Page 5

Don’t try to fathom me, I can’t even traverse my jagged depths.

“Get your ass to the back of the line!” A man with shaggy brown hair and a few missing teeth pushed a scrawny kid to the ground.

The boy, sporting a black eye and messy hair that hadn’t seen a comb in years, stumbled to his feet.

The kid didn’t say or do anything to defend himself. He lowered his head and slowly shuffled to the back of the food line.

Khalani frowned and peered over her shoulder at the pale boy. Something about his body language and facial expression indicated that this treatment was routine for him. His eyes met hers, and she quickly snapped her head forward. A hint of guilt brushed her heart and she didn’t know why.

The food hall lay in a spacious man-made cave with high ceilings held aloft by stone pillars. All the prisoners were lined up for food, shuffling forward lethargically. A girl in front of Khalani continuously rubbed her lower back, groaning in pain.

Khalani’s back didn’t fare much better. Several guards stood posted throughout the cave, but Takeshi Steele was nowhere to be found. She was thankful for that, fearing the potential repercussions of their earlier interaction.

She slowly approached the front of the line and grabbed a green tray. A bulky woman with hair tied in a messy bun and red scabs of acne scattered over her face scooped up the “food” and dumped a clump on her tray. “Next!” the woman shouted, not sparing her another glance.

Khalani paused and leaned down to sniff the wet slab of processed meat. An odor of burnt feces emanated from the brown goo, and bile immediately crept up the back of her throat. She held her breath, suppressing waves of nausea.

A sharp, electric shock suddenly sliced through her back and she doubled over, shaking uncontrollably as white spots flashed in her vision

“Keep moving, prisoner. You’re holding up the line!” a bald guard yelled, clutching a taser with no remorse in his cruel eyes.

Her back muscles spasmed as if wrapped tight in a coil. She gritted her teeth and continued to push the tray as her fingers visibly trembled. All she had to do was keep moving.

A female worker handed her the same vitamin D supplement every Apollo citizen took daily.Shaking, she swallowed the orange pill and noticed the guard tapping the taser against his palm in sweet anticipation.

She quickly walked away, letting her brown hair fall to the side of her face in a protective curtain.

The thick strands were the only shield she had.

“You, okay?” Prisoner 189 asked, stepping to her side.

“Fine,” she muttered.

“C’mon. You can sit with me.”

“It’s okay. I’d rather be alone,” she admitted, reluctant to be close with anyone.

He lowered his head. “The prisoners like to pick on the fresh meat, especially the first day. You don’t want to eat alone. ”

She met his earnest gaze and eventually nodded, not wanting to invite any more trouble into her life.

The broad cave had no tables. All the prisoners sat on the dirty floor.

She took a deep breath, trying to ignore the ache shooting through her spine from the taser and the taxing shift.They maneuvered around people, and he led her to the far corner of the room, stomping on a giant cockroach lingering in the area.

Why did the ugliest creatures have to be the hardest ones to extinguish?

Not even the nuclear apocalypse did the trick.

“Lunch today is better than most days.” He sat down with a greedy gaze.

Khalani gave him an incredulous look and stared at the questionable meat. She quickly became cross-eyed, fantasizing over the food turning into something, anything else.

“If you stare at the meat long enough, you can actually see it move,” a girl said over Khalani’s shoulder. She turned to see the blue-haired girl from the neighboring cell.

“Serene, don’t scare her. She’s never gonna eat now.”

Serene shrugged as she sat down. “That’s fine. More for me,” she said, picking up a mouthful of the vile food.

Serene had even paler skin than the average person in Apollo. She had a tiny frame and a beautiful face, but her skin was marred with a deep scar running from the top of her nose down to her left jawline.

Serene glanced up in annoyance. “What?”

“Thanks for helping me earlier today. Not knowing where to go,” Khalani quickly explained.

Serene waved her hand in dismissal. “Don’t worry about it. The first day is the toughest. I’m Serene, by the way. You’ve met the know-it-all bastard, Derek.”

