Page 15 of Craze

“You self-righteous dreg. Morals won’t save you out here. Only the strongest and smartest survive.” Rochir kicks me in the leg. “Now shut up and warm up those hands of yours. I’ll be back later.”

A wave of pain curls through my right thigh. I absorb it, memorize it, let it linger so I can use it one day when I return the favor.

“Maybe I’ll burn out your eyes again for fun,” he simpers as the guard opens my cell.

I can’t help myself. “At least I’d be spared having to look at your fugly face, or worse, that pathetic prick you call a dick.”

“I should cut out your tongue as well.” Rochir stuffs a rubber gag bit in my mouth, then lifts me by the strap around my head. It’s excruciating, but all I can think about is how vulnerablehisbits are.

I grin through the pain and knee him with everything I have. Something about the power in the new splay has made me feel daring.

Rochir drops me. Before the guard can collect me, I scramble into my cell.

The guard swears as Rochir turns deep green in the face.

My door slams. I claw the bit off of my head and fling it aside.

Rochir finally gets up and hobbles to my cell window. “That was your last mistake.”

He cranks up the reverberating panels that make my mind shudder and my heart stutter under the compression waves.

My nightly torture begins.

I tuck myself in a corner and cover my head. Between my father’s screamo music and my mother’s incessant communication feed in our hideout on Herebus, I learned to withdraw. Once again, I hide inside my mind, block out the buzzing mayhem, and accept that the rumble in my chest and brain are normal. The darkness is everywhere like it was back then.

This is okay. This is my life. I must find comfort in pain.

What does this pain teach you?My mother would always ask me when I was hurt, when the blindness became infuriating.Did you make a mistake you can prevent? If not, are you able to tolerate something new because of this experience?

I inhale a choppy breath under restrained sobs, not wanting to waste energy or precious hydration. I must save my tears for when I need saline to clean my wounds.

Sometimes, pain is just pain, and all I learn is that I can take it this time. I’ll survive. It’s miserable but I’m determined not to let Rochir win.

Rochir’s voice is muffled through my filter.

“Imma make you fucking pay, bitch!”

I open my eyes in the darkness.One day—I envision Rochir disintegrating from his crotch outward.Imma make—you—fucking pay.

Bitch.

The ship’s Ice Shield shuts off. I know by the blue filter that fades from the starlight. I plug my ears in the growing drone and curl up in the corner. To any average person, I’d look insane. But I’m coping how I can so I live to see the day I fill Sevrin and Rochir’s worlds with pain—as much as I can render them.

I pretend I’m in my idyllic dreamland far away. All of my friends and family are with me, alive and living in a terraformed utopia. And Titans are everywhere.

I pretend they are the beings I saw on the holovids: strong protectors, respected guardians of us weaker species, with integrity, kindness, and genuine smiles, not the twisted kind I always get from every Solcrue on this ship.

But they really were out there.

The image of the ones falling to the surface comes back to me. We still haven’t left orbit.

I get onto my stomach and crawl with my fingers in my ears to the little window that looks out at the life-sucking vastness of space. Slowly, I get myself to my feet and make myself look out across the fields of Hyperion.

Pellucid>>Local: Hello? Can anyone hear me?

I will survive another day. Then I will focus on the next.

Hundreds of Titans are free.

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