Chapter 2: The Cage

  *** Ray ***

  I was twenty-one when everything fell apart. Young, na?ve, and struggling to make ends meet in a world that had long stopped caring about people like me. Life before this—before the prison—had been... mundane. A series of small, grim days that bled into one another, all passing with the same rhythm, the same noise.

  My job was a night shift at a convenience store—long hours, the kind that grind you down to the bone. The store was always half-empty, just a couple of desperate souls with nothing better to do than buy their midnight snacks or alcohol. The customers were rude, like they resented you for simply existing. Complaints about prices, lines too long, or “misplaced” items. I had to smile, to keep my job, but every fake grin felt like it scraped my insides raw.

  I didn’t have friends. Hell, I barely had a social life. My world was the constant hum of the cash register, the flickering fluorescent lights overhead, and the tired silence of a one-bedroom apartment I could barely afford. It wasn’t much—just a room with peeling paint and a bed that creaked if you breathed too heavily. The window overlooked an alley, the constant sound of traffic and garbage trucks. But it was mine. Or it had been, until I was taken from it.

  It wasn’t an extraordinary night. I finished my shift just like I had a hundred others before, tired and hungry, with the dull ache in my legs from standing on concrete for hours. The clock struck 2:00 AM when I closed up the shop, stuffing my jacket pockets with the last of my pay. I could barely keep my eyes open. Another night of broken sleep awaited me before I had to do it all over again.

  I turned down the street, dragging my feet toward the bus stop, ready to forget about the night and collapse in my cramped apartment. I didn’t even notice them at first. They came out of the shadows, silent and precise. There were four of them. The way they moved told me everything I needed to know. This wasn’t some random attack. These men were trained. One grabbed me from behind, pinning my arms, a second later I felt a prick in my skin, the fuckers injected me with something. There was a hand clamped to my mouth.

  I fought, of course. I kicked, I struggled, but it was pointless. Their strength was unreal. The next thing I knew, drowsiness settled in and I was out like a light.

  When I woke up, I was already somewhere else. Somewhere far from the life I knew, far from my little apartment and the pathetic job I thought was everything. I was in a cage. A cell. It didn’t make sense at first. I couldn’t process the coldness of the walls, the starkness of the space. It was a private cell, smaller than any prison I’d seen on TV. There was a cot with a pillow and blanket. A sink and a bathroom with a shower that came from the ceiling. The air was thick with fear, tension, and an unfamiliar coldness that clung to the very floor beneath me.

  I was dressed in a grey sweatpants and naked from the waist up. Thankfully I had thick socks on or I would have frozen on the cement floor. They’d stripped me of everything. My clothes. My dignity. My life as I knew it. And that was how I met them—the Alki. Those cold-hearted bastards I came to hate so much.

  ________________________________________

  The sound of boots on stone brought me back to the present. I blinked, forcing my focus back to where I was now—the prison, the unyielding place where they kept me. My cell was small, barely enough space to move around. The air was thick with sweat and fear, the constant hum of murmurs and chains never stopped. This place, the Heathen’s Prison, was a twisted little world all on its own—a holding pen for those who were too weak, too insignificant to escape the fate that awaited them.

  A low voice echoed down the hall, the footsteps of guards making their rounds. I didn’t know much about the specifics of this hellish place yet, but I was beginning to hear bits and pieces. It was a private prison of sorts, for people like me—the expendable. Those who would eventually be sold to the highest bidder, their lives handed over like cattle to the Alki masters who saw us as nothing more than property.

  A woman had been dragged past my cell the other day—one of the "property" here in this place. I knew she was a slave-to-be, someone who had spent far longer than I had here, living in the hellish anticipation of being sold off. She had been a regular visitor in the cell block, always walking with her head lowered, her eyes vacant. But recently, I saw her dragged out, looking bruised, her face twisted in a grimace. They said she had been punished, sent to “isolation” for a while. But now, after months of enduring, she was coming back. She was preparing for the day her master would take her “home.”

  * * *

  “Ray,” the voice of the guard echoed down the hall as he approached. “Another day in paradise.”

  I had barely noticed him until he was close enough to look down at me through the bars of my cell. His grin was mocking, as if he enjoyed seeing my misery. I didn’t answer, not bothering to look up. I knew the routine by now. They liked to remind us of our place every day.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The days stretched on, each one blurring into the next. I wasn’t the same anymore—not physically, not mentally. The prison was beginning to take its toll, just like the Alki had planned. They didn’t just want to break our spirits. They wanted to shape us, make us forget who we had been, make us forget what freedom was. Each day that passed, I felt less and less like the person I used to be.

  And as time wore on, the thought of being sold into their world—of belonging to Salazar, of losing everything I once was—seemed inevitable. What else was there for me but to fade into the role they had prepared for me? A pawn in their game, a plaything for their amusement.

