Orientation

We sat there in silence a little longer, surrounded by the dull clang of trays and the whispers of inmates who had long since stopped caring whether they were heard.

Then she glanced at the ceiling, lips tightening. “Five minutes.”

“For what?”

“You’ll see.”

I didn’t like that answer. I liked it even less when the lights flickered. They didn't turn off, just dimmed slightly, as if the world itself was holding its breath.

Aeris jolted up. Without so much as glancing at me, she said, “Don’t stay behind. The guards don’t like stragglers.”

I followed her out of the cafeteria, into a hallway that hadn’t been there before.

It curved left, then right, and then impossibly downward. The descent was subtle but wrong. The angles didn’t add up. Gravity itself seemed confused. The walls pulsed despite remaining perfectly still.

And just when I thought we were headed underground, we emerged into what I can only describe as a chamber with no ceiling, unless you're the type to count the sky.

The walls stretched up and up, black stone etched with ever-moving script. They flickered as if lit by an unseen fire. High above, where architecture met impossibility, massive statues loomed, eight of them, carved from the same dark stone, but alive in a way I didn’t want to believe.

The crowd sat in bleachers, quiet and reverent. Aeris, who had been beside me, was now off to the side, elevated in the shadows, looking down with something like sorrow in her eyes.

Then the statues stirred.

Not their limbs, not their mouths. But their eyes. One by one they flared to life. Brilliant, colorless light blazed from their sockets like distant stars staring down at me. And when they spoke, their mouths never moved. The sound bypassed the air, bypassed the ear. It resonated straight into my skull.

“Inmate Akito.”

The name tore through me. Not with volume, but with certainty. It peeled something open inside me.

I stepped forward without realizing it.

“Classification: Fractured.”

The word rang louder than the others. Not in volume, but in meaning. A single, perfect cut through the fog. Around me, a few heads turned. Some in curiosity. Others in fear.

“Role: Custodian.”

As the word was declared, a column of violet light descended. I didn’t feel heat or cold. I just felt seen. Like the light wasn’t scanning me, it was remembering me.

When it vanished, my bracelet had changed. Silver. Seamless. A single, rotating eye now etched into its surface. Identical to Aeris’s.

“You will be assigned to Reflection Duty.”

“Compliance is mandatory.”

“Memory is provisional.”

Then, without warning, my view shifted. I was looking down from above, from where the statues watched. The crowd below looked small and motionless. 

Then I blinked, and I was back. Next to Aeris. Sitting. My pulse trying to catch up.

“Same as me,” she said, quiet and withdrawn.

“What does that mean?” I asked, still shaken. “I thought you said your sentence wasn’t so bad.”

“It means you’re unstable,” she replied. “But it also means you’re useful. The prison adapts to every inmate, Fractured minds especially. That’s why everyone has to attend orientation, it's a soft reset. The prison reorders itself depending on who arrives.”

I looked around at the bleachers while she spoke. Some were schoolyard benches. Others were ancient stadium tiers, or molded from bone, or riveted steel. A patchwork of times and places, stitched into one structure. And somehow, it all made sense.

“What’s so special about Fractured minds?” I asked, trying not to sound lost.

“People like us don’t know what we did wrong. Or we remember the wrong version. That uncertainty, the confusion, the prison uses it. Our minds open doors others can’t see.”

She offered a faint smile. “But don’t worry. Custodians don’t work every day. You’ll get bored before you get hurt.”

“And what exactly do we do?” I asked. “Besides... exist strangely?”

She paused. “We walk the parts of the prison that shouldn’t exist. Clean the places the structure can’t reach. We sweep up memories that no longer fit, or maybe never did. That’s Reflection Duty.”

“So we’re janitors... of the mind?”

“Of minds, histories, guilt... anything the prison forgets. Or remembers too well.” She gently tapped her bracelet. “When something stirs, something broken, we’re sent first.”

I felt cold. “That doesn’t sound boring.”

She laughed once, but it didn’t last. “Well, not always.”

She went on, describing other roles Fractured inmates might receive. Historians, who record changes to the Halls before they shift again. Architects, who stabilize zones that collapse too frequently. And Gladiators, who do... something no one talks about apparently. She didn’t dwell on them much.

Then, a high-pitched chime filled the chamber. Not musical. Not technological. Just a sound that meant everything should stop.

Every head turned to a glowing orb in the center.

And beneath it, standing at the center of the room, were two figures.

Neither had been there a moment ago. Not even a blink ago.

The first, a thing of shadows. It had no face, no shape, not really. It flickered around the edges like memory being erased in real time. It leaned close to the orb and whispered something none of us could hear.

Then the statues’ eyes went dark.

For a single breath, the entire chamber was nothing but void.

When the light returned, the figure was gone.

Gone. Not vanished. Erased.

No one reacted. No one spoke. No one looked concerned. The second figure simply walked away into a corridor as if the person it once stood beside had never existed.

“Wasn’t there - ”

Aeris grabbed my wrist with sudden force. Her eyes burned with warning. “Don’t ask.”

“But - ”

She let go just as quickly, embarrassment flashing across her face. Then, softer, “Please. Not here.”

She didn’t look at me when she spoke next. “The prison only remembers through us. If you forget the wrong thing... or remember it too clearly... it starts to shift.”

Her voice trembled on the last word.

“You mean it watches us?” I asked, even though I already suspected the answer.

She shook her head. “No. It’s not watching. It’s learning.”

I tried to imagine what a prison learns, and why it would need to, but all I could think about was the blank spot where the shadow had been. It wasn’t the presence that haunted me. It was the absence. Like a hole punched in time. A shape of memory removed so thoroughly that even my thoughts bent around it.

Aeris saw my expression.

“I know,” she whispered. “You’re not supposed to notice. But if you do...”

She didn’t finish.

Instead, she pulled a folded cloth from her sleeve, old and stained with ink. With a soft glow from her fingernail, she drew something on it.

“I sketch the things I remember,” she said. “Just the feeling. As long as you don’t try for detail, the prison lets it slide.”

I looked over her shoulder to see what she was doing. There in the middle of the cloth was a silhouette. No face. No shape. Just a smudge of shadows and faint colors that shouldn’t exist.

But I knew exactly what it was.

And I knew this wouldn’t be the last time I saw something the world refused to keep.