Chapter 10:
HITLESS - GIRL DESERVE TO DIE
I had rehearsed this moment for so long that when it came, it didn’t feel real.
For weeks—maybe months—I’d lived inside simulations. Mental maps. Seven-second static windows, latch sounds, footsteps, the rhythm of captivity carved into my brain like scars. Every breath, every heartbeat, preparing for one thing:
Escape.
And then… the door opened.
Not a flap. Not a slit.
The whole door.
No warning. No static hum. Just the slow groan of metal unsealing from its frame.
I froze. The shard in my hand slick with sweat. For the first time in fifteen years, air touched me—air from somewhere else. Air that didn’t taste recycled. It carried something alien, something forgotten: the faint musk of rain-soaked asphalt. City air.
Then hands.
Not one. Not two. Four. Five. Grabbing my arms, pinning me before instinct could ignite. My body twisted, a snake striking—but I wasn’t fast enough. They moved like phantoms, precision drilled into their bones. Shadows in masks. Always masks.
The shard clattered to the floor like the sound of defeat.
Something cold wrapped around my head—a blindfold. Darkness again. My world collapsed into scent and sound.
The hiss of a syringe.
A sting in my neck.
“Wait—” My voice cracked, dry as broken glass. The first word I’d spoken in days. The last thing they allowed.
Then the world sank into black tar, and I drowned in it.
---
Consciousness returned like broken glass in the bloodstream.
Pain first. Then weight. Then the pressure. My arms pinned tight against my sides. My legs curled awkwardly, muscles screaming.
I tried to move. Couldn’t.
I opened my eyes to nothing but black.
Not because of the blindfold—I felt the fabric gone—but because there was no light.
And then it hit me: the texture against my cheek. The faint synthetic smell. Padded walls brushing my shoulders and knees.
I wasn’t lying on a bed.
I was packed.
Enclosed. Smothered by fabric on all sides, soft yet unyielding. Like the belly of a coffin.
My pulse slammed against my skull as the truth sliced through me like a blade.
A suitcase. I’m inside a suitcase.
---
Panic detonated.
Every instinct screamed to thrash, to claw, to shred my way out—but there was no space, no leverage. My fists thudded against the walls of my prison with the sound of futility. My lungs heaved, dragging air that felt thinner by the second.
“Stop,” I hissed to myself. “Breathe. Breathe, damn it.”
The darkness was alive with sound now. Low vibrations. The muted thump of footsteps. The distant roar of traffic. A car horn stabbing through the void. Rain pattering somewhere beyond, steady as a funeral drum.
I’m outside.
After fifteen years of steel walls and recycled air, the world was out there—so close I could taste the petrichor on my tongue—and yet I was sealed away, a piece of cargo.
---
The suitcase jolted. My head cracked against padding as the world tilted.
They were moving me.
Somewhere.
My brain clawed for data. I counted bumps. Listened for gradients in the rumble of tires. Asphalt. Smooth, then rough. A turn. Another turn. The soundscape of a city alive: engines growling, tires slicing through rainwater, faint snatches of laughter swallowed by wind.
A woman laughed. High, sharp, a shard of reality piercing fifteen years of silence.
My throat tightened. It was almost enough to make me sob.
People. Life. Sunlight. Out there.
And me—boxed like a relic no one wanted to remember.
---
Time fractured. Seconds stretched, twisted. How long did they carry me? Ten minutes? Thirty? An hour? The walls of the suitcase pressed closer with every passing breath, the air growing hot, heavy, rancid with my own fear.
The urge to scream surged like fire in my chest. I bit it down until my teeth ached. Screaming meant surrender. Screaming meant giving them what they wanted.
Instead, I listened.
Above the rain, above the traffic, faint voices bled through. Male. Deep timbre. Two of them. Words muffled, language indistinct. Japanese? Yes. My language. But warped, as though the world outside had moved on without me, even in its dialect.
A zipper rasped somewhere. My heart detonated.
They’re opening it.
---
Light knifed through the darkness. Thin at first, then flooding as the zipper screamed its metallic laugh. My pupils shrank, tears burning from sudden glare.
Figures loomed above. Masks still. Always masks.
Hands seized me, yanking me like a dead animal. My body hit wet asphalt, knees buckling, lungs dragging air that tasted like freedom and poison all at once.
Rain hammered my face. Cold. Pure. I wanted to drink the sky.
I looked up—and for the first time in fifteen years, I saw it.
The sun.
Pale and sickly behind storm clouds, but real. Brutal in its beauty. The kind of light that slices your soul open and reminds you what you’ve lost.
I laughed. A cracked, feral sound tearing from my throat. Tears mingled with rain until I couldn’t tell which was which.
Freedom.
Or something that wore its mask.
---
The men didn’t speak. They hauled me like a carcass into another vehicle—a car this time. The leather seats smelled new, expensive. My wrists burned as restraints bit into my skin.
The blindfold returned, drowning me in night.
And as the engine roared, carrying me to whatever hell awaited, one truth coiled in my skull like a serpent:
They didn’t let me go.
They moved me to the next stage.
And if I was right… the real prison hadn’t even begun.
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