Chapter 6: Shifting Bonds

  Part One: A Growing Bond

  The first week passed in the dim, oppressive silence of our shared confinement. The only sound that punctuated the hollow hours was the dull scrape of metal against stone, the hollow clang of a food tray being slid under a door, and the rhythmic tapping of the guards' boots echoing down the long hallway. But despite the isolation of our cells, despite the cold and indifferent world outside, I found an unexpected connection with her.

  Her name is Ilyana.

  Ilyana. The name rolls off my tongue like a promise, but it feels strange—too normal, too human for a place like this. She isn’t what I imagined. I thought she would be broken, completely crushed under the weight of this place, of what she had endured. But she wasn’t. There was a fire in her that refused to be extinguished, a quiet, simmering rage that seemed to burn beneath her calm exterior.

  The first day we spoke, I had been leaning against the bars of my cell, the boredom of the day settling in like an old, familiar ache. Her voice had been the first to cut through the silence.

  “You’re new.”

  It wasn’t a question, but more of a statement—a simple observation, as if she had catalogued every soul in this prison and knew them all by heart. I had turned to face her, meeting her dark eyes from across the hall.

  “Yeah,” I had muttered. “I’m new.”

  And from there, it started. At first, it was just idle chatter—small, meaningless things about the prison, about the routine. She told me that she had been there for six months, a full five and a half months of torment at the hands of her master, a high-ranking Alki who had taken interest in her, kept her as his personal possession, and visited her regularly.

  “I’ve been to isolation three times,” she had told me one day, her voice quiet but firm. “Each time it gets worse. But every time, I come back and I resist. You can’t break me, not like that.”

  There was an odd sense of pride in her words, a defiance that I both envied and feared. She was something I wasn’t sure I could be—unwilling to yield even in the face of everything they did to her. And still, there was something haunted in her eyes, something that told me the cost of her resistance was far more than she was letting on.

  Her master was a high-ranking Alki—someone of influence, someone who had claimed her as his plaything, his possession. She had been promised to him, though he had not yet "purchased" her officially. They were kept like this, held in this prison until they were ready for the official transfer. After six months, the prisoners were put up for sale, displayed in a brutal spectacle known as the "Selling Floor." It was there that their masters would come and officially claim them, marking them as their property.

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  Ilyana didn’t like to talk about it much, but I could see it in the way her shoulders tensed whenever the subject came up. A faint tremor in her voice, the flicker of fear behind her eyes. She had been through too much to ever be entirely at peace with the idea of being sold, yet it was inevitable. Six months. A full half-year. And then she would go with him, to his home, to serve him in whatever capacity he desired.

  “They’ll break you down before then,” she told me once, her voice low and steady. “That’s what they do. They wear you down until you don’t remember who you were before. Until you forget that there was ever a you. It’s the only way to make you truly theirs.”

  I could only nod. What else was there to say?

  As the days passed, we talked more and more, sharing fragments of our pasts—pieces of who we were before this place had hollowed us out. I told her about my life, about the simplicity of my old job, the warmth of cooking for people who appreciated it. About the friends I had—how they had betrayed me, led me here. Ilyana spoke of her life before her capture, of the moment she was taken from her family, of the cold, unfeeling nature of the Alki who had claimed her.

  There was comfort in her presence, even if it was a strange, fleeting comfort. A brief escape from the cruelty of this place. But I couldn’t help but wonder how much of that fire within her would be left when she finally left for her master. How long could she keep resisting when she would soon be forced to belong to him completely?

  Part Two: The Training

  Another week passed, and the rhythm of the prison took on a more familiar pace. The hours bled together, each day a blur of numbing monotony. But I wasn’t as alone as I had been in the beginning. Ilyana and I had formed an unspoken bond—one forged in the shared experience of captivity. But despite the friendship that had bloomed between us, there were darker realities creeping in from the edges of our lives.

  Salazar.

  I still couldn’t avoid him. Even though my body was worn and aching from the routines of training, I could feel the eyes of the Alki on me, watching, waiting for me to break. It was clear now that the time was growing short—soon I would be sold, as Ilyana would be, and I had no idea where that would leave me.

  I had been in this prison for nearly three months. The time seemed to stretch on forever, as though the very walls were closing in on me. Every day I trained with Salazar felt like a step closer to my inevitable fate—one where I would be nothing more than an object for his amusement, his property to command as he saw fit.

  Salazar, with his cold, calculating gaze and his perfect, emotionless beauty, made sure I never forgot what I was here for. He never spoke of it directly, but it was always there. His silent reminders. His commands.

  The training was relentless. Day after day, he pushed me further, demanding more—forcing me to comply, to submit, to learn how to move as he wanted me to. There was no tenderness in his touch. No affection. Just cold, clinical precision. His hands never strayed, but they were always there, guiding, correcting, shaping me into what he wanted me to become.

  I had learned so much from him in such a short time. I had learned to be silent. To move with purpose. To be still, even in the face of my own desperation. But what terrified me the most was the fact that I was beginning to lose myself.

  The man who had come into this prison, the man who had once had pride, who had once felt anger and defiance—he was slipping away. And I could feel it. Piece by piece, I was surrendering, not just to Salazar, but to the circumstances of this place. I had become nothing more than a tool, a plaything, a prize to be won.

  And soon, I would be sold. My master would come for me. Would he be like Salazar? Would he be even worse?

  The questions tormented me as I lay in my cell that night, alone with my thoughts. There was no escaping it. No fighting it. The day would come soon, and I would be sold—just like Ilyana, just like all the others.

  But would I still be me when that day arrived?