⋆.˚ Chapter one
You are not the one in chains.
⋆.˚ wc: 2.8k
⋆.˚ MDNI 18+
**THIS IS AN AU SOME EVENTS IN THIS WILL NOT MATCH THE ORIGINAL GAME STORYLINE**
"Janice, we got a big one."
Trey’s voice cracked down the hall, bouncing off the concrete walls like the bark of a feral dog. You didn’t look up right away. You were busy watching the prisoners. Some still sat on their hands, backs straight with fear. Others slumped over, sleep-deprived and twitching from whatever scraps of nightmares they hadn’t shaken yet. You rested the butt of your rifle on the floor, one hand still wrapped around the grip, index finger just beside the trigger. It was your morning post—cell detail before the field shift. Make sure no one acts out. Make sure no one forgets where they are.
You rose without a word, heavy boots thudding against the mildewed carpet. The hallway reeked of disinfectant and damp wood, the ghosts of the old world still clinging to the walls in the form of curling floral wallpaper and water-stained framed photos of tourists who'd once smiled here. Smiles didn’t last long anymore.
You passed the old gift shop—now repurposed as the gear cage—and made your way toward the intake room. This used to be a beach resort once, high-end even, perched near the ocean like some rustic utopia. Now, it was your cage. Your kingdom. Your machine.
Trey stood beside the door, blocking it like a guard dog showing off a prize kill. At his feet knelt a woman. Not just any woman—a fighter. Muscles taut beneath torn sleeves, blood smeared across her face, still fresh around the nose. Someone hit her good. Her eyes, wide and red, locked on yours. She was gagged, her arms pinned behind her back with plastic ties, knees dirty from the gravel outside. She was sobbing now, silent and ragged, like the sound had already been beaten out of her. Her braid had unraveled, strands clinging to her neck and cheek like a shroud.
Trey jerked his chin toward the room to the left. “Gonna drop her there. All yours,” he said with a grin, like this was some kind of gift.
“And the kid?” you asked, eyes narrowing at the limp shape in his arms.
“Still out cold. Fat Geralt knocked him out good.”
You nodded once. The weight of the burlap sack of clothes shifted in your arms. It was standard—threadbare jumpsuit, mismatched socks, whatever wasn’t too shredded from the last haul. You gave the woman another look.
Her boots were nice. Real nice. Worn, but solid leather, thick-soled and built to last. Your sister would love those. Same size, probably. You were already figuring out how to swap them without making too much of a mess.
The room you led her into had once been an office. The faint smell of old paper still lingered, though the desk was now scorched and missing a leg. There was a single metal chair, bolted to the floor, and the flickering lightbulb overhead was half-shadowed with grime. You liked this room. It was quiet. Close. No windows. No witnesses.
You dropped the sack onto the desk and crouched in front of her slowly, purposefully. Let her see your face. Let her take in every inch of you—the uniform that didn’t quite fit, the old scar that curved down your cheekbone, the dirt under your nails, the steel in your stare. You reached out and grabbed her chin, fingers pressing into her jaw hard enough to remind her that you were the one still holding the gun.
Her eyes—blue, dark, stormy, feral—searched yours for something. Mercy, maybe. Or familiarity. You didn’t offer either.
Her breath hitched as you tilted her face toward the light. Blood was drying under her nose, crusted at the corner of her mouth. Her cheek was swollen. Still, she looked like she could fight if you gave her the chance. Strong. Taller than most. Nearly eye-level with you.
“Good catch indeed,” you muttered, smirking slightly. You didn’t expect a response, not with the gag in place, but the way her brows pinched and the tears welled told you she understood just fine.
You stood and turned your back to her, giving her space like it was some kind of courtesy. The truth was, this part had to be done slow. Deliberate. You heard her shuffle as she tried to adjust on her knees.
You tossed the old tank top and pants at ehr feet.
Her body tensed. You didn’t need to repeat yourself. You did once, early on. Got a knife buried in your thigh for it. You still felt it in the cold.
You undid her hands. You stepped back. Your grip tightened on the rifle as you turned just slightly—enough to see her silhouette in the corner of your eye. She hesitated. They always did. Pride didn’t die easily, even when everything else already had.
You leaned your head back against the door, listening to the sounds of the compound waking up. Outside, the guards were already shouting orders. The gate would open soon, and the fields would eat them for another shift. The buzz of cicadas had started, and the air was thick with heat and dust. The whole place ran like a clock wound with blood.
You didn’t have time for hesitation.
And slowly—painfully—she started to comply.
Silent. Still. Rifle balanced easy in your hands like it’s grown there over the years. The weight of it is familiar, comforting even—metal worn smooth where your palm always rests, sling frayed with salt and sun. Outside, the surf crashes against the rocks below the bluff in a steady, endless rhythm. The ocean never stops. It doesn’t care who’s chained or who’s free.
