Day 3:

The silence is thick, tense as you and the monster sit on opposite sides of the room, as far away from each other as you can get.

"They'll notice," you say, more to yourself than to anyone else. "When I don't show up for fitness reqs tomorrow, they'll notice."

The silence swallows your words. You can almost hear the time ticking by. It was evening when you got locked down here, and it's been hours. You fight a yawn, pressing your sleepy eyes back up to the ceiling. It's not safe to fall asleep here, not so close to the monster.

"And then when they notice I'm gone, they'll check the doors to see if any locked, and they'll remotely open them," you say again loudly.

"Or maybe they'll leave you here to rot forever," the monster calls from where he sits against the wall, voice smooth as tiger's claws. "Maybe this cage will open and I'll eat you."

Your stomach clenches. You know he did horrible things in the past, but-

You turn to him. "Would you actually?"

Tyler ignores you. An evil smile crosses his lips, and he leans forward. "I'd love to taste your fear, Y/N. From someone like you? It'd be delicious." He prowls closer.

You shudder at the thought, trying to avoid thinking about how scared you are already, but then you blink. You remember that expression on the monster's face. You've seen it before when you challenged the Academy's librarian- Afua's wife- to poker.

You lean forward, your fear suddenly melting away into an angry sea. "That was a lie. You're... joking."

He kicks away the tray from where he'd been sitting and scowls at you. "Of course I'm joking," he says, looking up at you. "You all want to believe I'm some kind of monster-"

"You killed people."

He raises his hands to his face, pressing his palms against his eyes. "I was being controlled! You don't know what it's like, Y/N. She beat me, but I would do anything for her. I wanted to get away, but it was like a drug. I would be sewing myself up, thinking about how it was all for a good cause, even when I knew it wasn't. I couldn't get away for long, no matter how hard I tried."

You lift your eyes to the concrete ceiling. "You're a manipulator. Don't think for a second that I believe anything you say."

He scoffs, shaking his head. "Didn't think you would, Warden."

The silence is stifling. The room is neither hot nor cold, but in a way, the lack of sensation almost makes living in the light of the fluorescent bulb crueler.

You glance over, rolling the back of your head against the wall you're leaning against. "You must be glad she's dead now."

He shakes his head, smacking the side of the room where he sat. "Freedom's a fickle god, Y/N. If she were still here, at least I'd know what to do."

The words are hollow, echoing around the room, and they're the last thing he says, leaning back against the wall with his eyes closed.

It has to be past midnight at this point, even though you can't see any light or darkness outside the buzzing bulb in the ceiling. You shiver, pulling your bathrobe closer around yourself, and make a note to see if you can find a daylight lamp or extra blankets in the storeroom tomorrow.

Your eyes flicker over to the monster, over in the corner farthest from you, as the hours tick by. You fight yourself awake, biting your lip and moving your eyes so they can't close.

There's no guarantee that they will notice you're not in the fitness class, and even if they do, there's no guarantee they'll even be able to unlock the door in the first place.

Is this how it ends?

The monster doesn't seem scared. He sleeps, hunched over in the back corner. When he sleeps, his hair falls into his eyes, chest rising and falling with his soft breathing.

There's none of the tension he carries when he's awake when he's asleep, and you get the sense that this is how he is underneath the fake calm personality and the anger that burns underneath it.

Sometimes you wonder what it would be like for you to be real. Your eyes are heavy. You rub them, forcing yourself to sit up against the wall.

You must've hit the emergency autolock when you bumped against the wall yesterday. That would explain why it's locked from the outside. Hopefully it'll alert Afua.

A wave of dizziness washes through you, and you snap awake again, your body jerking forward.

"I'm staying awake so he can't get me," you mutter, shaking your heavy head. "Staying awake."

The next thing you know, you're curled up on the floor, and the door is clicking open with a heavy thunk.

It wakes the monster, too, who lifts his head and stares at the light coming through the stairs. Your eyes are bleary, filmy, but you force yourself to get up, peeling yourself off the floor and onto the wall.

"I'll be back with breakfast," you mumble, running your fingers through your hair. Breakfast. You must've missed fitness requirements already, and Afua must've alerted them that you went to go see the monster.

