9 | Depths of Despair

2025

Ally woke up in a cell with a massive headache. She tried to remember what happened previously, but the pounding sensation in the front of her head blurred a lot of the details.

Daisy.

Her eyes flew open and she sat up—an act that only worsened her headaches. Ally closed her eyes and thought back, and when it finally sat in her heart sank. She remembered the raid. She remembered the kidnapping. She remembered being separated from Daisy—from the others taking Elaine to…

To…

Bile rose until it triggered her gag reflex and she bent over the side of the cot she'd woken up on. She empties what little food remained and it burns the back of her throat. She grips the edge of the cot and lets out a soft cry. Tears sting her eyes and after ten minutes of letting everything out she finally feels hollow. She exerts it all and finally looked around her surroundings.

The walls around her were a white stone. A solitary door sat on the side opposite where she was sitting. She looked down at herself and found that she was sitting on a cot nailed crudely up to the wall. It sent a cold chill up her spine and it took her a few seconds to stand up, the fear threatening to send her crumpling to the floor.

Jace...I need you. Please, just say something dumb or lovable or anything. I'm all alone here.

She stumbles over toward the door, gripping the handle with enough force to keep her up. Twisting, she opens it and peeks out into the hallway.

She steps out and her feet fall across the frozen floor. It chills her to her core. Her tentative steps echo through the elongated hall with zero evidence of anyone else ever having existed there. She took a few more steps forward before reaching the door at the end of the hall. There is nothing between her and the way forward, so she clasps her hand around the knob and swings the door open.

She enters into a wide open space with a high ceiling and machines lining the ground. At each of the machines stood groups of what look to be kids and younger girls. With the exception of one head that rises to meet her gaze, the large majority either don't notice or don't care about her appearance.

"Daisy!" Ally calls out as she took a step down one of the steps. Daisy looked to move but one of the women next to her pulled her back down.

As soon as Ally made contact with the ground a powerful surge coursed through her body and her neck grew white hot. The feeling in her legs go numb. She crumples to the floor and she is only able to stare up at the people working the machines like nothing strange had happened. She hears Daisy call out for her, but she's promptly quieted by one of the women who is next to her.

Ally becomes immediately aware of the collar clipped tight around her neck—how easily she ignored it when she woke up. It was a shock collar. She tried moving her arms to maneuver up, but the signal had been cut. She craned her neck up to see the others staring at her out of the corner of their eyes. After it was clear that she wasn't going to be able to move she lets her face fall and she exhales.

Two thick arms yank her up from behind and she almost falls backward from the force.

"What're ya doing out of your zone?" A rough voice barks in her ear.

She flinches as his warm breath reached her neck. "I...I don't know...I—"

She's thrown back down to the floor and another shock rings through her body as she made contact. She gives off a whimpering sound.

"The right answer is being a snoopy lil cunt, ain't it?" He saunters down the steps and scoops her up by an arm, again. "No, today's yer initiation into the mill, ain't it?"

Ally manages to catch a glimpse at her captor's wild complexion. Ruined teeth being the first thing to catch her eye, but she could have sworn he was missing an eye too.

"Don't worry about the others there," he shoves her forward without letting her go like she were an extension of his arm. "They've already gone through the ringer with us. We like to spend a good long time on each worker to make sure our," he pulled her real closely to his body, "lessons sink in," and then he yanks her out of the room. "Come now, little bird. Ain't got a name so that's what I'll call ya. Mind?" he laughed.

She did mind, but knew that voicing her opinion would only lead to more pain.

"Listen, back here is your cell. Get faintly acquainted with it? Hope so. It's going to be your home for the next..." he trailed off as if to be doing genuine math in his head. "Well, it's going to be a real long time. Til you die or we no longer need you, whichever comes first." He flashed an ugly grin. "You weren't supposed to get out so early, lil bird." He threw her back into the cell and stepped in behind her. "Y'see, that's a bit our fault. We're still getting used to the new facility. Teach had got us on a new campus, you like?"

When she didn't respond a look of fury crossed his face and he slammed the back of his hand against her face. "Answer."

