So I play the part of the scared little rabbit. And I tell her what she wants to hear, but not exactly what she wants to hear. Because if I tell her exactly what she wants to hear, she might suspect that I’m someone who has been trained in how to keep the Imperials happy. And I can’t have her thinking that. My compliance has to be sloppy, has to be terror-addled, has to be believably bad. 

“Sorry, your Highness,” I respond, “I’m just awed by the beauty of this spacecraft.”

“Shut your mouth!” The redheaded friend booms, “We don’t need your whole life’s story. Just a simple yes or no will do.”

“Okay, sir, I’m sorry sir, I didn’t mean any harm by it.”

“There you go again, running your mouth,” he exclaims, and I pretend to be exasperated but I don’t say anything. 

The girl (I think) takes my hand - not my chain - and she leads me down a long corridor. 

“What’s your name?” I ask her softly, too quiet for the Imperials to hear. “What gender are you?”

“I’m Alvi. I’m a girl. What about you?”

“I’m Ikkia,” I lie. “I’m also a girl,” I lie. Although I guess that last one’s not a complete lie, I am a girl sometimes. Just not right now. I’m sort of in between right now. 

“It’s good to meet you. I’m sorry that you’re here.”

“I’m sorry that you’re here too,” I tell her, and I pour as much love into my words as I possibly can. I know that she needs it. I know that all the words that she hears are full of hard, grating hatred. 

“You shouldn’t’ve defied the Empire,” she tells me softly. 

“Child, look. The Empire is evil. The Empire is hurting us all. The Empire is hurting you. All of us colonized people don’t deserve to get hurt. You don’t deserve to get hurt.”

“I try to keep a positive attitude. You should too.” Her words are soft. Serious. Solemn. But most of all, they are unbearably sad. I can’t describe the layers and layers of desolation, isolation, melancholy, despondency that are laced in her voice, in her eyes, in her cheekbones, in her lips. I did this. I made this happen to her. 

“Sweetheart. Fighting for what you know is right is better than denying that you’re hurt. Fighting for what you know you deserve, even if you’re only fighting in the quietness of your mind, is better than acting like nothing is wrong. You need to realize that you deserve better. You need to tell yourself that you deserve better, every single day.”

“You did that, and look where it got you.”

“I’d rather be hurt than complacent. But anyways, you don’t have to do anything dangerous. You just have to tell yourself in your own heart that you deserve better. That you are sacred.”

Her eyes are searching, thinking, wondering. All the sadness that was there before is still there, but now there is a tiny glimmer of hope, a tiny spark of wonder underneath all that. I can tell that she’s really thinking about my words. I can tell that this is perhaps the first time in years and years that she’s heard something like that. I hope her parents told her these things before she got taken away. 

“You’re right,” she whispers to me, “and you kind of remind me of my older sister. She was a lot like you. Angry. Vengeful. There was a wildness about her, something that was more nature than human, that nothing could tame.”

“I’m sure your sister loves you a lot. I’m sure she thinks about you all the time. And she misses you. And she wants you to be angry in your heart.”

“Thank you.” Her words have a shaking, watery edge to them. “I miss her too.”

“I’m so sorry you got taken away from her. You both deserve so much better.”

She puts me in a dark electric cell in a holding room. And we bid each other goodbye. And she leaves. I am all alone in here. Of course, the cameras are still watching. If things are the same as they were six years ago, the cameras can’t hear us. But they’re watching. I think it’s probably safe to cry right now. And so I slump down onto the metal ground. And I put my head on my knees. And I start sobbing. 

I sob for Alvi, I sob for myself, I sob for all the people who I will let down if the Empire does indeed know we have the World Stones. I sob for the fear and I sob for the sorrow. And I sob for the future in front of me that is undoubtedly filled with torture. I sob for the future potentially in front of my people, in front of all the colonized people of the galaxy, that is perhaps filled with torture, with death untold. 

I am grateful, a little bit, that I have some time to myself, that I have some time free of the Prince and his cronies. But I know it won’t last. But still. Still. It’s a tiny measure of freedom, even if it doesn’t add up to a lot at all. People like us, we have to find and to cherish every little bit of freedom that we can find, wherever we can find it, because the universe knows that we don’t have nearly enough. 

I feel the spacecraft take off into the sky, and I cry for all the people I have left behind, for all the people that I will likely never see again. Have I let them down? Have I let all of them down? Have I gotten them all into much deeper, worse trouble than they were already in before? I don’t know. At this point I don’t know anything. All I can do right now is remember them. Remember them and hope they’ll be okay. 

I lose track of time as I stay there, in my electric cage, crying my eyes out. It feels good to cry. It feels freeing. I have only been able to cry whenever I needed to since about a year ago. I’ve lived two decades of having to swallow down my emotions and present an obedient, blank face in front those who would never want to consider that I have emotions that don’t fall under either gratitude or submission. It’s a rebellious act, to cry, here, now, where the cameras are definitely seeing me. It’s a smart act too. The Ikkret the Prince knew never cried. He couldn’t pin me down to that person if I do. 

I don’t know how much time goes by, but the Prince eventually comes in, along with the Princess. Sweet Alvi is trailing behind them, a look of dread on her face. I know what’s coming now. I’ve been on the other side of this experience. Many times before. I’m scared. I’m definitely scared for me. But more than that, I’m scared for her. And the horrors that she is about to go through. I hope this is the first time Alvi’s had to do something like this. I know that it’s probably not. 

I stare at her, tears running down my eyes, as she is threaded through with wires. She looks like a macabre string puppet. I’ve never seen it from the other side before. She looks so small. So small and so out of control. Her eyes hold mine, and they are so deeply remorseful. I would imagine that mine are as well. Still, I try to give her as much kindness as I can fit within our lingering, silent eye contact. 

