He’s known it for a while now: trying to understand is just a colossal waste of time. An unnecessary effort his synapses have subjected themselves to for far too long, never gaining anything from it, to the point where he’s cataloged the whole affair as something utterly pointless. So Felix doesn’t ask questions, because he knows that even if he voiced his doubts out loud, they’d be ignored. He just walks beside Hyunjin, trying to ignore the alien sensation of wearing clean clothes, of feeling his body washed, his hair light. If he had to describe it using comprehensible words and not just tangled, abstract emotions, he’d say that what he’s feeling isn’t happiness. It’s something that has nothing to do with joy. He feels more like an imposter. As if being clean and presentable is so far removed from him that it now feels like nothing more than a charade. And so everything in his mind seems to reprogram itself accordingly, adapting to this new role no one has spoken of but that Felix feels he must take on. Playing a part, wearing a mask. The part of the boy who can walk beside Hyunjin down a hallway, outside the cell. And in a fleeting moment, he realizes that Felix would do anything to never go back there, behind those bars.

“The next few days will be intense,” Hyunjin says suddenly, breaking the silence.

Felix blinks slowly, his golden lashes lowering and rising as if in slow motion. He takes a moment before speaking again. “Since when have my days not been intense?”

Hyunjin turns his head. He looks at Felix for a moment, then shakes his head. “It’ll be different.”

“Different,” Felix repeats. Different could mean a lot of things. Better, maybe. Much worse, most likely. “What should I expect?”

“I don’t know,” Hyunjin says, and he breathes the words out with a sigh. And then Felix realizes it’s true, that Hyunjin has no idea, and it twists his guts into a sensation he can only describe as anxiety. “But I’ll be with you this time,” he adds, perhaps noticing Felix’s tension.

That, at least, is something.

They stop in front of a door. Hyunjin opens it, steps in first, Felix follows, but he immediately halts. Cells. One after the other. People. They’re all wearing the same uniform as his, each sitting in their own space, each with their gaze downcast, empty. Some are chatting, but they fall silent as soon as they notice Hyunjin’s presence. Felix feels his stomach turn to ice. Still in a cage. It feels impossible. And yet the fact that there’s a small window at the top of each wall, that the lights are yellowish and flickering, and most importantly, that there are other people, makes it less unsettling. It sucks, naturally, but it’s an improvement.

“Was I transferred?” Felix asks with a touch of sarcasm in his voice. “Wow. I’ve moved up in the world, then.”

“Shut up,” Hyunjin snaps, but his scolding can’t hide his concern. They walk down the corridor. Felix feels the eyes of the other prisoners on him. As soon as Hyunjin leaves, he knows they’ll talk, he knows he’ll be able to ask questions and maybe finally understand what kind of madness this place is. Six, seven, eight… Hyunjin stops in front of cell number nine. He inserts the key into the lock, the door opens effortlessly, creaking. “Get in,” he says.

This place looks like some kind of police station. A barracks where detainees are held for a short time, just a few days. He’s been in places like this before. He didn’t think he’d end up in one at this stage of his life. He hesitates for a moment. What choice does he have? If he ran, they’d catch him in an instant, and God only knows what they’d do to him this time. So Felix sighs and steps into the cell. Hyunjin closes it, the key turning in the lock. “I’ll come get you soon,” Hyunjin says. But Felix doesn’t respond. He sits on the floor, his back against the wall. They’re no longer in a basement. The air is less damp, the walls neither cold nor wet. That’s all Felix can think about as Hyunjin walks away.

When Hyunjin leaves the area, a buzz of voices rises. Every prisoner starts talking to their neighbor, picking up the conversation they’d left off. Felix presses himself against the bars to his left—the only side that doesn’t border a wall, aside from the one he entered through. “Hey,” he says, calling the guy in the next cell, who’s talking to someone else. “Hey!” he calls again. The guy stops talking to his neighbor and turns to Felix. “What?”

Felix feels his eyes fill with tears, but he pushes them back. People. Other people, damn it. It feels impossible to be talking to someone who has no power over him, to someone he can truly consider his equal—and the fact that they’re both in disgrace is a negligible detail, even. “Please,” he says, and Felix tries to keep his voice steady, to stop it from trembling. “Please, tell me what this place is.”

