"...work!"

What is that voice?
What happened to me?
Why does everything hurt?

"...still too weak!" another, far more familiar voice retorts.

A slapping noise pulls me back towards reality, as the memories of the past events return.

That's right. I held that little speech and those purple skinned bastards came in to shoot me down...everything hurts...though I guess that means I'm still alive.

My eyes flutter open slowly, as I look up to an uncomfortable scenery.

My mother is bowing over me, cradling me in her arms, while an Asmodean male has his hand raised, apparently preparing to strike my mother again.

When he notices that I come to, he lowers his hand and states firmly, "See, he's fine. Now get to work, before I really punish you for disobeying!"

My mother glares at him and replies, "And I'm telling you, he is in no condition to work! He still has to recover or else he might die!"

The Asmodean scoffs in my direction, "One less of your pests. I don't get why the overseer decided to spare him anyway. He should've been turned to fertilizer for all I care."

I feel the hand of my mother tremble and my mind finally clears up enough for me to realize that I needed to do something.

I groan and sit up from my cradled position and raise my hand to signal my cooperation.

"It's fine...I...I'm just a little dizzy, that's all. To...to work, you said, yes?"

"Yes. Rejoice, your little stunt has earned you double shifts for the rest of the cycle. Aren't you grateful?"

Thousands of words go through my head, but 'grateful' is not one of them.

The male grabs me at the collar of the rags I call 'clothes' and gets into my face, "You are grateful, are you not, runt?!"

I cough and he drops me back to the ground, where my mother does her best to catch my fall, but to little avail.
It still hurts.

I get back up into a sitting position and want to get up to go to my work before anything worse happens, when my mother reaches out to me.

"No, Sirus! Don't..."

The male tenses up immediately and delivers a powerful kick to my mother's side, making her fall flat to the ground and whimper in pain.

And God is my witness, if not for whatever miracle of willpower I manage to bring up in the moment, I would have strangled that guy right there.

One less of those pests, after all.

Unfortunately rationality tells me to stay my hand, because if I raised it against one of them, there's no telling what they would do to all of us in retaliation.

My restraint gets put to yet another test however, as the male grabs my leash...pardon, my ID tag necklace, and pulls me down to the face level of my mother, almost choking me in the process.

"What does it read here?! You can read, can you not, you savage?!"

"D...D-264", my mother sobs, obviously aching, but still trying her hardest to stay strong.

The bastard lets go of me, allowing me to breathe again and nods satisfied.

"That is correct, wench. And don't you dare forget that again. I do not care what you address your peers as, but in our presence, you will use the names we gave you! Your real names!"

My mother nods in defeat, while I clench my teeth and murmur, "Oh, I'd love to etch my 'real' name right there into that shiny skin of yours..."
"What was that, vermin?!"
"...nothing. Let's go already. After all, there is work to be done...right?"

The male glares at me and puts a smug smile on his face.

"Yeah, plenty of work. You go on ahead. I believe this woman requires a little bit of...extra disciplining."

I itch.

Screw self-restraint.
Screw pain.
Screw consequences.

I jump to my feet, making myself as tall as I can be and in fact I reach just a little higher than the male in front of me and yell, "You will not  touch her!"
The male looks up to me, obviously not very impressed and asks, "...or what?"

I pull back my fist and before the Asmodean can even react, I land it straight into his face, making him stumble back and fall, holding his bleeding nose.
I cannot even describe how good and satisfying the feeling of their squishy flesh getting reshaped by my fist felt, however I quickly realize my mistake as the male gets back up and stutters, "Why, you little..."

He pulls out his stun gun and sets it to maximum output, strong enough to severely injure a healthy man...or to kill a weakened one.

He points it to my torso, hatred and disgust in his eyes, when an announcement echoes through the speakers, "Lockdown! This is not a drill. All Terrans need to return to their cells and all personnel needs to assemble on the bridge. I repeat, this is not a drill."

The device on the side of the Asmodeans head flickers briefly and he stares into the distance for just a moment before focusing on me again.
The anger in his eyes makes me fear, that he'll still pull the trigger, but the disruption apparently bought me enough time, because I can already hear my fellow inmates approaching from the Gardens, chatting loudly.

The Asmodean hears them too and scoffs, "...how do you say? 'Saved by the bell'? But beware, if you ever act up again, my face will be the last thing you'll ever see."

He hurries away to make sure that the others don't see his bleeding and decide to maybe add a few more 'accidents', while he's still in our block.

I bow down to my mother and ask, "Are you alright, mo..."

SLAP

My cheek burns hot from the pain as I stare at my mother's face in disbelief.
Tears are streaming down her cheeks, as she slowly pulls down her hand.

"Are you trying  to get yourself killed?! Is that it?! Is that why you keep provoking them?! Why didn't you just stand down?! Why do you keep..."

The rest of the sentence goes down in constant sobbing while the others slowly come in.

A few of our friends see the situation and hurry over to see what's going on.

I don't care though.

"So what if I died? What would it even matter?! I mean...just look at us! We are 800 people cramped in a space originally meant for 500! No perspective! No future! You keep telling me I need to endure! You keep telling me I need to keep living! But please mother, tell me: What for?!"

My mother stares at me with a strange look on her face I can't quite wrap my head around.

For some reason she seems both happy and sad at the same time.

She says quietly, "Because fate favors the patient, Sirus."

She then gets up and plays the Q & A game with the others, trying to find out what caused the Lockdown this time.

They don't do them very often, because each Lockdown means lost work time and lots of idle hands.

And idle hands only rarely do good things.

'Fate favors the patient', she said.
But what did she mean by that?

While I'm still mulling over the sentence and the possible reasons for it, the Asmodei turn off the lights in the block.

Once word of what happened while the others had been away, a few of the older ones chew me out for being so reckless, but quite a few of them also commend me for the courage to stand up against them so very bravely.

But even so, the words of my mother keep haunting my mind.
'Fate favors the patient', she said.
But all fate has ever brought the patient thus far was a bed in the Gardens.
Though I guess that can also be considered a 'favor' of sorts.