Malik didn’t sleep the first two nights.
He paced, muttering numbers under his breath—dates, maybe. Names. Elias watched him in silence, his own energy drained by hunger and isolation. Still, Malik’s presence lit something in the darkness. Not hope. Not yet.
But *resistance*, buried like a coal beneath stone.
“Do they come for you?” Malik asked on the third day. He sat on the floor now, back against the wall, eyes bloodshot but focused.
“Not often,” Elias said.
“They test you?”
“They manipulate you.”
Malik nodded. “I’ve seen things. Men stripped of identity until they beg to join the regime. Even ones who worked for them.”
Elias looked away. “I did.”
Malik paused. “And now?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
That was all the answer he needed.
***
Each day followed a rhythm disguised as chaos. Lights on, lights off. Food trays at inconsistent times. Loud propaganda blasts at night. Artificial storms pumped into the ventilation system. Sometimes they filled the cell with freezing mist. Other times, with the stench of decay.
It wasn’t just punishment.
It was *reconstruction.*“They want to make us forget who we are,” Elias said once.
“They want to make us someone else,” Malik added.
But the one thing they couldn’t take was their minds. So they trained them like muscle—repeating names of lost loved ones, past events, moments of resistance. A mental ledger of everything the Dominion wanted erased.
Elias recited:
“March 8th. I published the report on the forced relocation of Sector 12.”
“May 22nd,” Malik whispered, eyes closed. “My wife, Anara, was taken from our home in the night.”
“June 10th. Students at Central Square were beaten during a peaceful protest. I uploaded the video leak to three encrypted platforms.”
They said the names aloud until they felt like spells.
***
Weeks passed. One morning, the door opened again.
Another prisoner—older, gaunt, with sunken eyes—was tossed into their cell.
He didn’t speak for three days.
Then he looked at Elias and asked, “Are you ready to fight?”
***
His name was Vesk. A former lieutenant in the Dominion military who defected after uncovering covert extermination orders in the southern districts. He was sharp, calculated, and bitter.
“They want us to think resistance died above ground,” Vesk said. “But it didn’t. It just moved. Here. Beneath.”
“You’ve been in other cells?” Malik asked.“I’ve been in all of them. There’s a system. A map. Hidden tunnels. The outer Cage is more than a prison—it’s a *network.*”
Elias leaned forward. “You’re saying there’s an underground resistance here?”
Vesk nodded. “Half of us were captured. The other half volunteered to be sent in.”
Elias narrowed his eyes. “Volunteered? Why?”
“To dismantle the Cage from the inside.”
***
That night, a plan began to take shape.
Not an escape—*a dismantling*.
They would spread messages between cells using wall taps. Identify guards sympathetic to their cause. Find the server hub controlling the surveillance and reprogram the speakers.
Not to silence them.
But to tell the truth.
***
For the first time since he’d arrived, Elias felt something stir in him. Not just rebellion.
*Purpose.*
He hadn’t been erased.
He had been sharpened.
And soon, the Cage would crack.
---
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