Ryena's point of view
I thought I was prepared for pain.
Turns out, I wasn't.
They came for us at dawn, before the last laugh from the "talent show" could fade from our throats. The cold steel doors opened with an unforgiving shriek, and one by one, they dragged us out like broken dolls left to rot on concrete floors.
No warnings. No explanations.
Just masked guards and those blunt metal rods they loved pressing against the spine—like they were trying to extinguish the fire in our bones.
Integration, my ass.
We were stripped of our jumpsuits and forced into worn, rust-stained uniforms with "CORR 02-44" stamped across the chest. The air reeked of bleach, iron, and something far more ancient—desperation. They tossed us into the yard like waste. Mud clung to our bare feet, and above us, the towers watched in silence.
"All of you. Line up."
The woman in charge had a voice like gravel soaked in venom. Her badge said WARDEN MAEVA, and the way her cold eyes flicked over us made me want to rip it off and shove it down her throat.
"You think you're clever? Putting on a show? Dissing this institution?" She turned her gaze on me, sharp and slow. "You think that earns you a reward?"
"I already have my reward that fulfilling moment where I finally can diss all of you" I said mockingly
I didn't flinch. I never flinch.
Beside me, Hiliana muttered, "Oh shit. She's about to monologue."
Even now, with pain waiting in the wings, Hiliana had the nerve to smile. Abby smirked too, though her hands trembled behind her back. And Tarn... silent as always. Vitiligo blooming like frost across his jaw, jaw locked tight.
Maeva walked past us, the tip of her baton dragging through the dirt. "Here's your prize. A reminder of your place."
Then hell began.
They tied our wrists behind iron poles. One by one. A guard shoved me against the post, my cheek scraping bark and blood. Cold cuffs clicked around my skin. I breathed through my nose, fury twisting in my gut.
The lashes weren't immediate. No, that would've been mercy.
First came the hoses—ice water slamming into our bodies, flooding our lungs, making us choke and gag as we fought to stay upright. My hair clung to my face like a shroud. My lips turned blue. My skin, numb. I could hear Abby coughing somewhere to my left, and Hiliana shouting curses between gasps.
Then came the rods.
Crack.
A sound you don't forget.
Pain exploded across my back. The world blurred. The post at my back felt like a tree of thorns. I bit down on my lip so hard it split.
Crack.
Again.
Again.
Again.
They didn't count. They just kept going until our bodies slumped or our blood ran slick.
But I didn't scream.
Even when it felt like my spine would snap, I held it in. Not because I was brave—but because that's what they wanted. They fed off our screams like they were sugar and wine. So I gave them nothing. I gave them silence and a glare full of venom.
I opened my eyes through the haze and met Maeva's. Her brows rose in amusement.
"You'll break," she said.
I spat blood on her boots.
She smiled. "Eventually."
Hours passed. Or maybe it was just one endless second.
They threw us into a freezing tank afterward—an underground cell with dripping pipes and nothing but rusted walls and chains. We lay there, trembling, backs torn open, soaked to the bone, breathing in each other's pain.
"I think I saw God," Hiliana croaked beside me.
"Did He look disappointed?" Abby murmured, her face turned to the wall.
"Nah. He just had my sister's face and told me to stop being stupid."
I let out a laugh—just a tiny one. It hurt. Everything hurt. But that laugh was real.
Tarn sat across from us, leaning against the far corner. Even now, he said nothing. Just stared at the flickering ceiling light, like it held all the answers he couldn't voice. His chest rose and fell slowly. His eyes flicked to us once, then away again.
"You alright, Frostbite?" I called out, voice hoarse.
He didn't respond.
Typical.
I winced as I shifted closer to Abby, curling my fingers into hers. She squeezed back, gently, like I was made of paper and ash. My other hand found Hiliana's.
"We're still here," Abby whispered.
"Still bitches," Hiliana added.
I let the silence linger before I whispered, "Still free… in our heads, at least."
My whole body ached as if I'd been flayed alive then stitched back together with barbed wire. My lips were cracked. My ribs ached when I breathed too deeply. But I was still breathing. And that, somehow, felt like defiance.
