
The scalpel always sharp.
They never numbed her.
They didn't care if she bled. They needed her to.
It started the same way, every time.
"No reaction"
"Nothing."
She bit her tongue as the needle slid between her vertebrae. A long, thin siphon that made her vision go white.
Then came the second needle. The sharper one.
A fresh line opened along her lower back. Blood welled to the surface, thick and slow.
Another tally for the wall.
Her legs kicked reflexively. She couldn't help it.
A fist slammed into her ribs.
"Hold her down."
She screamed this time.
And she didn't stop.
The cutting lasted ten minutes.
The cleanup, five.
She was wheeled back to her cell before the blood dried.
There were no windows. Just that flickering crystal above the table.
She didn't remember the last time she saw the sun.
She didn't remember her name.
She remembered pain.
She remembered her breath fogging in the cold.
She remembered being sold.
Sometimes, they used her for other things.
Not sex. Not anymore.
She was too broken for that.
Too unresponsive.
Sometimes she heard the others. Screams two cells down. Once, someone sang lullabies until the third week. Then it stopped.
There was someone who tapped on the walls in code. Seravyn never learned it. The tapping stopped three days ago.
Once, she saw another subject. A boy around her age with eyes too large for his skull. They rolled him past her cell, strapped down, convulsing. Blood soaked the linens.
She never saw him again.
Sometimes, she dreamed of killing them all.
But mostly she dreamed of dying.
She scratched lines into the stone with her nails. Her back burned with every movement. Her fingers cracked and bled, but she didn't stop. It was the only mark she could leave.
She was Seventy-Three. But if she died, she wanted someone to know she was here.
She curled tighter into herself. Her hair stuck to the damp stone behind her.
A soft drip echoed from somewhere overhead. The pipe leaked every hour or so. It was the closest thing she had to time.
She pressed her head to the stone, fingers twitching.
"Still here," she muttered, voice low and cracked. "Still breathing."
Her voice startled her. She hadn't used it in days. Weeks? She didn't know.
She licked her chapped lips. The iron cuffs had chewed her wrists raw, but she barely noticed anymore. Pain was just… there. Like air. Like silence.
She closed her eyes and whispered, "Cowards."
The word bounced back at her.
She said it again, louder. "Cowards."
The chains clinked as she lifted her head. A breathless laugh escaped her.
"I see you," she whispered. "I see what you are."
A rattle in the corridor silenced her.
Boots.
She curled up tighter, jaw clenched. The cuffs strained as she pulled herself into the corner. A muscle in her thigh spasmed from cold.
Keys. Turning.
The heavy door didn't open all the way. Just enough for the first one to slip in. White robes. No words.
The second followed with the tray. She didn't look at it. She never looked at it.
But this time… the tray didn't slide forward.
It stayed in his hands.
"Eat," he said.
She blinked. The voice was wrong. Younger. Too human.
She squinted at the mask. It was the same plain, curved, lifeless but the voice wasn't. He sounded sure.
She didn't move. Her voice rasped again. "Is that what you do? Play caretaker between cuts?"
He stepped closer. Hesitated.
The other robed one muttered sharply. "Leave it."
But the tray bearer crouched. Set it down just inside her reach.
Then… he turned his face slightly. As if to see her.
"You shouldn't be alive," he said softly.
Seravyn looked up.
Her eyes were glassed with pain, but something under them sparked.
"I know," she whispered. "Disappointing, isn't it?"
He flinched. Then stood.
The door closed. The bolt slid.
She waited five seconds. Then dragged herself to the tray.
It was the same gray sludge as always. But for the first time, there was a single note.
She stared at it.
Then laughed.
Low. Shaking.
It wasn't parchment. Just the torn corner of a medical chart, smudged with old fingerprints and something darker. The ink bled slightly at the edges, but the message was still clear.
Seravyn of the Veil.
Yes, you're still here.
You're still breathing.
Her breath hitched. Her name.
She didn't know how they knew it, how anyone remembered it but something deep in her ribs cracked open.
Not from pain.
Hope.
She looked up at the flickering light, swallowed hard, then shoved the paper into her mouth and chewed.
No evidence. No trace.
If they found it, they'd cut more than her back.
She crawled into the corner, knees pulled tight to her chest. Her fingers trembled as she scraped another tally into the wall.
One more line. One more breath.
She didn't sleep.
Sleep was weakness. She learned that on day 42. Sleep meant they could take her without warning. They liked that.
She'd learned to stay half-awake. One eye on the rusting bolt. One ear trained for footsteps. Her dreams came anyway, shaking, fractured things. Flames. Screams. A voice without a face.
But this night, it was the silence that unnerved her most.
She dragged her nails along her ankle cuff until it bled again. Just to feel it. Just to be sure she was still here.
A low groan echoed through the vent above. Not her cell. Another.
Then a scream. She froze.
Then the scream cut off with a wet crunch.
Seravyn didn't move.
She just counted the breath it took for the silence to settle again.
One. Two. Three.
Then the bolt on her door clicked.
It didn't open all the way. It never did. But this time, there were no trays. No scalpel gleam.
Just one figure.
Hood up. Mask on.
She blinked against the light bleeding in from behind him.
The figure crouched.
"You're tougher than they said," he murmured.
Her lips cracked. "Go fuck yourself."
He chuckled.
Her throat burned. "Who are you?"
He said nothing.
"Who sent that note?" she snapped, voice hoarse but rising. "How do you know my name?"
Still silence.
Then softly he said, "It wasn't me."
Her nails curled into her palms.
"Then why bring it?"
"I don't ask questions. I was told to deliver it, that's all."
Her lip curled. "Told? By who?"
He hesitated.
"That's above my clearance," he said with mock formality. But she caught it, the twitch of something behind his mask. He was lying.
She crawled a little closer, until her face was half shadowed beneath the flickering crystal light.
"Say my name again," she said softly.
He didn't.
"Go on," she whispered.
Silence.
Then she snarled, "You're not scared of me. You should be."
"I don't fear corpses," he said flatly.
She smiled, teeth cracked and red.
He looked at her then. Really looked.
And for a moment, she saw it, his eyes.
Not the usual dull brown or soulless black of the staff. No, these were unnatural. Deep, rich crimson with streaks of yellow dancing across, like rubies burning in shadow.
"You're Seravyn of the Veil," he said finally. "And you're still here. Still breathing."
Seravyn tilted her head, "Tell your master thanks for the note. Next time, send a dagger instead."
He paused at the door.
"I think he already did."