Elliot's POV
"The world does not change because we wish it to, but because we force it to."
–– Elliot Starfall
I sit in a cell. For weeks, I have been swallowed by complete darkness. My fingers, drained of warmth and circulation, are only visible when I hold them re inches from my face. My clothes were stripped from the first day. rchandise is rchandise. Pigs don't wear trousers. That's what the blue-skinned one kept saying. His stench—stale breath, rotting gums—clings to my senses like a curse. I want to spit, but my saliva is thick, clinging to my chin in slow, sickly dribbles. My mouth hangs open. Breathing in this suffocating stench, heavy with the stink of fish and sweat, is worse than standing in a crowded bus at the height of sumr.
I lean my head back, my greasy hair pressing against the old man behind . Splinters dig into my skin. They pricked at first—kept awake for nearly two days—but eventually, the body shuts down. The air would be more bearable if we were above deck. Every few hours, they open the hatch, letting in slivers of fresh air. There are thousands of us, cramd into the lowest levels of the ship. They call us Reds. I hate the sight of their blueberry-colored gums when they grin down at us. Hilarious, isn't it?
They took their ti today. I counted in my head, out of sheer boredom. When you're locked in a cage with dozens of others, and those cages are stacked upon more, there isn't much else to do. Especially when we're forced to lie back-to-back, knees drawn tight. So tried to pry the iron bars apart. Fools. Save your strength.
At the thought, my expression darkens. So of them were fathers. Others, mothers—fighting to free their children, clinging to them even as they convulsed under electric shocks.
My gaze drifts to Ren. He lies in the farthest corner, eyes closed, his hands caked in blood. Two days ago, he had to fight soone. The stains on his skin look like rust.
I click my tongue, glancing at the others in our cell. I keep my mouth shut, yet soone still grumbles at .
"Cry sowhere else. We're all going to die anyway."
Yeah, yeah I don't even looking his way. My focus remains on the harsh blue light spilling through the hatch, silhouetting a shadow descending the steps.
We huddle close, bodies pressing against each other. A thickset man in wide trousers, a plain white shirt, and a blue cap moves down the creaking steps, snuffing out his cigar against the bars of a neighboring cell.
"Who, who, who?" he calls out, a mocking echo of himself.
Silence.
The blue light gleams against the splintered stairs, painting them like a stairway to heaven. But everyone who climbs them never returns.
A child next to clutches her mother's naked fra. They, like , are stripped bare, shivering.
An old man behind shifts, his withered foot pressing into my lower back. A large splinter embeds itself in my skin.
I inhale sharply but stifle the sound, pressing a trembling hand over my lips—not from sha, but survival.
I glance sideways. The massive, blue-skinned man, maybe a sailor, maybe sothing else, looms in front of our cage. But I fall silent.
My blood simrs as he approaches. The air is thick, suffocating. Every eye in the cell turns to .
Ren stares, his shoulders slumped, his bruised hands still stained with rust-colored blood. The man he fought watches him, then shifts his gaze to .
He smirks, his chin grotesquely split, forming an unnatural cleft.
Everything happens too fast.
In the dim light, the world feels slow and hazy. I look left, then right. A shove. My balance falters.
I fall forward, my cheek slamming against an iron shoulder. Another push, and suddenly, I'm no longer pressed among the unwashed bodies in our cell.
I'm against the charged iron bars.
Rust-red stains mar the tal, and beside , two corpses slump—once a man and woman, now empty husks.
Their daughter sits to my left, head bowed. She stares—not at her parents, but at the floor. At her own bloodied hands, fingers curled around the bars.
No one else dares to get this close.
Except . And her.
The blue-skinned man sticks out his tongue, sluggish and thick, drooling red. A grotesque mockery of a grin stretches across his face.
He stares at the girl. She must be—what, eleven? Twelve? Barely old enough to be called a teenager.
Everyone else stares at .
Not with lust, like the blue tongue. But with relief.
They know it will be .
They know they've bought themselves a few more hours—perhaps a day.
I lower my head.
I curse the old bastard behind .
At first, I even pitied him. I used to massage his neck when he complained about the pains of old age. You wouldn't understand, he said. You're too young.
I force myself to stay silent. No sigh, no tear, no scream of rage.
I'd bash his skull in if it ant staying down here.
But it wouldn't matter.
They'd still drag up.
Will they carve out my spine and throw to the fish?
No.
They will eat themselves.
The fresh red blood dripping from the blue-skinned man's lips—it must be from the one who went up yesterday. A boy my age.
He sacrificed himself for his little sister.
He was shaking when he climbed the stairs. Crying.
What must have been running through his mind?
My fingers tremble, numbed from disuse. Dried blood clings to my nails, grating against my skin like the friction of Styrofoam.
I lower my chin, pressing it against my collarbone. My neck aches, a sharp pain digging into my lungs like an open wound. My breath stutters.
In my mind, I punch the old man behind again. Pain I wouldn't understand?
The child trembles beside , her hands shaking as if afflicted by Parkinson's while she struggles to bring a spoonful of soup to her lips.
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