⚠︎ The chapter discusses mature themes such as sexual abuse ⚠︎

Like many others, I have regrets in life. I may have too many, but none equate to this one. My selfish acts ruined my family's good name. That's not something a simple sorry can fix. I keep replaying that night in my head, trying to figure out what I could've done differently. I don't know why I focus so much on the past when there's no way to fix it. I've always felt the need to fix things. As a kid, it was fixing broken toys or trying to superglue a vase I accidentally broke. As I grew older, I began trying to fix things that were more complicated, such as my relationships with my parents, friends, and, most importantly, her.

Quinn was the love of my life—my light within the darkness. My parents also loved her. Sometimes I thought they loved her more than I did—more than they loved me. My mom would ask me when she was coming over again. My dad would tell me not to screw this up. My grandma told me she was the one I'd marry. I felt so obligated to make the relationship work. You could say I tried to force it to work. I wonder if that's why it ended so tragically.

The night I keep referring to is the night I broke up with Quinn. I couldn't keep loving someone and investing my time in someone who didn't love me back. I knew she was into another guy. I didn't know him well, but I could tell she was happier with him. I thought I'd be doing her a favor by breaking it off, but her reaction said otherwise. Tears rolled down her face. She looked at me in disbelief.

"I thought this was what you wanted," I said.

"Why would I want this?" Quinn asked.

"Because you're in love with that other guy!" I yelled. "You don't think I see the way you look at each other? It's love, Quinn. You love him, not me."

"Look, it's complicated, Caelum," she said, wiping the years from her eyes. "I love him, yes, but I love you too. Can't we just work something out?"

"Goodbye, Quinn," I whispered before walking away.

"You'll regret this, Bishop!" She yelled, which only prompted me to walk faster. "You'll wish you never ever fucked with me!"

After that, I thought things would be over. I was so wrong. It first started as threats sent via text message. I would just block Quinn's number, but she would just use other ones to contact me. I dealt with it for a while, and when she realized her threats didn't faze me, she decided to take it to an even greater extreme. I was woken up by my father yelling and calling me all types of names. I was so confused, disoriented, and overstimulated. My mother looked at me in disgust. She looked like she wished she had never had me.

"What is going on?" I finally asked.

"What's going on?" my dad repeated. "Are you fucking serious?"

"Yes!"

"You raped a girl, and you're acting clueless??" my dad yelled.

"What?"

"What did we do wrong?" my mother asked, her eyes watering. "What did we do to make you do that?"

"What the fuck!" I yelled. "I didn't rape anyone!"

"Cut the crap, Caelum!" my dad yelled, dragging me out of my bed. "I should beat the shit out of you!"

"I didn't do anything!"

"Do you know how this makes us look? How does it make our family look?" my mother asked. "We built all this just for you to ruin it all? And why do that to Quinn? I thought you loved her."

"Quinn?" I asked. "She's the one behind this? She's lying because I—"

"Caelum, shut up!" my father screamed as tears rolled down his face. "Just...don't bother coming down for breakfast."

My dad exited my room, just leaving my mom and me. All I could do was stare at her. I was speechless. I couldn't even cry. It's like I was just frozen and numb. My mother broke down. She kept repeating, "How could you do this to me?" I hated to see my parents in pain because of me, even though I didn't do anything wrong. I ruined their reputation. I destroyed our family. I completely annihilated the Bishop family name.

Eventually, my father was able to make my mom go downstairs and eat something. I just laid in bed since one of my punishments was not eating. I was starving, but I didn't bother trying to sneak and get food. I didn't think I deserved it. I know I didn't rape Quinn, but maybe if I had just worked things out with her, this would've never happened. This is my punishment for giving up on our relationship.

I decided to take a nap to distract myself from the hunger. I woke up to myself hitting the floor. My legs were being held down, and then my arms. I looked around to see men in white coats surrounding me. I saw my parents standing behind them. My mom was in tears while my father looked stone cold. I screamed for them to stop, but soon, I felt a sharp sting. Then, my body began to feel as if it were burning. Suddenly, everything went black.

I woke up to blurry, bright lights. I blinked until my vision was clear. I sat up and looked around to see that I was in a small room. I was on a bed, and across from me was another bed. However, that one was empty. I heard footsteps approaching, so I lay back down the way I was before, closing my eyes. I heard the door open and then close. The footsteps approached the other side of the room before it began to come towards me. I could feel someone hovering over me. I tried to stay as still as possible—as calm as possible.

"You know you don't have to pretend to be asleep, right?" a male's voice said. "Open your eyes."

I opened my eyes to see a boy around my age. His skin was dark brown like mine, he had black curly hair, and dark brown eyes. He wore a white T-shirt and khaki pants. I looked down at my clothes, realizing I was wearing the same thing. I wasn't wearing this before. Did those fuckers undress me?

"You're probably wondering if those guys undressed you," he said. "They did."I stayed silent.

"They didn't do anything to you," he continued. "I think."

I turned my attention to the door and then back to him.

"You can leave, but I wouldn't recommend it right about now." He turned and went over to his bed. "Sacha's throwing a tantrum, and the blacks are not being nice about it this time."

"The blacks?"

"That's what we call them since they all wear black," he said. "The men who took you, we call them the whites."

"Who's Sacha?"

"A girl who's gonna get herself killed, so I wouldn't bother trying to get to know her."

"Who are you?"