Your eyes trace her anyway.
Not kindly. Not gently. The way you inventory anything that passes through intake.
She’s gorgeous, even wrecked like this—blood drying in dark streaks along her cheekbone, sweat shining on her skin where the sun hasn’t burned it raw yet. Her stomach is flat but not hollow, muscle layered with just enough softness to prove she’s eaten well enough to survive this long. Her breasts are small, perky despite everything, rising and falling sharply with each breath she can’t slow down. Her arms are corded and veiny, forearms tight from struggling, from fighting people who outnumbered her and still lost teeth over it.
You lick your lips without meaning to.
The old resort office smells like rot pretending to be clean—salt carried in from the beach, mildew blooming in the walls, ancient sunscreen and coppery blood layered over bleach that hasn’t worked in years. Faded brochures still cling to the corkboard behind her: WELCOME TO PARADISE, sun-bleached letters curling at the edges. Someone once paid thousands of dollars to stay here. Now people pay with their bodies.
You say it flat. Bored. Like you’re asking for a smoke or a lighter, not carving another piece off someone who still thinks they have something left to lose. The words linger in the air, heavier than they should be, sinking into the walls with everything else this place has swallowed.
The tank top is halfway over her head, fabric bunched at her shoulders, arms trapped awkwardly. Her skin is slick with sweat and grime, dust clinging to her ribs. When she breathes, you see every muscle engage—still ready, still coiled, even now. Slowly, carefully, she lowers the shirt back down.
“My boots…?” Her voice comes out rough, scraped raw by screaming she’s already learned won’t help her. It’s the voice of someone who hasn’t spoken gently in a long time.
You scoff, sharp and humorless, and shift your weight against the doorframe. The rifle hangs loose but ready, muzzle angled down just enough to remind her you don’t need to aim to end her. The pants you tossed her earlier lie crumpled on the floor between you, orange fabric stained and thin, a uniform that exists only to erase.
“You’re the same size as my sister,” you say. Not a lie. Not the truth either. “Those boots are real nice. Thick soles. Good leather.” Your gaze drops deliberately, slow and assessing. Inventory. Condition. Value. “You won’t need shoes in the field.”
You watch the phrase hit her like a blow.
Everyone knows about the beach fields. Salt flats carved out of what used to be volleyball courts and private shoreline. Sun so bright it feels like punishment. Shell fragments slicing bare skin. Feet cracking, bleeding, swelling until infection sets in and the weak start limping—and limping gets noticed. Barefoot obedience teaches faster than bullets ever did.
She looks at you then. Really looks.
Her eyes flash bright and feral, something wild and dangerous flaring behind them. Like a dog that’s been kicked too many times but still remembers how to bite. She’s calculating. Measuring distance. Weight. Whether your throat is worth the cost.
You’ve seen it on soldiers dragged in from old fronts. On mothers who came in bleeding but upright, kids clutched to their chests. On leaders who thought strength and loyalty still meant something in a world that’s already eaten both.
Your boots scrape softly against the tile. She’s already taken her pants off, folded awkwardly in her hands, like keeping them neat might preserve some shred of dignity. The boots remain planted on the floor—scuffed, solid, toes angled toward the door as if they might carry her out on their own if you turn your back for a second.
You lift the rifle and press the barrel gently—gently—to her temple.
Cold metal. Warm skin. You feel her flinch before she realizes she’s done it.
“Go on,” you murmur, voice low, intimate in a way that makes it worse. “Hit me.”
You lean in just enough that she can smell you—salt, sweat, oil, the stink of the compound soaked into your clothes.
“I know you’re fuckin’ thinking about it.”
Her breath stutters. You feel it through the rifle more than you hear it. Her jaw tightens, teeth grinding. Her fists curl hard enough her knuckles blanch. Her shoulders shake—not with weakness, but restraint. Rage held back by exhaustion. By fear. By the knowledge that she’s already spent too much.
You snort and spit to the side. The saliva darkens the carpet, joining stains no one bothers scrubbing anymore. You don’t look at it.
“You better comply,” you say casually. “Wouldn’t wanna let that little boy get hurt.”
You watch her fold in real time.
Her spine slumps like someone cut the strings. Her hands loosen, pants slipping from her fingers. Whatever fight she had left drains straight out of her eyes, pouring away like seawater through sand. She nods too fast, panic overtaking pride in a single, ugly beat. Her eyes go wide and wet, searching your face for proof you’re lying.
You step back, shoulder pressing into the door. Blocking it. Claiming it. Owning the space the way this place owns her now.
She clears her throat. When she speaks, it’s barely steady.
“Where is he?”
You chuckle low, the sound stripped of warmth.
