A void so complete it felt like I had been swallowed by the abyss itself.

  Then pain. A deep, rattling ache in my ribs as if I’d been kicked. My head throbbed, my breath came in ragged gasps, and when I moved, my wrists caught— metal... shackles... cold... damp... the kind of cold that seeps into your bones and stays there.

  The scent of sweat, rusted iron, and something far worse—something rotting, something human—hung in the air. It clung to my nostrils, thick and suffocating, a stench that spoke of hopelessness and decay. The floor beneath me was cold concrete, rough against my skin. Somewhere in the distance, there was a rhythmic drip of water, slow and deliberate, like a ticking clock counting down to something inevitable. A prison.

  I opened my eyes, blinking against the dim light filtering through rusted bars. Shadows flickered across the walls, cast by a single, flickering bulb swinging from the ceiling. My muscles ached, my thoughts sluggish, fragmented. I reached for a memory—something, anything to explain where I was—but all I found was static.

  Then I heard it—a groan. Not mine.

  I turned my head, squinting through the haze. Four others, scattered in the cell with me. Each of them bound in chains, stirring awake with the same slow, pained movements. Their faces unfamiliar, yet... something stirred in my mind, a nagging sensation at the edge of recognition. A scar on one’s chin, a piercing gaze in another’s eyes, a nervous twitching of fingers from a third. Like I had seen them before, but in another life.

  A woman to my left struggled upright, her dark hair matted with sweat. She winced, her fingers grazing a leather bracelet on her wrist as if seeking reassurance. She turned toward me, and when our eyes met, a flicker of something—understanding?—passed between us.

  “What the hell is going on?” she rasped.

  I opened my mouth to answer, but another voice cut through first.

  “We’re prisoners,” a man muttered from the far side of the cell. He sat against the wall, his long legs stretched out in front of him, shackles gleaming against his wrists. He wasn’t panicked—just watching, calculating. His silver-streaked blond hair was disheveled, his prison uniform stained and tattered. “And something tells me we’re not supposed to leave.”

  Another groan. The youngest among us—glasses cracked, hands trembling—shook his head violently, as if trying to shake loose a nightmare. His breath came in short, uneven bursts, panic rising with each second. "No, no, no, this... this isn’t right," he stammered, his voice breaking. "I—I was in the lab, I remember—" His words faltered, his eyes suddenly going wide, the color draining from his face. "I... I just... I don't understand—" The sentence collapsed into a strangled whisper as something—some terrible realization—surfaced in his mind, leaving him frozen in place.

  The last of us, a quiet figure hunched near the bars, didn’t speak. He just watched.

  A sick feeling curled in my stomach.

  Memories came back in flashes, still disjointed, still incomplete. A lab. A test. A sense of weightlessness, of being pulled apart and reassembled. And then—

  This.

  “Do you remember your name?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

  The man with the piercing hazel-green eyes hesitated. Then, barely above a whisper, he exhaled. “Elias.”

  A name. A thread to hold onto in the chaos.

  One by one, the others tried.

  “Mara,” the woman muttered, rubbing at her wrists.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Victor,” the man in the silver-streaked blond hair added, rolling his shoulders as if testing his restraints.

  The youngest swallowed hard. “Simon.”

  And the last of us, the one who had been silent the whole time? He tilted his head slightly, expression unreadable. “Gray.”

  Something about the way he said it made my skin crawl.

  Footsteps echoed beyond the bars, heavy boots marching in unison. Then came the buzz of an electrical lock disengaging.

  A door slammed open.

  A loud buzzer blared through the air, rattling through my skull like an earthquake. The clanging of metal doors followed, the sound of heavy boots marching in formation. The tension in the cell shifted instantly.

  Two guards appeared at the bars. Massive men, clad in dark uniforms with no insignia, their shoulders so broad they nearly filled the doorway. Their faces were like stone, cold and unreadable, devoid of anything resembling empathy. The one on the left had a jagged scar running from his temple to his jaw, a brutal reminder that violence was not new to him. The other, younger but no less imposing, flexed his fingers against the baton at his hip, as if itching for an excuse to use it. Their expressions were blank, impassive, yet there was a quiet menace in their stillness. One of them carried a clipboard and began reading in a voice devoid of emotion.

  “Inmates 452 through 457. On your feet. NOW.”

  None of us moved at first. A breathless silence hung in the air, thick with the weight of unspoken dread. The guards exchanged a glance, a silent signal passing between them before they stepped forward in unison.

  The scarred one reached for Mara first, his grip like iron as he wrenched her to her feet. She staggered, biting back a cry of protest, but he only tightened his hold. The younger guard grabbed Simon, who flinched violently, his glasses slipping down his nose as he struggled against the inevitable. A sharp jerk silenced his resistance, his breath coming in shallow, panicked gasps.

  Gray did not resist. He stood before the guards even reached him, his chains rattling like a whisper of inevitability. Victor, however, cursed under his breath as he was yanked up, his prison uniform wrinkling as he tried to pull free, his bravado cracking at the edges. "This is a mistake," he snapped, but the guards didn’t so much as flinch.

  The last hands were on me. The pressure sent a jolt of awareness through my body, every nerve alight with the instinct to run, to fight. But there was nowhere to go.

  Five of us. Together.

  The corridor opened into a large concrete chamber, the air thick with the scent of mildew and something metallic—blood or rust, it was hard to tell. A row of high-backed chairs loomed in front of a raised platform, stark and imposing under the harsh overhead lights. The walls were bare concrete, save for deep scratches and old, dark stains that hinted at past occupants who had not fared well.

  Atop the platform sat a gaunt man in a stiff military uniform, his skeletal frame exaggerated by the sharp angles of his epaulets. His sunken eyes held no warmth, only cold, unyielding judgment. His expression was carved from stone, lips curled slightly in a look of absolute contempt as he surveyed us, as if we were insects crushed beneath his boot.

  The silence was suffocating. Somewhere in the distance, a heavy door groaned shut, sealing us in. There would be no escape.

  “This is a trial,” the man declared, his voice devoid of emotion. “Your crimes have been recorded and judged. You stand guilty of sedition, conspiracy against the state, inciting rebellion, unlawful dissemination of restricted knowledge, aiding and abetting fugitives, and treason.”

  The words were delivered with mechanical precision, as if he had recited them a hundred times before. He paused just long enough for the weight of the charges to settle over us like a suffocating shroud. The air in the chamber grew heavier, the distant murmurs of unseen spectators pressing in from the shadows beyond the platform.

  Simon let out a strangled breath. Victor, ever the businessman, straightened, a flicker of indignation flashing across his face as if he might bargain his way out. Mara’s fists clenched at her sides, her jaw tightening with barely restrained fury. Gray remained still, unreadable, a statue awaiting the inevitable. And me? My pulse hammered, but my body refused to move.

  The judge leaned forward slightly, fingers steepled. “The sentence is death.”

  The words struck like a hammer.

  A chill clawed down my spine. Death? Just like that? No evidence, no trial beyond this mockery? The reality of it settled in like lead in my stomach. We had no advocates, no hope of appeal.

  Victor took a step forward, his shackles rattling. “You can’t be serious. I don’t even know what the hell half of those charges mean. You’re making a mistake—”

  The guard beside him moved faster than I expected, the butt of his rifle slamming into Victor’s stomach with a sickening thud. Victor doubled over, gasping, his knees nearly buckling as he struggled to regain his breath. The judge barely acknowledged the act, his expression unmoved.

  “The state does not make mistakes,” the judge intoned. “Your fate is sealed.”

  A gavel slammed down.

  The guards moved in, their heavy boots echoing like funeral bells.

  Death?