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Since the dead can’t speak, I thought I’d sing for them.

“Move.” Her brutish escort shoved her with a heavy push to her back.

She stumbled forward, nearly tripping over the worn sneakers they gave her that were one size too big. They burned her clothes and forced her to change into a thin, tattered jumpsuit. The grey fabric reeked of urine, and she fought the urge to dry-heave as the repulsive scent enveloped her body.

Khalani was led into Braderhelm Prison through a gargantuan gate, protected by armed guards double her size. They wore long-sleeved, black vests and sneered at her mercilessly.

The frigid air beat against her skin, the thin fabric of her uniform offering little warmth as they descended deep into the earth. Her teeth chattered in the dark for what felt like a mile until the long tunnel opened, and the bald guard shoved her into a multi-story area of blocked cells.

She lifted her eyes to the ceiling that stretched high above her. Bright lights were attached along the stone walls, luminous and vivid, revealing hundreds of prisoners.

Braderhelm didn’t separate men from women. Both sexes peeked out from cells at the sound of their footsteps, and a dull roar crept through the immense cavern. Prisoners hollered and banged against the bars.

The pressure of a hundred eyeballs slid across her thin arms, and Khalani wanted a pit to appear under her feet and swallow her whole.

The guard beside her reached for his gun and aimed the barrel at the ceiling. Three consecutive bangs erupted from the weapon.

“Quiet down!” the guard shouted.

Silence emanated from the cells as the guard grunted, sheathing his gun. Shallow breaths pumped out of Khalani’s chest. She warily rose from her ducked position, uncovering her head. Her eyes slid to the left and made contact with a young male prisoner.

Pale hands fisted around the steel bars, and his beady eyes glared at her with blanket disdain, as if he envisioned circling his fingers around her throat and squeezing out every drop of life.

Khalani’s head shot forward, and she hurried to keep pace with the guard who led her inside an elevator. The shiny, modern interior starkly contrasted with the stone of the prison. They quickly ascended a few levels before the elevator shuddered to a halt. She followed the guard out to see a dusty sign hung overhead.

Cell Block 7.

The guard forged onward, and prisoners peeked out of their cells.

“She’s gonna go quick.”

“I’ll give her a week.”

“Less than that.”

“Long enough for her mouth to work.” Someone chuckled.

“Apollo-rat.”

A girl pushed against the bars and spat at her face. Thick saliva slid down Khalani’s cheek as the harsh words bombarded her from men and women alike.

Khalani tried to keep her facial expression as blank as possible because she couldn’t afford to show any signs of weakness, not in Braderhelm .

Inner dread and darkness continued to trail like permanent shadows with each heavy step she took.

The expressionless guard stopped at an empty cell and opened the bars for her. She walked in and found a dirty, twin-sized cot on the floor with what appeared to be vomit stains on it, and a toilet in the corner. That was it. There were no virtual windows, just a dark, decrepit cell and a musky stench that filled the air.

The guard grabbed her arms roughly and unlocked the manacles. Her fragile skin looked worse than it felt. Or maybe her body was too numb by that point to feel anything.

“Roll call begins first thing tomorrow. You’ll hear the morning bell and stand outside your cell to wait for the Captain to complete cell count. Do not sleep in during roll call, or you will be punished. Any other questions, you will ask the Captain, not me,” he said just as she was about to open her mouth and ask if there was any toilet paper.

The guard pulled a thin, metallic device from his pocket. She heard light beeping, and the frightening, razor-sharp tip glowed neon red.

“Hold out your left arm,” he commanded.

“What is that?” she whispered. The next moment, her head whipped to the side as the guard backhanded her. Her mouth opened in shock as he got right in her face.

“You do as you’re told when you’re told, prisoner. Now, hold out your arm before I break it.”

Her chest heaved up and down in rapid breaths. His ring caught the corner of her eye with the hit, and a warm trickle of blood dripped down her cheek. Her hands trembled as she slowly lifted her arm. The burly guard gripped her elbow and lowered the device to her wrist.

Her skin prickled at the immense heat as the tip neared, and she panicked. In a last bid of desperation, she tried to pull away, but the guard held firm.