"I...don't," she said, wiping the blood from where her lip was bleeding.

"Honest, I can accept that." He said. "We'll be fixing up the timings, but normally when you get out you'll be taking the left, instead of the right. You are under no circumstances to go back to that right room."

"Why not?"

"Well we can't very well let you interact with that other little girl you were grabbed with, can we?" The man said, bending to her level. "You've been assigned to different departments. We're not stupid. We break up any sort of bonds right away, and if new ones form here, we break those up too. We've all seen the movies on how you runts escape places like this. Your job is going to be working F wing."

"What does that mean?"

"You're in weapons development, lil bird," he said, and when he saw the ideas flashing across her face he smiled again. "Oh, you're not going to be handling anything remotely dangerous, love. Do you think we'd arm the lot of you, or put you in a position where you could arm yourselves? You'd have to be hopping mad. You're simply making carrying cases. Although, if you could stage a rebellion with that I'd love to watch that from the front row."He starts to laugh and pushes her to her back with an air of carelessness with his metal boot. "Try not to die on us, all right? Wouldn't want to have to track you in the afterlife to drag your ass back."

He locked the door behind him and left her to stew about with her thoughts. She thought back to watching the other woman sitting Daisy down after she had recognized her—how broken the other women must be that the events that just happened don't even get a batting of an eye.

When she was sure she was alone she lie down on her back and let the tears loose as she held her sleeve over her mouth to stop the bleeding.

2027

Ally was now nineteen as she woke up in the same cell she had been waking up every day for the past two years in. Her schedule had drained her of everything that wasn't absolutely essential for the crafting of carrying cases for weapons from some other far off development facility. She sat in a daze as her internal clock had told her she had a few minutes before her cell would unlock and she would move to her wing for the day's endless menial tasked before she was served the same barely passable food that she'd inevitably end up throwing up back in her cell. The smell of the past week's slop was starting to get overbearing—the soldiers outside only cleaned it out when it was absolutely necessary, and hers was just cleaned out last month.

She's tried to kill herself numerous times since becoming a slave here. It turned out, the soldiers are extremely efficient at thwarting suicide attempts with a frightening speed and accuracy. It certainly wasn't for a lack of effort that she still woke on the mortal coil, attached at the roots.

It became clear after a year and a half that she was not going to be able to take the easy way out of the facility. So, she had been planning other means. She was studying every soldier's schedule down to the minute, studying the exact movements of the other slaves around her, and even studying the common trends of mistakes that cropped up regarding the technology in the facility and even with the staff.

The soldier that had come to meet her on that day two years ago—named Brandon—had mentioned that they were going to be fixing the technology that released the slaves to their wings—that it shouldn't have opened during the P wing's work hour. He was partially right—it turned out that they were able to fix it—for a time.

The thing that they never seemed to understand was that it was a pretty consistent issue—you just had to notice the pattern.

It wasn't common enough to their eyes to keep enough attention on, but Ally paid real close to how often it really did happen. She never made the mistake to go out into the other wing—she was sure that the punishment for that would only increase exponentially from the last time, but it was very interesting to note that it seemed that at the start of the new month the electronics seemed to just...act up.

The doors opening were all set on timers set by Teach—he was the head of this specific facility. No door was supposed to even so much as budge without his explicit authorization. With the timers, he was allowed to automate his express permission.

The rub comes in with how time seems to destabilize nowadays. It didn't use to happen, but ever since...at least 2026 there have been small distortions with time. She started to notice small hiccups where it almost feels like her soul leaves her body—like everything delays for just a moment. It was almost like the feeling left by adrenaline, but focused right in the chest.

She doesn't believe the others have noticed it yet—or at least, if they have, they haven't noticed the patterns.

It disrupts the timers. That slight second delay adds up over the course of a month. She couldn't say how many times a day it happens—some days it didn't happen at all, but by the month's beginning it seemed to catch up with itself, and then one day, the door opens on the wrong hour. There is nothing in the system that shows anything is faulty—it just...is.

She isn't sure how it only affects her door—that part would have to be chalked to guesswork, but there might be something to the physical location having a greater effect with the distortions.

