[color=gray][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/Wi9mUut.jpeg[/img][/CENTER][indent][sub][COLOR=silver][B]Location:[/B][/COLOR] [i]The Foundation Institute - Atlantic Ocean[/i]
[/sub][sup][right][COLOR=silver][b]Human #5.046:[/b][/COLOR] [I]and for no today.[/I][/right][/sup][/indent][center][sup][color=#2e2c2c]_____[/color][color=#373534]_____[/color][color=#403d3c]_____[/color][color=#494644]_____[/color][color=#524f4c]_____[/color][color=#5b5754]_____[/color][color=#64605d]_____[/color][color=#6e6965]_____[/color][color=#77716d]_____[/color][color=#807a75]_____[/color][color=#89837d]_____[/color][color=#928b85]_____[/color][/sup][sup][color=#9b948d]_____[/color][/sup][sup][color=#928b85]_____[/color][color=#89837d]_____[/color][color=#807a75]_____[/color][color=#77716d]_____[/color][color=#6e6965]_____[/color][color=#64605d]_____[/color][color=#5b5754]_____[/color][color=#524f4c]_____[/color][color=#494644]_____[/color][color=#403d3c]_____[/color][color=#373534]_____[/color][color=#2e2c2c]_____[/color][/sup][/center][INDENT][sub][color=silver][B]Interaction(s):[/B][/COLOR] [I]&.[/I][/sub][SUP][RIGHT][COLOR=silver][b]Previously:[/b][/COLOR] [I]for no tomorrow.[/I][/right][/SUP]
[INDENT]Scylla stood trembling, naked and wet, with tears streaming down her face from green eyes peeled wide—afraid and ashamed. Within her curled palms, she clutched at tan cloth, nails bitterly snatching against the fabric, feeling the ply scratch and irritate her drenched skin. It was a test (because, of course, it was!); it was all a test, from the branding to those who faced it without flinching, fear, or reservations of self to those who shuddered, cried, and hesitated. To be forced into quarantine and to endure the endless dark with eternal silence that rang and pulsated with sobs and whispers, intermingling with quieted screams of those that fractured in the thick shadows. The banging, the pounding of fists into shattered whispers that pleaded. Had it been hours or days, only minutes perhaps since doors had been shut? 

How did they endure it? How did [i]she[/i] survive it? If she had been molded and crafted in the black of unknown uncertainty, then what was to become of[i] them[/i]? What shred of humanity was to be left when she had to crouch in the corner, barely able to bend her legs, and palmed her hand against her quivering lips with mortification coloring her face in crimson splotches as she struggled to relieve herself from suffocating fear. Humiliation settled further in her bones, stripped unceremoniously, arms banded over her breasts, body hunched to conceal the lines of her body from the rush of water targeted at the most sensitive positions of her skin. From across the sterile hall, Stephen called for her, face flush with rage, pinkish-hued arcs igniting across his trembling limbs, and violet wrath wreathed through his eyes, black cloth shoved finally into his hands, displaying such accumulation of power before more armed officials pushed him into the line of others too bequeathed with black. 

Whatever this was, Scylla knew she had ultimately failed.

She wept still, but her brow sundered harshly over her eyes, mute glimmers of her shame captured on quivering lashes that bespoke of a silent rage. Her frame was on display as she stood before a reflective surface that illustrated her utterly drenched figure before she pulled her arms through the tan fabric and spilled into ill-fitting trousers that hung awkwardly on her hips and shoulders, a uniform sort of medical scrub that ballooned in peculiar cuts and haphazard stitching that irritated her joints as she was herded into another procession. Lambs, she thought, as Amma herself had once uttered in cruel whispers that whipped through her mind and compelled her to stare down at her feet and the linoleum below that was hued yellow and brown and green from their accumulated miseries and indignities. To be nearly forced to trudge through it was another notch onto the demented and harsh intention to assault their ignominy– to be faced with the injustice they saw as a curtailing to luxuries they once possessed. 

Scylla’s nails sliced stinging figures into her palms.

	[i]You chose this[/i], a voice slunk across her mind, fixated on the corners of her consciousness, and brewed there, [i]just as everyone who has ever walked through these halls[/i].

	[i]You chose this.[/i]
	[i]Just as she did.  [/i]

The pounding of fists and clanking of silverware immediately pulled Scylla from her thoughts, her uniform damp still in some areas, her white-blonde hair tangled in its braid down her back; she felt bruised and exhausted, unable to dispel the weight that had settled through her body. Crude remarks lanced down her spine, cackling laughter that heightened her sensitivity and anger; they were to be treated as lesser, little more than fodder, shuffled into place and fitted as bait for their peers who did not hesitate to haze their inauguration. Such an initiation found Scylla staring up at Stephen, who was seated high above her, fitted in a uniform that was far more flattering to him, the black of his hair and the black of the threads that conformed to his muscled frame blending him into the backdrop of other students that seated themselves in formality—a ceremony, she thought, similar in some ways they had been inducted through P.R.C.U with the ochre emblem of House Gulo. No wolverine proudly stood before a shield here, just monochromatic refinement shorn under the distilled quiet of their shared gaze, separated with her as the fallen and he as the risen. 

