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~Lira's POV
I woke up in the cell feeling like the walls were pressing down on me. The iron bars, the cold concrete floor, the smell of disinfectant and despair, it all hit me at once. My hands were cuffed to the railing for the night; I had thrashed too much yesterday when they brought me here. I didn't sleep. I couldn't. My mind kept replaying the courtroom, the gavel, the verdict: forty years. Forty years.
Forty years.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to claw my way out. I wanted to rip everything apart and yell, "No! This isn't real!" over and over until someone, anyone, believed me. But no one would. The guards didn't care, the walls didn't care, and the truth… the truth was a knife twisting in my chest. They told me I had attempted murder. Attempted rape. All of it. And for a moment, I almost couldn't breathe.