The guy in the next cell looks defeated. His hair is messy, his eyes tired, a nasty scar running down his cheek. “No one knows. No one was here before yesterday. We all arrived between yesterday and today. We were kept in a cell in the basement for God knows how long, all of us,” he explains. “I’m Mark.”

Felix blinks. When Mark steps closer to the bars and offers his hand, Felix takes it and shakes it. There are scars on his arms too, but they look like burns. “Nice to meet you, I’m Felix,” he says, then hesitantly adds, “Did they do that to you?”

Mark stiffens for a moment, but then seems to relax. He nods. “Yeah. They tortured me almost every day. But I was lucky, compared to others,” he says, glancing at a girl across the room. She’s sitting with her knees to her chest, her face hidden against them. “They got her pregnant. And then they took the baby away,” he continues, shifting his gaze to the cell next to hers. “That guy over there lost his mind. He was screaming and thrashing all the time. He attacked some guards, apparently. They cut his vocal cords and broke his wrists.”

Felix’s eyes widen. That punishment for attacking guards? Felix wonders how he’s even still alive, considering he killed Ivan. Hyunjin’s words echo in his mind like a distorted memory. “…I saved your life when I came back early from my work trip, taking responsibility for what you did to Kozlov.” He was serious, then. But what did he mean by taking responsibility?

“What did they do to you?” Mark asks.

And Felix realizes that the mere thought of saying out loud that he was sexually abused is… too much. He doesn’t think he can do it, doesn’t think he wants to. If he admitted it aloud, he’s sure he’d shatter into pieces so small no one could ever put him back together. “They beat me,” he lies.

“Classic. Happened to most of us,” Mark says with a sigh.

Felix retreats to a corner of the cell. Why was he molested? Why didn’t everyone go through the same thing? Why did each person get a different treatment? Hard to say. Maybe it’s just another thing he’ll never understand. He closes his eyes, tries to isolate his thoughts to grant himself some peace. The buzz of words comforts him in a way, makes him feel calm, but on the other hand, it’s almost unbearable for his ears, for his mind. He’s grown too accustomed to silence. To quiet. To not hearing voices other than his own and his jailer’s, occasionally.

Hours later, a woman arrives. She pushes a metal cart, similar to the ones in hospitals. She hands each prisoner a plastic bowl with a plastic spoon. The bowl is filled with a bland soup and rice. Felix devours it as if it’s the most delicious thing he’s ever tasted. He’s not surprised when he sees the others are just as voracious. All except the girl. She doesn’t eat. She hasn’t moved from the position Felix first saw her in, when Mark pointed her out. If it weren’t for the subtle movements of her body, she’d look like a doll, a completely motionless mannequin.

The night passes.

A new day arrives.

For Felix, it’s unsettling to notice the passage of time through the way light filters into this cluster of cells. He watches rectangles of warm light reflect on the floor, stretching as the sun rises, then shrinking as it begins to set. The woman with the cart comes by with breakfast: another bland gruel. Again, everyone eats as if it’s their first meal after days and days of starvation, and who knows, maybe for some it really is. Everyone, once again, except the girl.

“You need to eat,” the woman says, but the girl doesn’t respond.
“Did you hear me? I’m not asking. You need to eat.”
The girl remains still.
“Don’t make me come in there,” the woman says. If the girl heard her, she gives no sign of it.
The woman curses under her breath and inserts the key into the lock. Armed with a spoon, she steps into the cell, determined to force-feed the prisoner.
However, as soon as she’s close enough, the girl springs into action like a coiled spring. And in her eyes, Felix sees a blind madness he’s seen before. The girl holds a long strand of her wavy hair in her hands. She lunges at the woman, manages to knock her to the ground, then wraps the strand of hair around the woman’s throat and starts pulling. The woman turns red, kicks and flails her fists, but the girl is just as red with rage. She pulls with all her strength. Not a fly moves. No one speaks, everyone watches. The woman’s flailing grows weaker. Her eyes are almost popping out of her head. Then her body goes limp. The girl stands up from her corpse as if nothing happened and retrieves the keys. Her cell door is open, so she steps out without needing to use them. She tosses the keys into the cell across from hers, and Mark catches them mid-air. His eyes are furious. He looks at Mark, then at the other prisoners. It’s a fleeting glance that feels like a goodbye. Then, without another word, she opens the door and runs off.

Mark trembles as he looks at the keys in his hands.

“Let’s get the hell out of this shithole,” he says, his voice shaking.

His voice is firm.

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