SEQUENTIAL ━ Connor // RK800 ✔️

eleven ━ emergency exit

• • •

Interrogation rooms did not seem like much until she was forced to sit down between three plain walls and a mirrored window, with nothing but her thoughts for company. The last visit must have been hours ago, when the lady from reception came to check on her wounds and gave her a pack of ice for the side of her face. Mia could swear her ear was still ringing from having her head slammed against the wall by that android, but then again, it could have also been the deafening pseudo-silence ruled by the single neon above buzzing on a frequency maddening to sit and listen to for hours.

Her thoughts were no pleasant company either. The last few days have been everything she feared most and more.

Though most ice inside it had melted already, she kept the pack firmly against the side of her head, ignoring the pulsing pain burning under her skin like a migraine on the verge of happening, but also the way the melting of the ice pack's contents condensed water to drip down her right forearm, to her elbow, where it dampened her sleeve and perpetually sent shivers down her spine from.

Every time she closed her eyes she could see it happening again: she could see herself entering that apartment expecting to see Rory — dumb, you were so foolish and dumb, her own mind scolded her in return —, but instead being met with two heavy labor androids. She wished she hadn't recognized their model so easily, but one look was enough for her to tell they were the ones Connor was after.

Damned be the instinct she had in that moment to run away. She didn't make it farther than halfway to the first floor.

Not wanting to recall the most painful bits and thus give a green light to her bruises to start hurting all over again now that she has finallt started getting used to a numbness from them, Mia opened her eyes and shifted the ice pack over her temple, pressing it down a little harder.

She wasn't wearing any handcuffs and she has long since passed the moment of wondering why they would hold her there for so long in the first place, but still, she glanced at the door, expecting it to open at any moment and save her from the hardest judgement of all — her own.

The door didn't open. Salvation didn't arrive. She doubted she deserved it to begin with it.

Mia found herself wishing for a lot more things just then: a bath, a good sleep, some painkillers, maybe even for human blood to evaporate the same way Thirium did. She felt too filthy with her own blood on her to even look down at herself, so instead of doing that when her head dropped from the exhaustion of holding it up in hopes of spotting the door as it opened, her eyes closed.

So dumb, her mind echoed the same thing over and over again, though her recalling of the events kept moving forward. She remembered all too clearly the tight sensation in her chest when she was left alone, tied to that chair while the androids minded the supplies she brought, as promised to Rory. She remembered the terror of hearing the debate between needing her to bring them more before they leave, killing her there and then or sparing her altogether.

There was very little quite as dehumanising as hearing your fate get decided for you and knowing you'll have no say in it whatsoever, no matter if you try to save yourself or not.

She recalled perfectly the moment her silent struggle had a success and she shook the roped restraints off — it was in that moment, when she had gained a wiff of hope, that she knew things could go considerably wrong really fast, depending on her choice.