The stick felt heavier than it should have. Lina's hand trembled as she held it, staring at the pale back of the woman embedded in the cave wall. The skin was smooth, twitching slightly under the flickering light of the torches. It almost didn't feel real. But the timer above the video screen was ticking, every second pulling her closer to a decision she never wanted to make.
Seraina stood behind her, still stunned. "Lina...… wait. We don't know who she is. We don't know what this is. Maybe it's a trick..."
But Lina wasn't listening. On the screen, her mother writhed, tied inside a glass tank filling slowly with water. Her eyes were wide, pleading. Her lips moved without sound, screaming through the silence.
"Scream," Lina whispered, raising the stick. "Please, just scream…..... I'm sorry."
The stick came down with a thud. The woman's back twitched. Nothing.
Another strike. Then another. Then a fourth.
Seraina's voice cracked. "Lina..."
"I SAID SCREAM!" Lina shouted, her voice breaking. She was sobbing now, blindly swinging. The soft stick left red welts across the stranger's back. A pale canvas slowly being painted with violence. The woman didn't scream. She didn't move. Just soft flinches and silent breaths.
Lina dropped the stick with a clatter and started hitting with her bare hands. Open palms, then fists. Her knuckles scraped against bone. The woman's back glistened with sweat and blood. Seraina stared in horror, until Lina's legs buckled.
"I can't...… I can't lose her, she's all I have."
That broke something in Seraina. She grabbed Lina and held her close, letting her cry into her shoulder. Then she looked at the back again, jaw tightening.
"Let me try," she whispered.
Together, they struck again. The three minutes felt eternal. But on the other side of the wall...
Noemie's head was thrown back. Her back ..... the same pale back ..... was pressed against rough stone. Blood ran in rivulets, her lips chewed raw as she bit down every impulse to scream. Her wrists were bound above her head, her feet barely touching the ground. Across from her, Annelise was tied the same way.
But Annelise could move her head, and she could see Noemie's face.
"Noemie," she whispered, voice hoarse. "Don't. Don't scream. You'll kill them."
"I know," Noemie mouthed. Her eyes filled with tears as another strike landed.
The pain from the soft stick was bearable. But when it was fists .... her friends' fists .... it cut deeper than any blade. Her mind was splintering.
Then came the real terror.
On the wall beside her, a gun appeared. A sleek, black device — the ADS. An injector that overloaded nerves.
Lina picked it up, hand shaking.
Seraina: "Lina....no. That's....."
"She's not screaming. I have to do something."
She fired.
Noemie's entire body seized.
It was as if fire crawled into her spine. Her mouth opened, the scream rising ..... but just as it was about to erupt, Annelise reached forward, breaking the skin on her own wrists as she forced her head forward and kissed her.
It wasn't gentle. It was desperate. It was survival.
Noemie screamed into Annelise's mouth, the sound muffled. Blood mixed between their lips.
The timer above the tank blinked: 00:00.
The three minute passed, and the silence hit like a thunderclap. Lina stood frozen, the gun trembling in her hand, her breath shallow and ragged. "No," she whispered, her body shaking as the horror sank in. She turned, desperate to flee, to escape the nightmare she had just unleashed, but Seraina gripped her arm. "We can't leave her like this," Seraina said, her voice breaking as they both watched the screen flicker.
Lina's heart shattered as she saw her mother, struggling, gasping for air, her life slipping away, each breath a painful fight. It was too much. The pain of Noemie and Annelise were nothing compared to this. She had failed. And now, the price was too high.