Pain.

That was all she could feel as the guard touched the tip to her wrist.

No force was able to stop her screams. Her wails bounced around the walls, constricting the air around her, begging futilely for the agony to stop. But no one responded to her cries for help.

Her voice grew hoarse by the time the guard backed away, and Khalani’s eyes slid down to the bright-red number 317 branded into her skin.

“You are no longer Khalani Kanes. Khalani Kanes disappeared the moment you stepped foot in our walls. She doesn’t exist anymore. You are Prisoner 317. Fall in line, or you’ll be punished.”

Merely a number. No better than genetically bred cattle. The brutal guard left, slamming the bars shut with a resounding bang that echoed, leaving only the sound of her breath in the frigid cell. Tears streamed down her cheeks so profusely that her face would soon forget what it was like not to cry.

Was that possible?

Her back bowed as calamity and misfortune greeted and caressed her body like old friends. They kissed her face and drew the wet passage of tears further down her feeble skin.

They took away everything. Even her name.

She slid to the ground. It was cold. Hard. The only thing that was…real. Everything else was merely a dream. A nightmare from which she couldn’t escape. Slowly moving, she reached inside her pant pocket and grabbed the one personal item they let her bring. A picture of her parents.

She had long, dark hair like her mother and the green eyes of her father. She was on her dad’s shoulders, and the camera snapped when they were all laughing. The picture was taken the day before Genesis became habitable, a week before their death.

When the immense dome shielding the last surface city from lethal radiation was completed, many rejoiced at the remarkable feat of human engineering. That was, until the bodies returned. Apollo’s council had forced Braderhelm prisoners to construct the dome surrounding Genesis, and every last one of them died from radiation poisoning. Their lifeless bodies were transported through the streets to the medical ward.

She still remembered the smell .

The odor of charred skin—like it’d been melted in a pot—forced grown men to their knees in shock.

Protesters gathered in Apollo Square, crying out their dissent against the council, but they were swiftly defeated by the armed force. Bodies lay discarded in the streets, her parents among them, brutally murdered by the Apollo regime.

Khalani was only eight years old.

She didn’t eat for a week. She sat in her doorway, assuming her parents would walk through any moment and wrap her in their warm embrace. A concerned neighbor came to check on her and found a tiny, emaciated girl collapsed on the floor, still staring at the entrance.

Waiting. Hoping.

Because she didn’t understand the concept of waking up and them not being there—no kisses, no reminders to clean her room, no wiping away tears when she was afraid, no caring for her when she was sick, and no goodbye.

Her parents never returned for her, and they never would. Sometimes, she hated them for that.

But maybe it’s impossible to hate someone without loving them.

Out of the corner of her eye, a giant cockroach emerged from a minuscule hole in the stone wall. The creature wiggled its antennae and traveled along the floor. Her forehead puckered as the cockroach skirted by a piece of black chalk on the ground, half the size of her pinky.

Hours passed before she moved. Slowly, like her body weighed a thousand pounds, Khalani reached over and grabbed the chalk. Her eyes lifted to the rocky walls of her cell, marked with black dashes all over.

She didn’t have to count all the dashes to know that whoever occupied the cell before her didn’t last long. Khalani clenched the chalk tighter. She could leave something behind too. The faintest trace of energy to let the next prisoner know that she once was alive.

Khalani gazed at her parents once more before flipping the picture over on the stone floor. Maybe poetry was never meant to be calamitous. Such broken tragedies shouldn’t be breathed into existence, but it was her truth. Without a name, the only thing she had left was her voice.

Her trembling fingers slithered across the blank space as she bared her soul to no one.

You remember it

Can’t you?

The lighted whispers in the dark

When the hope in life

Wasn’t built to fall apart

You feel it

Can’t you?

The reverberations within

Collapse of dead wishes

Dreams adjourning before they begin

You hear it

Can’t you?

That silence once more

Louder than screams

Hearts dying like mine has before

You realize it

Can’t you?

Loss starts with your first breath

Either accept defeat with smeared eyes

Or smile when you encounter death