Why ?

The compassion of an enemy

As I enter the kitchen to put away a bucket, I see the rest of the chicken from lunch by the hobs. Looking around, I notice I'm alone, Shepherd is on a toilet break. My stomach growls, a little bit can't hurt and no one will notice. I walk over and hold out my hand.

"Lunch is over and the kitchens are off limits to students."

I freeze in place. Turning around, I see the Cleaners suddenly recognising me. With a nod, Vlad exits the room as Boris stands in front of the door. I try to get out but he grabs my arm and throws me back where I came from without saying a word. A few minutes pass before the door opens again to find Countess Cleo looking annoyed, especially when she looks at me. I know I should kneel down but I am literally petrified with fear. There's no way this is going to end well for me.

"Find Shepherd and tell him to go to the Faculty Room." She orders in a cold voice as she approaches me. The Cleaners leave the room, leaving us alone. She grabs my right wrist and easily pulls me towards the plates. Seeing what she intends to do, I struggle to get away.

"No, please..."

She slaps me and pulls me close to her.

"Do you think that's all we have to do to punish a little ingrate like you ? So accept it and above all don't defend yourself or I'll make it worse. You know what disobedience will cost you."

How to forget. Disobedience is, along with an escape attempt, the most extreme punishment they can give me. This one earns me a short stay in the punishment room where every member of the Faculty 'trains' or 'educates' me as everyone prefers to call it. In other words, they torture me one by one for hours on end, without any of my wounds being healed afterwards. Once they're all satisfied, I'm dragged into the dungeon and suspended in the electric chains for a week with the hallucinogen that makes me relive each of the worst memories of my life over and over again (the death of my team mainly). Finally, they deprived me of food for a month with the obligation to continue my work or they would increase this period. I had only been subjected to this twice since... I don't know how long I've been here. But it was two times too many and I didn't want to have to face it again.

"I-I apologize, Countess. Please don't punish me, I-I didn't mean to. I beg you, I will do double my intended work." She ignores my words and presses my right hand on the still burning hot plate. Screaming and crying in pain, I try to pull it away but Countess Cleo maintains her grip. My legs give way under the pain and only the Countess prevents me from collapsing with her grip.

After several minutes she lets go and I fall to my knees clutching my arm to my chest. The palm of my hand is completely burnt, red and blistered. With a backhand slap, the Countess slaps me hard enough to knock me off balance and fall to the ground. She kicks me in the stomach.

"How dare you steal from us !"

"I..." She doesn't let me answer and immediately shocks me.

"Silence." She orders with another kick as I groan again from the pain caused by the electricity. "It was a rhetorical question Black Sheep, I didn't expect an answer from you. We could have left you to starve in a dark cell, but instead we cared for you, fed you and clothed you. We house you, give you a job and protect you from other agents who want you dead. And despite all this you are still ungrateful enough to try to steal food from us. 10 days of starvation should teach you gratitude. Now stop crying like a child and get up. I'm going to take you back to your cell while we have a talk with your guard and decide on an appropriate punishment for you, besides starvation."

I had been locked up with the pain and blood from my hand for hours until Dr. Bellum came into my room. She had disinfected my hand and bandaged it without ever speaking to me. When I tried to talk to her, I barely opened my mouth when I got a slap and a look that meant big trouble if I spoke. She had left as soon as the treatment was over, taking with her the book I had been able to get for that week. That night was one of the few days when, as well as not having food, I didn't have water.