We were dumped like carcasses into one of the dim storage rooms after the punishment ended. The air was thick with mold and despair. There was no light except for the tiny sliver sneaking in from a vent above. Blood had dried in stiff lines down my back, sweat dried to a salty crust. The guards hadn't bothered to bring even the smallest bandage. No medication. No water.
We weren't prisoners. We were entertainment. Broken toys they forgot to throw away.
Hiliana lay near me, chest rising and falling in shallow rhythm, her shirt torn and stained. Her knuckles were bloodied from trying to pull away when they restrained us. Abby, beside her, still clutched a piece of her torn sleeve, pressing it to Hiliana's side where a wound had opened up.
No one spoke for a long time.
Then Tarn moved.
He stood like something ancient peeling away from stone—slow and deliberate. His shirt was still damp, hanging from his vitiligo-streaked shoulders, every bruise painting a cruel contrast on his pale and dark skin. He limped over to the wall and pressed a fist against it, head lowered.
And then he turned to me.
"This," he said, voice raw like gravel. "This is on you."
The words sliced through the stillness like a whip.
I blinked at him, struggling to even sit. "Excuse me?"
"You and your rap battle," he spat. "You and your jokes. You think this place is a stage? We're trying to survive, and you turned us into targets."
"Back off," Abby growled before I could answer, pushing herself upright. "She was just trying to lift the mood. If anything, we all agreed to it."
Tarn's jaw tensed. "There's lifting morale… and there's painting a bullseye on our backs."
Hiliana groaned softly, but even in her pain, her eyes narrowed at him. "She didn't force us. I did worse back in the South Ward for stale bread. If we're going to survive in a place like this, humor might be the last thing keeping us sane."
Tarn wasn't listening.
His gaze was fixed on me, sharp and biting.
I met his stare without flinching. "If I'm going down, I'm going down loud. You want to crawl like a worm just to survive another day in their game? Go ahead. But don't you dare blame me for the way they play it."
His nostrils flared. "If you keep playing like this, you'll get us all killed."
The silence afterward was the kind that suffocates.
But then
A faint whirring noise above.
We froze.
The vent.
Hiliana sat up with a wince, Abby steadying her. "Did you hear that?"
Before anyone could answer, a shadow passed over the slit of light above us. A soft click echoed, followed by a whimper—far too soft to be one of us.
Another prisoner?
Or something else?
The guards didn't patrol these zones often. Which meant—if someone else was being dragged past this hallway—then the punishments weren't over. Just… shifted.
"We're not the only ones," Abby whispered.
Tarn stepped closer to the door, ear pressed. "It's a transfer. Someone's being taken. Might be testing room rotations."
Hiliana muttered, "Or OPUS."
That name again.
Still undefined. Still like a ghost drifting between half-conversations and bleeding walls. The guards spoke it like a secret prayer. The doctors—like a threat.
Tarn stepped away from the door and looked at us. "If we're going to last in here, we can't be the loudest ones in the room. Stay quiet. Blend in. Watch, listen. Don't draw attention."
I leaned back against the cold wall, glaring up at the ceiling. "You think staying low is the key to survival?" My voice was raspy but firm. "That's what they want. For us to rot in silence."
"No," Tarn said simply. "It's what we need—until we know what we're fighting."
His calm terrified me more than his accusations.But I didn't say another word.
Instead, I looked at Abby tending to Hiliana, gently dabbing a cut with the corner of her sleeve. Hiliana winced, hissing softly but allowing the touch. Abby's brows furrowed with the kind of tenderness this place tried to beat out of people. She was careful, patient.
That kind of warmth didn't survive long in here.
Hiliana caught me watching and smirked faintly. "Don't get jealous now, firecracker."
I snorted despite the pain. "Please. You two make enough gooey eyes to give someone diabetes."
Abby blushed but didn't deny it.
Tarn watched us all with the expression of someone calculating odds and seeing none in his favor. They tried to strip us of our strength, our dignity, our voices—but we still had something left. Something burning beneath the bruises and blood.
Hope?
No.
Defiance.
And I'd rather die choking on my own words than live biting my tongue.Even if that meant painting a bigger target on my back.