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He ran faster than he’d ever had in his life, his focus locked intently on the black building.

And death rode behind him like a pair of wings.

30

If you stay silent for what is wrong,

you won’t be able to stand for what is right.

If misery possessed a name.

The Earth would remember Khalani Kanes.

The crumbling walls of her home were built upon grief. The uneven floors were scattered with heartbreak. And the patchy ceiling had been battered by disaster.

Behind bars, she’d fought to redefine her destiny. She wanted her story shaped not by suffering, but by her quiet lessons in forgiveness, love, and a monstrous will to defy death.

But no matter which direction she ran or how tightly she shut her eyes, ruin refused to let her escape its clutches.

Khalani’s head rolled, and her heavy eyelids stirred.

Everything hurt.

Pain was as constant as the oxygen surrounding her. She inhaled the coarse despair and sobbed softly.

Khalani lost track of how long she’d been tortured. Her arms and legs had been dissected like flayed meat by the time she blissfully passed out.

The cruelest surprise was when she first woke to find that her limbs had no deep cuts or evidence of mutilation. Her skin was smooth, almost perfect. Like the torture was only a figment of her imagination.

The first time Dr. Strauss carved illustrations into her skin like a kid with a demented crayon collection, he told her that Hermes developed a serum capable of healing wounds at a rapid rate.

So, he continued cutting her skin away, layer by layer, until all that remained were her brittle bones. And when she passed out, he’d simply wait for her to awaken, only to start all over again.

Seconds felt like weeks. Hours transitioned to decades.

She stopped talking long ago. Whenever she begged him to stop, Dr. Strauss merelygrinnedand dug the scalpel deeper into her skin.

Seth, the other doctor, stood nearby, his eyes fixed on a screen displaying strange, curved lines, as he adjusted the nodes attached to her temples and the back of her head. He remained stone-faced, even as she screamed so hard that her voice cracked, and all that escaped her mouth was a silent wave of agony.

There had to be peace. Reprieve.

But not even sleep kept her in its protective embrace.

Her eyes moved behind her eyelids as the sound of shuffling feet approached.

“Looks like our pretty subject is awake.”

No.

No!

Just let me die.

Khalani shook her head, tears slipping down her cheeks as Dr. Strauss appeared above her, holding one of his sharp, bloody instruments. She trembled as he lowered the scalpel to her knee, her body bracing for the impending agony.

BOOM.

The whole building shook and several instruments fell off the tray.