She feels almost betrayed. Stephen would’ve fought to be at her side. Instead, he seated himself and [i]looked away. [/i]

Perhaps the following procession, she told herself, captured his attention and stole it away from her. It is a placating story she convinces herself of, trembling in the wrought accumulation of shame, regret, and anger, bisected by the quakes of fear that continuously rob her of warmth no matter how hard she might rub her palms together or over her shaking arms. Everything fell into the background, muddled together into a swarm of blackened words and tan-hued lashes of regret, all crushed under the suffocating weight of their new reality and acceptance of the fate revealed in the mocking praises of Dr. William Montgomery himself, false platitudes to the degradation of their individuality. To be mindless faces in swarms of black and white, greyed shadows on the canvas of power. 

	[color=ffffff][i]The rest of you, have a lot more to overcome.  [/i][/color]

Mindlessly, almost robotic and instinctual, Scylla twirls her fork through the noodles, catching pieces of meat that crumble under the pressure of her utensils, slicing through the meatballs to spear on the tines before she takes a bite. She did not participate in the toast, eyeing the flute of sparkling liquid, chewing thoroughly, and savoring the flavors that settled over her tongue. Near famished, she attempted to place the texture of the meat, the lemon sauce settled against her teeth that she ran her finger against, oil-drenched noodles, the lingering taste of garlic that accentuated the dish with garnishments of some green herb she could not place. 

It’s on her third bite, and finally, a sip of juice to wash some of it down, that she noticed some are purposely not eating and staring mindlessly down at their plated food with abject horror and disdain. Others had pushed their plates to the side whilst their companions ate still; Scylla glanced up, finding Stephen eating almost as mindlessly as she had been, his amber gaze meeting her own with a glimpse of yearning that caused her to look away this time. The person to her right was one of those refusing to eat, and she couldn’t help but ponder if this, too, was some degree of a test, another level to gauge their reception to food and drink, to be easily appeased after hours and hours locked within a room no better than a cell. 

	[color=ffffff]“It’s horse meat.”[/color] They whispered, finally, almost indiscernible above the clamor of conversation that spiraled from those dressed in black. Scylla blanched. [color=ffffff]“What?”[/color]

	[color=ffffff]“It’s horse meat,”[/color] they emphasized, raising their voices a few increments higher, silencing those chattering amongst themselves. Forks and knives halted and scraped against China as a result.

	[color=ffffff]“So?”[/color] Another launched back after a momentary silence, resuming their meal with enthusiasm. Scylla did not follow suit, unable to decide between repulsion and intrigue. The flute in her grasp trembled under the pressure of her fingers pinched around the crystal stem. Her eyes studied the remainder of the meat and noodles, the citrus aroma continuing to spiral up to tempt her hunger despite the truth of its recipe. 

	[color=ffffff]“Where do you think they got the meat for it? [i]‘Due in part to a generous donation from the incoming P.R.C.U’?[/i]”[/color] They mocked.

	[color=ffffff]“I don’t exactly expect them to keep horses out in the middle of the fucking ocean.”[/color]

	[color=000000][i]Just one horse.[/i][/color] A familiar voice clarified, tinged in humor, laced with luring notations where onyx eyes flashed in her mind, his voice carrying on unhurried and unbothered as it sluiced through membrane and nerves and settled as a blanketing barb of shadow. 

	[color=000000][i]One of the students thought of trying to bring their precious pony.[/i][/color]

[right][i]The final night on the beach, there had been such a pony tied further down the coast to a post, one she had paused to admire and pet, velvet smooth nose to push into her palm, course-haired lips to brush against her fingers before Stephen tugged her away to where Raindance waited. [/i][/right]

Scylla turned, heaved, and fought to contain the bile that suddenly burned through her throat; saliva pooled in her mouth and spread past her lips that she gated her hand against. She breathed through her nose, body bowed up with another retch that tore through her stomach and [i]swallowed[/i], churned sickness coiling down to the pit of her insides that burned as acid against the back of her teeth and brought fresh tears to her eyes that welled and fell. If she lost her composure here for the second time, she would not be surprised if they dragged them back to those cells to hose them down again as animals, no more than dogs leashed and sprayed and to be caged away on their festering temperaments. 

From above, Stephen watched her, his own plate half-eaten and flute drained to smother the disgust he felt at having actually enjoyed the meal despite knowing what it consisted of. He could see how it tormented her, and there was nothing that could be done, a divide formed in the garb of black and tan that pried them apart. He swore to find a way back to her side, but eyes fell onto them and watched and observed, indeed a test of sorts to further nurture the separation of their peers from the ‘Force’ and the lesser that, from this seating arrangement, forced them to look down upon them. In his hand, the stem snapped and arced with violet and pink, and he merely dusted off the shards, earning a low whistle from above. He could do little in the means of acknowledgment as he witnessed Scylla continue to eat, with more strength than necessary, her fork beheld so stiffly as she speared into the mess of sauce, noodles, and meat and ate great mouthfuls around the tears that bedeviled her expression as she quite literally forced herself to eat. 

She gagged, the texture settled on her tongue repulsive, but she swallowed nonetheless and gasped around the finality of this derangement and tossed back the sparkling juice with little ceremony and wiped her shaking hand against her lips. Another heave worked through her stomach, gone cramped and pained, but she bit down against the burning sensation that clamored up her throat. Scylla swallowed back saliva and bile and trembled with the tremendous effort to contain what little composure remained. Be it a test of will, fortitude, and compliance, she cared little for it and glared up at those all donned in leagues of black, ignoring the laughter and the conspiring whispers that cloaked her– for whatever it was, Scylla would pass it, she would.

If [i]she[/i] could do it, then so could they.

[i]Right?[/i][/INDENT][/INDENT][/color]