The screaming starts before my eyes open.
Not pleas for mercy. Not cries for help. These are raw, gurgling wails—the sound of someone drowning in their own blood, each breath a losing battle against a body being carved apart piece by piece.
I keep my eyes closed. Count to ten. Force my breathing steady.
When I finally look, the world sharpens into a nightmare of surgical steel and rust-red walls. I'm strapped to a chair—thick leather restraints around my wrists, ankles, chest. The metal is cold against my skin, and my shirt is torn at the shoulder. How long was I out?
The screaming comes from across the room.
A man is strapped to a tilted table, chest heaving, eyes wild with terror. Still alive. Too alive. Standing over him is someone in a blood-slick coat, gloved hands moving with surgical precision. The blade slides between ribs with a wet sound that makes my stomach lurch.
I've seen death before. Quick deaths. Necessary deaths. But this—
The victim's body jerks against the straps as something tears free with a wet plop. A kidney, dark and glistening, drops into a metal tray. The man's wail cracks into a broken whimper.
"Slower," says a voice behind me.
I turn my head as much as the restraints allow. The supervisor stands there—younger than I expected, maybe mid-twenties, with the kind of crisp white coat that still smells like starch. The Academy's logo is embroidered on the pocket: a black ring with three broken chains. His hands shake as he adjusts his glasses.
"Nonpayers get the long lesson," he continues, voice steady but his fingers twitching. "Every cut's a reminder of what happens when you forget your obligations."
The words hit me like ice water. *My* obligations. *My* missed payment.
"Subject 42-C," a terminal crackles from somewhere in the room. "Payment overdue: 12,400 Zen. Status: Flagged. Warning issued."
42-C. That's me. Kairo Vex, Class C, one year survived, one payment missed. The only Class C newbie stupid enough to slip up.
But the man on the table isn't me. He's just some stranger, screaming for debts that aren't his. A prop in my education.
The supervisor catches me looking and steps closer. His breath smells like coffee and antiseptic. "Lucky you, kid. Only Class C to survive a year without losing a piece. This is your reward."
Reward. The word burns in my throat.
"Watch," he says, gesturing to the table. "Learn."
I watch. I learn. I memorize every line of his face, every nervous tic, every tremor in his hands. Not because I want to—because I have to. Because in this place, information is survival, and the man giving me nightmares might be useful later.
The stranger's eyes find mine across the room. They're brown, ordinary, human. They plead without words: *help me, save me, end this*.
I look away.
The cutting continues. The screaming fades to whimpers, then to nothing. The supervisor wipes his hands on a towel, leaving red streaks on white cloth.
"Payment due in seventy-two hours," he says, not looking at me. "Full amount. No extensions."
The restraints click open with a mechanical hiss. I don't move immediately—can't, with my legs shaking and my stomach threatening to empty itself on the floor. But I force myself upright, force my face into the blank mask I've perfected over the past year.
No flinch. No weakness. Not here.
"Understood," I manage.
The supervisor's smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Good. Clean yourself up. You smell like fear."
---
They dump me behind a chemical plant in Sector 12. Barefoot, shirt torn, the stench of blood and antiseptic still clinging to my skin. The night air tastes like rust and oil, neon signs flickering over streets that hum with delivery drones and the distant sound of traffic.
I don't look back at the building. I just walk.
My legs shake for the first two blocks. By the third, I've locked it down—the tremor in my hands, the sick feeling in my gut, the image of brown eyes pleading for help I couldn't give. I pack it away with all the other horrors, seal it tight, and keep moving.
Sector 12 at night is a maze of narrow alleys and towering hab-blocks, everything covered in a thin layer of industrial grime. Steam rises from manholes, and holographic advertisements flicker between languages I don't recognize. The crowds are sparse this late—night shift workers heading home, addicts looking for their next fix, people like me who live in the spaces between legal and illegal.
I keep my head down and my pace steady. Just another nobody in a city full of them.
Home is a 5-square-meter hole above a fake sushi bar called "Authentic Taste." The sign flickers between Japanese characters I can't read and English I wish I couldn't. The food is synthetic, the fish is lab-grown, and the authenticity is as real as the Academy's promises of freedom.
I climb the external fire escape, my bare feet silent on the metal grating. The door to my apartment is secured with three different locks—paranoia learned the hard way. Inside, the space is exactly what 800 Zen a month buys you: a bed, a desk, a sink, and a cracked mirror that makes everything look broken.
I catch my reflection and stop.
My face is pale, eyes too wide, a thin line of dried blood on my cheek from where the restraints rubbed. I look like a victim. Like someone who's just watched a man die and done nothing to stop it.
The face in the mirror disgusts me.
I strip off my torn shirt and drop it in the corner. My torso is a map of fading scars—knife wounds, burns, the occasional bullet graze. Souvenirs from a year of staying alive in Class C. Most are nearly healed now, just thin white lines against pale skin.
Another perk of being a freak.
I splash cold water on my face, wash the blood from my cheek, and try not to think about the stranger's eyes. Try not to think about the supervisor's smile or the sound of the blade sliding between ribs.
Try not to think about the fact that I have seventy-two hours to find 12,400 Zen, or I'll be the one on that table.
The water runs red down the drain, and I watch it spiral away like everything else I can't control.
Outside, the city hums with its endless rhythm of survival. Inside, I count the hours until my next payment is due and try to forget the sound of screaming.
I fail at both.