Serene gestured to Prisoner 189, who gave her a one-finger wave before returning to his meal. She nodded in greeting, her gaze reluctantly shifting to the grotesque food on her plate. Her mouth twisted, and tentatively, she grabbed the slimy food with her bare hands, since utensils weren’t provided .

Khalani tried not to breathe as she bit down, but the bitter flavor washed through her mouth, and goosebumps prickled her arms. She coughed, holding a hand to her lips, forcefully swallowing the food that tasted like vomit.

The dead cockroach might’ve been a better option.

Serene chuckled. “You’ll get used to the taste.”

She didn’t know if that was possible. Khalani was still coughing and sputtering over her food. She sounded like a dying old woman.

Derek slapped her back to stop her from hurling. “I know it sucks, but there’s actually a decent amount of protein in this. Some days they don’t give food, so you eat when you can.”

Another inmate sat down with them, placing his tray on the ground in a quick movement. He was older, in his late twenties, maybe, and his lips pinched together as he ran a frustrated hand through his ashy brown hair. He had a broader build than most prisoners, and the corded veins in his arms became more defined as he balled his fists, staring down at the plate of food like it was his worst enemy.

“What happened this time?” Serene griped.

A foreboding haze flashed over the newcomer’s eyes. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of broken glasses, placing the mangled pieces on the ground with a hostile glare.

“Damn, Adan. Again?” Serene picked up the fractured material. The frame was crushed, and the wires were twisted like a convoluted pretzel.

“It was Guard Harken. Second time this month. He said I was working too slow in my shift today when he knows full well that I’m the fastest one there,” Adan growled.

“Can you fix it?” Derek mumbled, eating his food like it was his last meal.

“Of course, I can. But it’s a wasted effort. Gonna keep happening. Give stupid people power, and they’ll abuse it as they see fit.” Adan’s expression was seething as he snatched the broken glasses from Serene’s hand and shoved them back into his pocket .

They all sat in silence, the harsh truth filling the space between them. Khalani put another rancid bite of food in her mouth to distract herself from the awkwardness. This time she didn’t nearly choke to death.

Progress.

Adan finally seemed to notice her presence as she moved.

“Who are you?” he asked, glaring at her skeptically.

She opened her mouth, but Serene beat her to the punch. “This is Khalani Kanes. First day in prison, so give her a break. She’s had enough trauma for one day. Khalani, this is my older brother, Adan.” Serene waved her hand in dismissal.

Khalani scrunched her forehead. “How do you know my name?”

“I stole the new roster sheet.” Serene shrugged. “It’s virtually impossible to steal from Takeshi Steele, but one of his new backups had his guard down too long.”

“Watch yourself, Serene.” Derek frowned. “One day, you’ll be caught, and the guards won’t hesitate to kill you.”

“Which is why I’m always careful,” she emphasized to Derek and turned back to Khalani. “So, what did you take?”

“Excuse me?”

Serene’s green eyes burned with curiosity, and she lowered her voice to a whisper. “What did you take from the Archives? All it said in your file was that you stole an artifact from the Archives, but it didn’t say what…” her voice trailed off.

At the mention of the Archives, both Derek and Adan froze as if a steel rod was shoved up their spines. “You stole something from the Archives?” Adan forcefully swallowed as he studied her in dismay.

Khalani opened her mouth but hesitated. She was already a prisoner, but Douglas’ family would still be harmed if word got out that Khalani had shared any information with them.

“I guess I’m not a very good thief, seeing as I’m down here, and all it took was a surprise inspection for them to...” Khalani paused, her pulse quickening. “I didn’t take anything important. It was just a book.” She glanced away, attempting to downgrade the interest in her story and not unravel further .

Derek shifted forward, his focus fixated on her. “What did the book say? Did it talk about Apollo or any plans with Genesis?”

“N-no. It was poetry.”

All she received were blank stares. Khalani bit her lip and tried to explain. “Um, it’s stories about life but written with passion and emotion. Poetry is…beautiful.”

They all frowned like she was speaking a different language.

“As I said, it won’t interest you, and it doesn’t even matter anymore. It’s gone now,” her voice hardened.