Whatever the case may have been, she could accurately predict when the next disruption would happen to her own door...because that moment was—

click

Now.

She bounced up from the bed and sprang onto action—practically slipping through the door frame and booking it toward the right turn that led to the room where she had previously made it to. One thing she made sure to study was how the electrical sensors worked in the collars they wore. In her wing, there were strict boundaries that they were forbidden from reaching to—the half of the room that led to a third wing she had never seen anybody from was completely off limits, as largely there was very little stopping someone from reaching the wing if they made it that far, hence the wiring on the floor she had missed the first time around. That was why she got stunned and paralyzed the first time—because she was on forbidden ground in P wing, as it led directly to her cell and then F wing.

She had taken notice of exactly how far the wiring stretched out in her wing and could then approximate how far she'd have to jump to clear it completely—it'd be like she was a P wing worker in everything but name.

She'd have a limited window where she could secure a weapon—since the other workers would be chained down to the table like she was normally—unfortunately, this would mean that she would be unable to rescue Daisy in her efforts.

She thought long and hard about trying to work Daisy into her escape plans, but every plan she could think of ended with her recapture and possible torture for the both of them. They wouldn't be killed because they were necessary, but they sure as hell could be brought as close as possible, and she couldn't imagine that kind of punishment—much less for Daisy.

So, she had decided she'd have to come back with reinforcements—but it would have to be at a future time.

It was possible that she would incite discipline against Daisy if they thought she was in league with Ally, but out of every outcome it was the one with the highest chance of securing safety. She couldn't worry about that risk.

She threw the door open to P wing and slammed face first into the chest of a soldier grinning viciously. His look turned to surprise when she ended up tackling him down to the ground. The electric current coursed through Ally's body and she screamed—it was much worse than the last time…

"Don't just stand around you fucking idiots, grab her!" The soldier who had fallen—Marshall—yelled.

"H...how..." Ally forced out, trying her hardest to look behind her. She couldn't even move her head—her entire body was numb.

"Ha, your little friend told on you. Said she heard you were planning on escaping. Gave us the tip off," Baxter beside her laughs.

Her eyes darted up to Daisy, who through everything looked at Ally with a hurt look in her eyes.

How...could she have known?

"She told us about your little scheme with the doors—tipped us off that it might set off again, and then we started to think...it is so weird that it only goes off in front of your door, ain't it?"

Ally couldn't answer, and so Baxter pushed her face into the ground more with his foot.

"Seems like you might have been planning an escape from us for a very long time, how desperate does one have to be to put their faith in failing technology, I wonder?"

Ally made a sound of discomfort, but shrieked out as she was kicked hard in the stomach.

"I think it's best we make an example out of you right here and now," he said. "Before Teach—"

"Before Teach...what, exactly?" A deep voice booms from the other side of the room.

Everyone stopped in silence and looked up at the muscular man whose face was half covered by a beard so thick it could be mistaken for a friendly family member's. But it was the furthest thing from the truth.

Teach was a lot different than the other soldiers here—he most likely was a soldier in the before world. He had a posture about him that commanded respect. He wasn't brash, but that didn't mean he wasn't cruel. A controlled chaos.

"You are to bring the prisoner to the whipping bay and commence usual procedure," Teach said.

"I was just thinking—" Baxter began.

"I am not hearing any arguments on the matter. She'll get enough on the whipping block. Dismissed."

Baxter, now disappointed he wasn't going to have his way with her, looked down, disgusted at Ally. He could tell Baxter had been waiting for some time for his moment—long seemed gone where the soldiers were free to fuck whoever they pleased, and, as she overheard one of the soldiers saying one time "pickings were slim".

She made a deal with herself that if any of them ever touched her like that she would attack immediately and do whatever it took to prevent it. Even if it killed her—it would be a saving grace.

Baxter kicked her a second time and then picked her up by an arm, while Brandon grabbed her other one. They led her through the workroom to the other side, where she passed by Daisy's station.

Ally gave a defeated look to the girl and then moved along, being led by the two brutes. This, she prayed, might very well be where she can finally, finally be allowed to give up.