“Right outside the door,” you say. “I do processing.”
She nods slowly, swallowing hard, then bends to tug the boots off. The leather creaks as she works them loose, fingers shaking, breath uneven. When she tosses them toward you, it feels less like surrender and more like amputation.
They’re heavier than they look. Solid. Still warm from her feet.
You glance her up and down—barefoot now, stripped, shoulders bowed, muscle still there but purpose gone. Another body for the machine. Another pair of hands for the fields. Another name that’ll blur into the rest by next week.
You turn the boots over once in your hands.
You reach into the drawer to the right of the desk.
The wood groans when you pull it open—swollen from years of salt air and neglect—and inside is the usual clutter: zip ties, cracked plastic gloves, a half‑empty pack of cigarettes crushed flat, and the handcuffs. Old steel, chipped, one hinge stiff from rust. You’ve used them so many times the motion barely registers anymore.
Her hands come up immediately, wrists together, palms out. Too fast. Like she’s already learned what happens when you stall. The chains jingle softly when you step closer.
“Obedient girl,” you say, eyes locked on hers.
It’s automatic. The words fall out of you like muscle memory.
You smirk, slow and deliberate, and you watch her recoil—not physically, but internally. Her face tightens, jaw clenching, something like disgust flashing across her eyes before she forces it down. You chuckle under your breath at the exchange. Control asserted. Lesson learned.
If things were different—if this were another world, another life—you might’ve courted her. You can see it easily: her strength, the fire she still hasn’t fully lost. But this place eats people alive, and some prisoner pussy isn’t worth ending up on the pillars, skin blistering under the sun while gulls pick you clean for getting sloppy.
You cuff her wrists with a sharp click and step back.
The hallway beyond is long and dim, lined with doors that used to lead to guest rooms. Carpet worn down to bare concrete in places. Old beach murals flaking off the walls—palm trees, dolphins, smiling families frozen in time. Overhead, the lights hum unevenly, some dead, some flickering like they might give up any second.
You sling your rifle across your back and grip her arm, steering her forward.
She stumbles once but catches herself. You don’t slow down.
You reach the cell and shove her inside hard enough that she has to throw a shoulder into the wall to keep from falling. Chains rattle as she turns back to face you, eyes wide now, glossy and pleading. You don’t meet them.
You shut the door and lock it.
The sound echoes down the corridor.
The little boy is slumped against the far wall where Trey left him, knees drawn up, cheek pressed to the floor. Short black hair, tangled and dusty. He looks impossibly small in this place, swallowed by concrete and shadow. Cute, you think distantly, and the thought makes something in your chest twist.
Your knee cracks when you bend—old injury, old reminder—and you reach out, tapping his cheek with two fingers. Light slaps. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to wake.
“Hey,” you mutter. “C’mon.”
He murmurs, lashes fluttering, then his eyes snap open. Dark. Wide. Terrified. He jolts upright, scrambling back until his shoulders hit the wall, breath coming fast and shallow.
You straighten slightly, looming without meaning to.
“Stand up,” you say flatly. “Don’t fight. You’re not going to win.”
He hesitates, eyes flicking past you—toward the cell, toward the woman behind the bars. She’s already at the door, fingers curled through the chain-link, face pale with fear.
The boy pushes himself to his feet. His legs shake.
You take his arm—not rough, but firm—and guide him down the hall. His gaze drops immediately to the boots on the floor of the office, then lifts to your face, confused, trying to understand how those things connect.
You kneel again and rummage through the sack of clothes, fabric rasping softly. Everything in here sounds too loud. You pull out a pair of threadbare pants, a faded shirt.
You’ve processed people younger than you, sure—but not this young. Not someone who will barely fit the cuffs. Not someone who smells like sweat and dirt and something faintly sweet, like soap and a mothers love.
“Just…” Your voice comes out softer than you intend. You clear your throat. “Just take off your shoes.”
His brow furrows. He looks down at his feet, then back up at you, then nods. Slowly. Carefully. He slips them off and sets them side by side, trying to be neat, trying to do it right.
The metal looks too big around his wrists.
You lead him to the cell.
The woman’s eyes go wide when she sees him. Horror. Relief. Panic—all colliding at once. You shove him gently inside and lock the door before either of them can speak.
“Lucky him,” you say lightly. “Gets to keep his clothes.”
They just move toward each other—she drops to her knees, pulling him into her chest, whispering frantically, hands cradling his face like she’s checking to make sure he’s real. He buries himself against her, shaking, her forehead pressed to his.
You face the wall, grip tightening around your rifle as you count the seconds in your head. One. Two. Three. The surf crashes outside. The compound hums. Someone laughs down the hall.
You haven’t had a kid this young here before.
And for the first time in a long time, the machine you serve doesn’t feel clean.
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