"I don't give out my name to people." He reached for a bag that was under his bed. "Just refer to me as your roomie."

"Where are we?"

"I'd say a psych ward due to all the crazy people in here, but we aren't allowed to have shoestrings in there, so..." he pointed to his sneakers.

"How would you...?"

"We're in building one."

"Which is where exactly?"

"I don't fucking know."

Suddenly, the lights in our room got brighter—almost blinding. A woman's voice could be heard in our room. She said, "Curse word strike number eight today." The lights went back to normal. I looked at my roomie, hoping he'd have some explanation as to whatever the fuck that was.

"Oh, yeah, that," he chuckled. "Don't curse."

"Why does she keep count?"

"Because when you get to ten, you end up..." he pretended his fingers were a gun and mimicked a gunshot.

I stayed silent, fear running through my body.

"You'll be fine unless you have the mouth of a sailor," he said with a smile.

"You're on eight."

"Yeah, I tend to make it to nine on a daily basis unless I'm having a really good day."

"And you're not scared?"

"Being scared will get you nowhere."

My roomie reached into the bag and pulled out a notebook. He tossed it to me, and I caught it.

"What's this for?"

"It has all the rules I've learned so far."

"They don't tell you?"

"Nope, not until you or someone else breaks it. We learn more rules every day."

"And with them all, do you get nine chances?"

"Nope! That's the fun part," he said. "You never know if the rule you break will be your last."

"Fun? This fun to you?"

"Yeah, it's the most entertainment you're gonna get. Well, besides Sacha.

"How did I es—"

Suddenly, my roomie ran over to me and covered my mouth. His once playful expression turned into a serious one.

"Do not say that word," he warned. "The reds will come, and that's trouble for all of us. You cause hell around here, and the other kids will literally end you before a rule can."

I nodded, and he removed his hand from my mouth. Our door then suddenly swung open. A man in black carrying guns stood in the doorway. I looked to my roomie, and he rolled his eyes.

"Please don't tell me Kevin—"

"Kevin requests that you give him twenty tokens to bail him out of building six," the man said.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he sighed, rubbing his temples.

Like earlier, the lights became super bright in our room. The woman said, "Curse word strike number nine today." The lights then returned to normal, and my roomie went over to his bag. He pulled out a small pouch and tossed it to the man. The man nodded and walked out of our room, making sure to close the door behind him.

"Who's Kevin? What are the tokens for? What's building six?" I asked.

"Kevin's an idiot, the tokens can be used to get you food, bail you out of nightmare buildings, and building six is one of them."

"Nightmare buildings?"

"I'll explain later. I need to make sure Kev is fine so Leah doesn't lose her sh—"

I quickly jumped up from my bed and covered my roomie's mouth. He looked down at my hand and then back to making eye contact. I slowly removed my hand from his mouth. He stared at me for a moment before turning away.

"They should be done dealing with Sacha if you want to come along," he said. "It's not far."

"To building six?"

"Outside it. I don't know if Kev will be hurt, so I might have to use tokens to get him into the clinic."

"That costs tokens as well?"

"Just about everything does: water, food, medicine, etc."

"How do you get tokens?"

"Going on missions."

"What is this, Naruto?"

"I wish. At least we'd have abilities," he said, grabbing his bag. "You ready to go?"

"Sure," I said anxiously.

The two of us exited our room. My roomie closed the door behind us before he began leading us down a long hallway. There were other teenagers walking and conversing with one another. Once we made it to the two double doors, my roomie reached into his bag, pulling out another pouch. He handed me the bag before opening the pouch and taking out 10 tokens. He inserted it into the coin slot, and the doors opened.

"Ten just to get the door open?" I asked. "I was hoping to escape inflation."

"It's five per person."

"Why didn't you tell me? I could've just stayed be—"

"It's fine."

"But won't you have to pay fifteen to—"

"I'm glad you know how to do math," he said. "Let's go."

We were met with another long hallway. We walked down the hallway until we reached another set of double doors. Once again, my roomie took out ten coins and inserted them into the coin slot so the doors would open. Instead of there being another long hallway, there were stairs leading up on one side and down on the other.

"Where are we going?"

"Down," he answered. "I have to stop by a place and get some more tokens."

"How many more doors do we have to go through?" I asked as we went down the steps.

"No, not because of the doors," he clarified. "Transportation."

"Like on a bus?"

"Yeah, exactly."

"Do we have to do a mission right now to get more tokens?"

"No, I have a stash outside of this building for emergencies like this one."

"How dangerous is building six?"

"Very, but compared to other nightmare buildings, it's pretty tame," he answered. "But Kev is stupid, so he won't survive in there for long.

"Also," he said, turning towards me and placing his hands firmly on my shoulders. "When we get on the bus, look only at the ground, got it?"

"Why?"

"To avoid angering a dyst."

"What the fu—what is that?"

"I'll tell you later, just please...look at the floor wh—"

"When we're on the bus. I got it, roomie."

His hands left my shoulders, and he turned before continuing to go down the flight of stairs. When we finally reached the bottom, there was a door. My roomie took out ten tokens and put them in the coin slot to open the door. When we made it out, I froze. The air was polluted, the environment was dirty, and buildings were in ruins. My roomie grabbed my arm and led me to a nearby bush. He reached into and pulled out a pouch. He then led me to the bus stop. We sat on the bench. My hands were shaking because of how anxious I was. What is this place? Where am I?

"Welcome to Azazel's Dystopia."