"I'm back," you call to your phone on the table, waving groggily at it. "Text Afua."

When nothing happens, you groan and grab it yourself. It's white, standard issue, but it must not be one of the smart ones. You pull up his contact and punch in a quick text: Thanks for letting me out. Sorry it locked.

The reply is immediate. Glad you're safe.

We reviewed the cams to see what happened. You bumped into the autolock on the side of the door. There's another autolock on the inside of the room, just in case. But don't press the pad next to the enclosure: that one isn't an autolock. If you press that, and it registers your fingerprints, it will release him.

You shake your head, setting the phone back on the counter and opening the door to your room. Inside, you pull on one of your old outfits from home, then hurry out to the storeroom. Already, it's almost 3, which means...

Shoot.

You throw some instant oatmeal in the microwave, then carry the still-hissing bowl down into the basement.

You drop the bowl on the tray, sending it clattering over to Tyler, then rush up the stairs before he can say anything, using the bannister to pull yourself up into the living room. The door closes behind you, and you jump onto the couch and press the ON button just as your mother pops onto the TV, the rest of the USOUT board around her.

She glances at you, then waves a hand. "May I have a second?" she asks the others, and they all filter out of the room, until it's just you and her.

She sips her tea. "How is it?"

You lift your chin, smoothing down your shirt. "It's going well."

"Hmm," she says, setting her teacup down. "Afua told me you docked safely."

You fidget in your seat. "Yes."

She eyes you. "And the Hyde?"

"He's also well," you say, eyes flickering to the submarine door. "What's the plan with him? Do you guys..."

Your mother shakes her head. "No. He will be in for a life sentence. After you, someone else will take over the Bubble craft. After them, someone else."

"Oh," you say, the night you spent in the basement with the ageless lights and cold floor filling your mind. You picture that as all you'd see, for the rest of your life, not even an hourglass to tell you when the hours pass or what the sky and sea look like outside.

Your mother leans forward, taking another sip. "I know that look, Y/N," she says sharply. "You can't make friends with time."

"Yes, but-"

"This is your problem," she says, setting her teacup down with a heavy thump and raising her eyes to the sky. "Just like your father. You think you can change things, Y/N, but the world doesn't change. The rules don't change. And the moment you think that any of these things can, you put yourself at risk."

"You're the one who put me at risk," you say, but you can't bring yourself to look her in the eye. "You sent me here."

"For good reason," your mother exclaims, shaking her head. "You'll learn, just like I did, how to be strong. You'll learn how to resist. You'll learn how to control your feelings."

She sighs, turning to look at the webcam, hands folded in her lap. "Y/N, I don't have to remind you of what happened at the Academy. You're not ready for fieldwork."

Your head snaps up at that. "Was it so hard to believe?" you cry. "Was I weak for wanting to believe it?"

But your mother is already gone, leaving her swiveling chair to leave you to make your report to the rest of the board. You do, staring into space, and then have your call with Afua, and by the time the TV finally clicks off, you know you should make dinner. But weary pain travels through your bones like languid steel, and you find yourself sitting on that couch, staring at the wall behind it. Eventually you suck in a breath and get up. You pull open the door and go up the stairs to the raft.

The sea is choppier today, the raft bobbing up and down with the waves. You grab the fence around it to make sure you don't fall off. The wind pulls your hair with salty fingers, drenching you in the rush of the outside air.

Above you, the sky is just beginning to color; almost exclusively in a rare soft purple tonight, lavender clouds drifting across the barely-fuchsia skies.

The wind billows with a low roar, but you keep your hold on the fence, the old dark wood digging into your skin. How long has it been here? How old is this Bubble, one of so many bobbing along the night-dark seas?

You stand there, silhouetted against the fence and the wisteria skies, until your knuckles grow cold and you pull the door to the Bubble open again.

You don't know why- maybe it's the thought of spending all your nights in the faceless prison, or maybe it's to spite your mother- but when you bring the monster his dinner, along with a blanket and the only daylight lamp you could find, you tell him, "The sunset is purple tonight."

Then you leave.