Still no sound.
A second screen lights up beside the first. This one shows my brain activity, glowing patterns mapping stress, rage, restraint.
“Emotional escalation detected,” the voice observes. “Absence of vocalisation noted. Interesting.”
I don’t look at the screen.
I close my eyes.
I go somewhere else.
I count. Not numbers. Breaths. Heartbeats. The spaces between pulses. I break my body down into systems, isolate the ones misfiring, wall them off.
They want a spectacle.
I give them nothing.
The tremor stabilises – not gone, but predictable. I adapt to it, letting it exist without fighting every movement. Fighting wastes energy.
The voice pauses.
They don’t like adaptation.
“Introduce restraint variation,” it says.
The cuffs shift.
Not loosening. Never that.
They rotate.
My shoulders scream as the angle changes, muscles stretched into new, unfamiliar alignments. Pain flares, bright and sharp, stealing breath despite my control.
This time my throat tightens hard enough that a sound almost escapes.
Almost.
I swallow it.
Sweat beads at my temples, trickling down my neck. My vision blurs for a moment, then clears as adrenaline compensates.
The voice is closer now. I can feel presence behind me, though I still can’t see whoever’s speaking.
“You are accustomed to using force,” it says. “You are accustomed to control. What happens when both are removed?”
My lips curl back from my teeth.
What happens is this: I learn.
The restraints creak softly as I shift my weight down, not up. I stop fighting the suspension and let my body hang more fully,redistributing strain away from my shoulders, into my core, my legs.
It hurts differently.
But it hurts better.
The tremor lessens as my arms take less active load.
The screens flicker as my metrics change.
