Imagine.

Imagine waking up in a dark cell, your body so battered from the previous days - the previous weeks - that it's a miracle your eyelids haven't closed on you yet. Maybe they are closed and it`s just another nightmare, the same nightmare, over and over again.

You wait. And while you do, you begin to wonder... how long has it been since you've last seen the sun? Since you've felt its warmth teasing your skin, tickling you and making you laugh... You shake off the wisps of a memory - no, you won't think about it, you know better know. The last time... it was before you were kidnapped, yelling, kicking and screaming, and brought to this cold, dark, damp place. And when was that? How many years? You've lost count so long ago that you don't even know if you're nine or ten or nineteen!...

You hear the door open and a hand roughly pulls you up, grabbing you by your arms, your hair, and you want to fight back - you really do - but you're tired and weak and even if you did, you would be punished. Perhaps, once, a long time ago, you would have but the purple and blue and white marring and covering your skin is a testament to their brutality.

Who knows? Maybe being able to wake up before being dragged to the "doctor" is considered lucky for you. Maybe you usually wake up from the sensation of burning, ice cold, soul-damning pain. You're lying on a table - or at least you think you are - with a light glaring on your face and voices and hands poking and prodding your body but you don't even know what they're doing because you're not sure if you're dreaming and those screams ringing in the air are no help at all!

The screams don't stop. For some reason, they just won't stop! They're so loud you can almost forget the pain, almost forget where you are, metal biting into your flesh and what they're doing to you...! It's like they're unable to stop and you don't realize why until they do and your throat is so sore you can't even swallow a single drop of water.

Other days, they put a weapon in your hand and an opponent in front of you. You look at them, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses and, sometimes, sometimes you wonder. Do they have a family out there? A father, a mother, brothers, sisters? Someone out there waiting, looking for them? Not that it matters. You are stronger than them, so you will fight and you will win and when you do, you'll have to kill them because you have no choice because it's their life or yours or your brother's and if you don't they'll suffer and suffer and die horribly because that's what happens to those who lose and survive...

Time passes. It could be a month or a year or a decade or a century but it doesn't matter. You still fight, more and more and one day you realize. You're having fun - you're having so much fun! You're enjoying it, enjoying watching your opponents struggle, enjoying the desperation in their eyes, enjoying the fear when they realize their imminent end. You don't care anymore, not that your hands are stained with the blood of so many you don't even bother to remember, not that these people are just as much victims as you are, not that this is all so, so, so, so wrong! What's right and wrong, anyways? You're doomed to this hell, so shouldn't you just learn to enjoy it?

You grow stronger. They fear you now and it's like a badge of honor because you revel in it. You're one of the strongest there - a Tsviet, they whisper - and sitting at the top almost makes you forgive them.

Hah! Forgive - even the word tastes like ash on your mouth. No, you didn't come so far just to fall prey to weak compassion. Forgive! Who are they? What right do they have to keep you locked up like an animal, to use you like you're theirs, like you are an object that belong to them?! What right did they have to take your freedom?! Forgive! Your forgiveness will be carved in flesh and written in blood!

You're not the only, you know. Others share the same sentiment - the same boiling rage barely kept under lid, burning and burning and burning until one day it explodes into a magnificent display of destruction and death!

But they've taken preventative measures - you can't kill them, not if you want to die and death is not your end goal. Oh no, oh no. If you sought death you would've died like those dogs you had to fight. No, you want them dead. Those who hurt you, used you, twisted you until you broke - those who never noticed, never saw, never knew. Kill them, make them feel the same pain you did a hundred - a thousand fold!

So you plot. And you wait.

And when you see the key to this operation - the girl without the chip, bleeding from the loss of her children - you smirked.

Revenge is finally at hand.

This is something I cooked up while taking a walk and I had to put it down on paper before I forgot. This is somewhat linked to Mosaic of Silver (not that we're anywhere near this event yet), but only loosely. It originally came out as a monologue explaining why Deepground members (the long-term ones, anyways) are so violent or emotionless. It's mostly from Weiss's POV, but also includes Shelke and Rosso - just a blend of all of their experiences and that of their peers.

Those who have read my previous work are probably surprised at the tone of this one-shot. Well, Mosaic of Silver is walking down a dark, dark path.

Speaking of Mosaic of Silver, I wanted to upload a new chapter once I returned from my vacation, only to find that Doc Manager was empty. I doubt I will be able to update anything anytime soon, anyhow (currently struggling under a mountain of midterms).

In any case, this is my first one-shot piece. Please share your thoughts!