Page 9 of Enslak

Sometimes I thought about testing it. Seeing if the stories were true.

But I never quite worked up the nerve. Survival instinct. Or just habit.

I traced the seam where the collar locked.

Smooth. Seamless. Permanent.

It would never come off.

The certainty settled over me like a weight. Not heavy. Not crushing. Just there. A fact, like the stone walls or the pain in my shoulder or the way my claws clicked against the floor when I moved.

I would die in this cell.

Eventually, when I got too slow or too damaged, or when they got bored of watching me fight, they'd trigger the collar, or pit me against something I couldn't kill, or just stop feeding me.

It didn't matter how. The end was the same.

I waited for the fear. For the despair.

For something.

Nothing came.

Just acceptance. Quiet and complete. This was my life. This was my death. There was nothing else. Nothing before—or if there was, I couldn't remember it clearly enough for it to matter. Nothing after except the explosion or the darkness or whatever came when things stopped.

I lay down on the sleeping platform, my body curling automatically into a position that protected my vital organs. Another habit. Another instinct that refused to die.

Sleep was dangerous here. The guards sometimes came while I slept, dragging me to the medical bay for more modifications, more improvements, more ways to make me better at killing.

But I was tired.

So tired. The kind of tired that lived in bones and blood and the spaces between thoughts.

My eyes closed.

Somewhere in the darkness behind them, something stirred. A memory? A dream? I couldn't tell anymore. There was light—gold and warm and familiar. There were voices speaking a language that felt like home, even though I couldn't understand the words. There were faces I should know, names I should remember.

There was a feeling. Something that wasn't pain or hunger or the dull acceptance of my fate.

What was it called?

Hope?

No. That wasn't right. Hope was for beings who had futures. Hope was for beings who could still be saved.

I was neither of those things.

The feeling faded, slipping back into the darkness where all the lost things went. My breathing slowed. My body relaxed despite the pain. Sleep pulled at me with heavy hands.

Tomorrow there would be another fight. Another creature. Another chance to die or to kill.

It didn't matter which.

I touched the collar one more time, my fingers finding the cold metal in the dark.

Still there. Still locked. Still waiting.

Always waiting.