Derek sat back, disappointed, but something in his calculating gaze caught her attention. She couldn’t put her finger on what the shift was.

“A bunch of dead guys wrote a book on the shittiness of humanity, and they threw you in here for taking that?” Serene frowned.

“Look around, sis. Apollo was always crazy. We just became desensitized to it,” Adan mumbled in a subdued voice, throwing a piece of slumpy food back on his tray.

Desensitized. That was the perfect word for it.

She’d always been aware of the Council’s ruthless actions but never spoke out against them. She held no power or influence. Her focus was on her own survival.

Ignoring the suffering of others had become increasingly easy over time, as if her mind had been trained to tune out things that didn’t directly affect her.

Maybe that was worse.

“Why did they throw you down here?” She gestured to Serene and Adan, trying to gravitate the attention away from her.

“Before Braderhelm, Adan was one of the best mechanical engineers in Apollo’s Surface Division,” Serene divulged.

Her eyebrows rose, shifting to Adan. The Surface Division created the material and maintained the Genesis dome and the few suits that could withstand the deadly radiation.

“That’s…impressive,” she admitted.

“Yeah. What an accomplishment.” Adan snorted. “They loved me until I refused to work at the Weapon’s Lab in Genesis. ”

The lines in her forehead deepened. Anyone who turned down the chance to live in Genesis was either deranged or asinine.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Adan said, noting her incredulous gaze. “But it was hard enough knowing I was contributing all my time to the Genesis dome, a structure responsible for killing hundreds.”

“You didn’t have a choice,” Derek reminded him.

“There’s always a choice. Always.” Regret tinged his voice. “But I refused to be responsible for more deaths by building weapons for them. I turned in my resignation, and the next day, I was sentenced to Braderhelm for insubordination. And my little sister couldn’t stay home like I begged her to.” Adan’s lips pressed together in a tight line, but there was no denying the love in his wayward glance toward Serene.

“You’re my brother,” Serene stated with raw finality. Like it was all the explanation needed.

Serene turned to Khalani. “Our parents weren’t really around when we were younger, so I became quite good at stealing. It started off small—like when I took the special blue hair dye as a kid, not realizing it was permanent.” She chuckled momentarily, but then her eyes fell to the ground. “Eventually, I had to steal food and money every week just to keep us from going hungry. When they arrested Adan, I tried to break into the Master Judge’s office to steal two Genesis passes. The plan was to hide in Genesis before they transferred him to Braderhelm, but they caught me and threw me in here with him.”

“It was a stupid plan,” Adan interrupted.

“At least I had a plan!”

“Why couldn’t you just listen to me and stay home?”

“When have you ever known me to listen?” Serene derided.

“You’re a part of the female species. So never.”

Serene shook her head, turning back to Khalani. “Wouldn’t you do the same? Wouldn’t you go to the ends of the underground for your family?”

There was that word again. Family. No matter how many failures, fights, or disappointments, they were the solid foundation that was supposed to anchor you to the ground. Family could drive you crazy while restoring your sanity in the same breath.

Khalani admired the lengths Serene went to protect her brother. She was always more comfortable being alone. It was safer that way.

But an undeniable part of her longed for that bond. She would move mountains of rock to speak to her parents again, even for a second.

“My family is gone, but if they were here…there is nothing I wouldn’t do for them.” Khalani let out a rough breath and glanced away.

The silence extended, and Serene nodded in understanding. Even Adan studied her with a newfound appraisal.

“I like you, Khalani,” Serene said, breaking the tension. “We survive here by sticking together. We’ll watch out for you, too.”

A fluttery sensation settled in her stomach. Khalani had thought the “every man for himself” ideology would dominate Braderhelm Prison, but Derek, Serene, and Adan all shared something in common.

Their lives were forfeit.

The intertwined endings of their dismal fates connected them.

It wasn’t a connection she wanted, but it was there, nonetheless. If they had survived thus far, maybe there was hope for her too. The odds were infinitesimal, but not obsolete—like a still-beating heart clinging to the edge of life, not quite ready to greet the end.