The shack creaked in the wind, boards rattling like bones. Inside, dozens of bodies pressed close together, the air thick with the stench of sweat, blood, and rot. Every breath was a struggle, like trying to drink from a cup already poisoned.
Kael's body lay stiff on the dirt floor, but his mind was alive—alive with one thought. Tonight.
Chains bit into my ankles as I shifted, trying to sit upright. My wrists ached, rubbed raw by the day's labor, but the ache was nothing compared to the weight in my chest. His despair was crushing, a storm pressing against my ribs, demanding release.
Around us, other slaves groaned in their sleep. One muttered a prayer, half-delirious. Another whimpered like a child. A third coughed wetly, his lungs tearing with each breath. No one comforted them. No one could. Comfort was a luxury long forgotten.
My gaze drifted upward. Through the cracks in the boards, I could see fragments of the night sky. Stars—distant, indifferent—glimmered faintly. To Kael, they were not hope but reminders: a world beyond his reach, a freedom that mocked him.
And in the corner of the shack, half-hidden in the dirt, it lay waiting.
The rope.
Rough, frayed, stolen from a cargo shipment months ago. Smuggled beneath straw mats, hidden from overseers too drunk to notice. It was his treasure. His salvation. His end.
My heart pounded. I knew the pattern now. Elias's pistol. The boy's window. And now this. The tools of despair always found their way into the hands of the broken.
I pressed my small borrowed body—Kael's body—back against the wall and whispered into the silence:
"No. Not this time. Not tonight."
But Kael stirred inside me, his voice a whisper of exhaustion:
"You don't understand. There's no tomorrow for me. Only chains. Only pain. Better to end it than to live another day in this pit."
I gritted my teeth. "I understand more than you think."
His silence was heavy. Not agreement. Not defiance. Just resignation.
And I knew—I had until dawn to stop him.