After she’s hooked up, the bars around me dissipate and the Prince strides up to me and throws me onto my front. My chest and stomach hit the floor with a thud as his heavy weight comes down onto my back to hold me in place. The Princess grabs me and threads wires all over my own body as well. It’s humiliating, being trussed up like this, but Alvi and I are both in this together. We have each other. 

The weight above me lifts and I turn to my side, still lying down. I look at Alvi and Alvi looks at me while the electric bars go back up. So it’s really beginning. We’re really here. Noxious fear swirls within me, and I feel almost nauseous. But I have to take it. I have to take it. Whatever happens, I have to take it. And I have to sell the lie. 

“I guess we’ll get started now,” the Princess declares with a hard edge, “answer all our questions truthfully. If you’re lying, we’ll know,” she taps a chip on her nail that’s glowing orange, “and we’ll hurt you.”

I can get out of this. I know I can get out of this. But it’s going to hurt like hell first. 

“I won’t tell you anything,” I say to her. It’s what she’ll expect me to say. She’ll expect me to play the part of a passionate resistance member. But I let the fear show through my face, through my voice. Fear spikes in my heart. I hope it’s over with soon. But I have to drag this out as long as I need to. 

The Prince smiles. A smug, gloating smile. As if he was longing for this answer the whole time. The Princess has a bright spark of malice in her eyes. They love this. They love the torture. They love turning the dial on the controller all the way up. Which is something I’m intimately familiar with. They’ve been doing it since I was twelve. 

I shudder, and look at Alvi. 

All at once the pain hits. It races through me, tearing apart my insides. It is burning hot like molten lava. Searing sharp like a thousand pins exploding all at once, inside me all throughout my body. I feel like I’m bleeding, bleeding, bleeding everywhere. It is much more intense than the magic extraction machines. I didn’t even know that there could be pain more intense than that. But there is, and I can’t help crying out as it wracks through me. 

But I have to stay strong. No matter what happens, I have to stay strong. Because everything depends on me right now. And if I mess up, the whole galaxy is doomed. So I tell myself in the silence of my mind, again and again and again, as the pain rips and tears, burning and freezing, as I’m writhing on the ground, I tell myself again and again that I have to stay strong. I don’t know if I’ll manage it or not. 

“Are you going to tell us now?” the Prince demands, amusement in his voice. 

“No,” I manage to get out through gasps. My muscles are still spasming. And the Imperials don’t give them a chance to settle down as they turn up the pain again. 

Once again, I am writhing on the floor, I am screaming out. This time, I am begging for help. Help that I know won’t come. I don’t know who I’m calling out to. But thankfully I don’t say any names. I make sure to not say any names. I make sure to not give anyone away. I have to not. I will not. No matter how much it hurts. And dear universe, it hurts so much. It hurts so, so unendurably much. But I’m used to the violence of the Empire. Physical pain is nothing compared to the pain of a life of slavery. 

“Will you tell us what we need to know?” the Prince asks again, voice booming with pomp and power and grandeur. 

Again, I give a negative response. Again they hurt me. Again I cry and scream out and writhe on the floor. Again there are thousands, millions of needles exploding apart every which way inside of me. They crack apart and shatter and pierce into every part of my body. Into my blood, my arteries and veins and capillaries. Into my muscles. Into my tendons. Into my ligaments. My bones. Into my organs, which writhe and bleed and want to die. Into my soul, which screams with the violence it is being forced to undergo. And I scream. And I scream and I scream and I scream. 

But I force myself to keep going on. I force myself to keep denying them, time after time after time after time. I force myself to keep enduring the hurt. Hurt without end. Hurt without mercy. It scatters my heart and my brains and my soul. Again and again and again the pain dissipates for a few moments before once again rearing up, once again roaring up, and ripping apart all my insides. My blood, my brains, my flesh, my bones. My skin, my organs, my blood vessels, my ligaments. They are all being torn apart in pain. 

But what’s worse, what’s so much worse, is the fact that Alvi is hurting each and every time that I am hurting. Alvi is so young. Alvi is so sweet. She deserves so much better than this. I’m a horrible person. I’m a truly horrible person. I have caused this little girl, this young woman, this child, I have caused her so much hurt over the years. And yet, every time I look into her horrified eyes, her eyes which never stop staring at me, I find strength. This is such a twisted game. 

I hold out for as long as I can. And I am defiant, I am defiant, and I make the Prince and Princess frustrated. They don’t know how I haven’t given in yet. They don’t know how I can withstand so much torture. Joke’s on them, they’ve been making me withstand torture much worse than this physical violence, for most of my life. But still, it’s so deeply satisfying to watch their smug looks fade away, to watch them grow slowly increasingly agitated. 

But I can’t hold out on the torture forever. They will think that I have something very big, very important, to hide. They will think that whatever I’m protecting must be really precious. And then perhaps they will look into things more. And I can’t have that. We all can’t have that. So I allow myself to show more and more of my exhaustion as time goes on. I allow myself to show more and more of my pain. So they can think that they’re wearing away at me. 

“Fine, I’ll tell you,” I finally reply, breathless. 

“Tell us what?” the Prince asks harshly. 

“Whatever you want to know.” My voice is strained and raspy. Which is perfect. 

“Fine.” The Prince’s voice is hard and smooth. Dreadful and devastating. “First question. Who are you?”

“Ikkia,” I respond. And it’s a lie. I know it’s a lie. But it’s also the truth. I have been Ikkia for so long that it’s who the people know me as now. It’s who the people know me as and, if they know me as such then in a way I am such. For we all are defined by how our loved ones and our allies see us. It is for this reason that the chip on the Princess’s hand glows blue and I can continue.