  But deep inside, buried beneath the layers of hate, of powerlessness... a small part of me was still fighting.

  The cold stone floor beneath me is a bitter reminder of my new reality. It was not the roughness of the surface that stung my skin, nor the cold air that clung to the damp walls—it was the weight of my fate. Heathens Prison, as they called it, was a cage—more than physical bars, more than the chains that bound my wrists. It was a prison of the mind, of the soul. And I… I was already its prisoner, shackled by the memories of a life I could no longer reach.

  I had hoped, once, for a swift end. A quick death. A fleeting release from the nightmare. But there was no death here. Only the slow, agonizing crawl of time, each second stretching into eternity, each breath a reminder of my powerlessness. And now, my skin was marked—branded by the dark imprint of the Alki’s world.

  They told us once, long ago, that the Alki were perfect—cold, flawless, without weakness. But what they never told us was that perfection was a cage too. Cold logic, endless ambition, and an absence of compassion were not the hallmarks of a divine being—they were the chains that bound them. And the worst part? They did not even know they were trapped.

  I was forced to bend to a world that was not mine, a world where my every thought, my every action was dictated by the whims of my captors. We were less than human, stripped of all dignity, reduced to nothing more than objects. Commodities. Playthings.

  And yet, I fought.

  Perhaps it was a futile attempt to preserve something—something that was once mine. My humanity. My will. My soul.

  The guards pass by in their endless patrol, their expressions as impassive as the stone walls that surround us. Their presence is a constant, a shadow that looms over the prisoners like a sickness. They speak to us only when commanded, their voices devoid of emotion, and their eyes… their eyes are cold, devoid of the warmth that once made us human.

  It is in moments like this that the prison becomes more than a physical space—it becomes a reflection of the void within me. A reflection of the Alki themselves.

  The door creaks open, and my heart stutters, not in hope, but in fear. I cannot afford to hope any longer.

  The man who enters is tall, his figure looming like a dark silhouette against the faint light seeping through the cracks of the stone. His presence fills the room, an oppressive weight that presses against my chest, suffocating me. I have learned to fear such presences. Learned to anticipate them.

  He is an Alki.

  I know it immediately, as all who are of their kind are. The air shifts when they enter, like a cold breeze before a storm. His hair is as dark as obsidian, falling in sleek waves past his shoulders. His eyes—those violet eyes—seem to see through me, to strip away the remnants of my dignity, my spirit. His gaze holds no pity. No malice. Just an impenetrable emptiness.

  I remain still, not daring to look up, not daring to breathe. The very space between us crackles with the silent promise of pain. It is not an overt threat. It never is with the Alki. Their power is absolute, their cruelty as cold and precise as the logic they follow. I am nothing here. Less than nothing.

  But he does not speak at first. Instead, he watches me. Observes me with the detached curiosity of a predator studying its prey. I can feel the weight of his gaze like a physical touch, crawling under my skin, pressing on the fragile walls I’ve tried so desperately to build around myself.

  Finally, his voice cuts through the silence, and it is like ice scraping across bone.

  “You are… different,” he murmurs, as if the words themselves are foreign to him. There is no inflection, no emotion in his voice. It is a statement of fact.

  I do not respond. There is no point in responding. What use is there in speaking to a god who does not even know how to listen? What use is there in speaking to a creature who could crush me with a single thought?

  But I can feel it. The flicker of something—a curiosity, perhaps—lingering in his words. A spark of something I cannot name. It is fleeting, like a shadow passing across the edge of my vision. But I feel it.

  His gaze hardens then, as though he has come to a decision. He steps closer, the sound of his boots reverberating in the still air, like the slow approach of doom. The light is dim, but even in the half-darkness, I see the faint glint of silver on his hand—a ring, perhaps. I cannot tell. All I know is that every movement he makes is deliberate, precise.

  He stops before me, towering above me. And for the briefest moment, his eyes soften, just barely—so imperceptibly that I wonder if I imagined it.

  “Your name,” he commands, his tone hardening once more. It is not a question—it is a decree.

  I hesitate. What does it matter? I am nothing. A name is a luxury I no longer possess. But still, a part of me rebels—refuses to be so completely erased.

  “Ray,” I say, my voice raw, the sound barely escaping my throat.

  “Ray…” he repeats, rolling the name over his tongue as though tasting it. His eyes narrow, but there is no judgment in them. Not yet. "You have spirit," he observes. "But that will break. In time."

  I hold his gaze, defiant. He may think he knows me, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t understand the fire that still burns beneath the weight of my despair. It is small, fading—but it is mine.

  He turns to leave, and I cannot stop myself from watching him go, my eyes lingering on the fading silhouette. The door slams shut behind him, and the silence returns—heavier than before. But something has changed. The air is thick with the weight of the encounter, and I can feel it—an unsettling shift, a change in the current.

  He is watching me. I know it now. He is watching me—and I am not sure whether to dread or welcome the attention.