The Punishment Frame
For Whumpril 2024.
Theme: “swaying”
The sprints were the hardest part of the training for Phylassa. She wasn’t inferior to any of the other novices in strength or weapons exercise, but each time they crowded out onto the dusty-gold exercise yard and Sgt. Prudentia called them to run, she knew that her body would fail her.
She tried. She watched her portions in the refectory, ate as much fibre as she could get her hands on – all the health advice she remembered from the time before the space marines recruited her –, did breathing exercises that were intended to expand her lungs and let each cell take up oxygen.
Her body had changed during these weeks. The incessant training had sleeked it, hardened it, made her bones stronger and more elastic, all while the sun of the desert world had bleached her hair and darkened her skin. She no longer got a sting in her side while running; her lungs didn’t feel like they were filling up with blood clots. It hurt less, but she still couldn’t keep pace with the other girls. Her speed had reached a limit, as if her legs were shorter than theirs, and it was impossible to increase it beyond that point.
Today was no different. Sweat ran from her bangs – pale brown with wet – and stung her eyes, air rushed in and out of her lungs in time with the pulse in her eardrums, but the great mass of novices was far ahead of her, the distance still increasing as they reached the last leg, towards the site where a steel frame stood anchored in the dusty ground. The first girl or girls had already slowed to a walk in front of the Sergeant.
Phylassa was gasping. Her ankles felt swollen where they pumped up and down; the capillaries couldn’t provide the muscles with the oxygen they needed. She’d given up reaching the cluster; now she just aimed to outrun Aziza, the closest ahead of her, and not be last. She couldn’t even do that. Aziza kept some five-six yards in front, with no sign of faltering. Her long black braid thumped with mechanically identical motions on her back in the white training robe.
Aziza had already saluted Sgt. Prudentia and started shaking her arms out when Phylassa reached the finishing post.
She drew long breaths of the boiled air as she walked the last few steps. The oxygen didn’t reach all extremities.
“Sergeant,” she said, bowing her head.
The sweat ran in rivulets down her upper lip. It didn’t taste of salt, strangely, just bitter.
“At ease,” the Sergeant said.
Phylassa raised her eyes again, but the sunshine was so bright, she couldn’t see anything outside the glare. She had a toxic nausea in the pit of her stomach, and was so dizzy she wasn’t sure whether she was standing up straight.
“You’re last again, Phylassa,” the officer went on. “You know what to do, by now.”
The punishment frame was five yards away, a framework of steel bars, like something she’d wanted to climb when she was little. Its shadow was thread-thin and wavering. She was aware of it as of an ongoing note in some unpleasant register.
She nodded, holding her tongue. She fixed her gaze on the frame. Aziza stood a few steps away, smiling apologetically, but still with her eyes raised.
As Phylassa walked over to the frame, she felt a brief, deep dizziness and flung one arm out to brace herself if she fell. The moment passed, she was still upright, but everyone had seen. They would think she was faltering from fear. She bit her tongue to drive back the tears as she took off her robe and breastband, standing in just her loincloth. She bent forward, grasping the warm steel bar at the end of extended arms. It sang with her touch.
The other girls had gathered around her. Staring into the sand would have been easiest, so she kept her gaze ahead, not focusing on anyone.
“Very good,” Sergeant Prudentia said, unseen. “Do you want the ties?”
Phylassa shook her head. “No, Sergeant.”
She felt the woman nod.
“You weren’t far behind, today. Only five strokes.”
Strands of hair tickled in her eyes when she nodded. She didn’t know whether it would be proper to thank her. Silence was better; words ran the risk of becoming chaotic and wheedling. She was guarding her breath now. If she timed the intake and outtake right, she wouldn’t cry out.
She heard the polycarbonate strap lash the air and dig down in the stretched skin of her back. The sensation was a little delayed after the sound. She gasped, the impact driving all the air out of her lungs, but she hadn’t screamed.
The strap fell again, lodging in its track, pulling scraps of skin with it on the way up. She didn’t scream this time either, but it was purely mechanical: by making sure that her lungs were empty when the strap struck. Her inhalation became high-pitched and sharp, but she was almost halfway through it.
Every time.
THE END
