The First Night
I leaned back against the rough asphalt wall.
At first I had tried lying on my back with my knees drawn up, but I soon realized I could not sleep that way and shifted around until I found the most comfortable position I could manage.
With both wrists cuffed, lying flat on my back was impossible. The weight pressed painfully on my wrists, and if my folded knees tipped sideways in my sleep I might disturb the other inmates.
“Haa…”
In the end I decided to sleep sitting up. Even so, leaning my shoulder against the wall and stretching my legs out, drowsiness gradually crept over me. The position was uncomfortable, yet fatigue weighed down my eyelids. Rather, in a drowsiness I could not fight even if I tried, I fell asleep hoping for morning to come.
“….”
Yes. I had definitely fallen asleep. I even dreamed, and the languid heaviness of sleep settled into my body.
But—
“Ugh… uuh… uuh…!”
Not long after, I had no choice but to open my eyes amid a terrible sensation. I had been thrashing in a dream where someone seized my chest and drove needles through my nipples; at last I could not endure it and woke.
The sensation, however, was not purely a dream.
“Haah…! Ah… aah…! Hup…!”
I instinctively clenched my teeth, trying somehow to hold back the moans that kept bursting out. I did not want to wake the inmate sleeping beside me, and more than anything I did not want to be dragged away and punished for making noise. Yet my moans grew louder regardless of my will.
“Guh… ahh…! Ah…!! Ugh… uuh…!”
Even biting my lip and clenching my fists so hard my nails dug into flesh did nothing to lessen the pain. It was exactly the sensation from the dream—someone piercing my nipples with needles. I knew at once it was torture from the Stimulation Spores.
“Kugh… ugh!”
Leviathan. I remembered what he had said.
He had mentioned it almost in passing. At the time I had felt only the injustice and thought of protesting. I never imagined the rule would strike so soon, and in the worst possible circumstances. That casual knowledge of the random activation had left me completely unprepared for this hellish moment.
“Uuh… uha… ha… uuuh…!”
I counted silently in my head. How long would it last? He had said one hour a day, so it had to end within that. But I had no strength left to endure it. After a few minutes, then ten, even the energy to count had long since vanished. All I felt now was a desperate wish for this agony to end as quickly as possible.
It hurt. It was unbearable.
My mind and body, already unrestored by the brief rest, were collapsing once more under the Stimulation Spores.
“Ah… aah… uuh… uhk… huuh…! Hic…!”
Tears streamed down my face—tears born of pain too great to bear and of the terror of not knowing when it would stop. I was terrified. So terrified. Trapped in this narrow space, moaning and writhing, I looked utterly wretched and foolish to myself.
Stop… please just stop.
But this was Prison Island, a place with no safe word. The only way I would ever find freedom was by serving out the full sentence I myself had chosen. It had been only one day. The remaining six months made my heart feel ready to burst. More than that, though, I simply wanted the present torment to end. Yet the merciless pain of the spores showed no sign of stopping even while I trembled in fear.
“Hic… kugh…!”
That was when it happened. As I sobbed, tears I could not wipe away streaming freely, something touched my thigh.
“Eut…!”
Startled, I lifted my head. In the darkness someone sat with their back turned toward me. The thing that had touched my thigh was that person’s hand.
Amid a faint tickle the hand traced letters on my skin.
Spores?
At first I could not read them clearly and wondered what this was, but when I forced my pain-scattered nerves to focus I understood the meaning.
“…Yes.”
To answer properly I would have had to turn my back and write on her skin as well, but in my present state that seemed impossible, so I carefully opened my mouth. Immediately a warning came.
Talk. No. Night duty. Caught. Punished.
Writing on skin was slower than speech and limited to single words, yet the content was not hard to grasp.
Me. A522. Night vision. Good. Nod. Answer.
She even gave me her inmate number and the method of reply. At her instruction I answered by nodding.
“Ugh… uhk….”
Still, completely silencing myself was impossible. No matter how hard I tried, the unrelenting pain of the spores would not stop. Guilt washed over me. Had I woken the inmate who had been sleeping peacefully beside me? The fact that another prisoner had initiated contact first also suggested that a complaint might follow. I worried that from the very first day I was already causing trouble and drawing attention. As Leviathan had said, hazing of newcomers might well exist here.
Yet the next message from A522 was nothing like what I had expected.
Hurting? That. Fixable. Lie on side. Look at me.
She seemed to be offering a solution. We were in the same predicament—what kind of solution could there be? But right now the word “fixable” mattered far more than any suspicion. A few more minutes of this pain and I felt my mind would break. Even though we shared the same fate, I decided to trust the senior inmate who had arrived before me and follow her instructions.
When better. Knee. Me. Push.
I nodded, settled into a lying position, and she delivered that final message before turning to face me. Darkness hid her face, yet the faint silhouette and presence told me we were lying opposite each other. In the space narrower than our heights, my knees naturally rested against her stomach.
What was she going to do? Anxiety and worry rose, but I was in no position to be picky. The pain had grown so fierce I wanted to carve my own nipples out; if she claimed she could ease it even a little, all I could do was trust her and surrender.
I squeezed my eyes shut, resigned to whatever came, and bit my lip in tension. Then, from the tingling sensation at my nipples, I understood what her “solution” was.
“…Eup. Ugh…!”
A small pain registered through the thin prison uniform. When I opened my eyes I saw the crown of A522’s head as she faced me. She was gently, steadily chewing the tips of my nipples that stood out through the cloth.
“Ugh… uuh… hup….”
At first it hurt. Chewing the already aching place layered pain upon pain. Yet soon I realized her solution truly helped. I did not understand the principle, but the more she chewed, the needle-like agony faded and gradually transformed into pleasure that stirred excitement. Just the right degree of pain and stimulation. Although the moans forced out by my now-sensitive body could not be completely stopped, the mere fact that it no longer hurt filled me with gratitude toward her.
“… …!”
A522 chewed my nipples with soft little sounds. Thanks to her help I gradually regained composure and managed to endure with my lips pressed tightly together. The needle-prick sensation at the swollen tips had not vanished entirely, yet even that was only a pain submerged in arousal—bearable, even pleasant in its intensity.
I could not simply lie there and feel it, though.
“…! ….….!”
“!!…!. …!”
A silent outcry circled between us. The sensation I now felt was essentially bought by someone else’s sacrifice. Indeed, the moment A522’s chewing slowed even slightly, the spore pain that had receded flared back to life. There were two nipples and only one mouth; the side left alone suffered the returning agony more fiercely. Knowing this, A522 never stopped, alternating between both nipples without rest.
“…! ….…. eut…!”
Moreover, what she was chewing was the rag-like prison uniform—something that had felt filthy from the moment I first received it. I could not simply lose myself in the rising excitement. Guilt and gratitude coexisted in that time. I only hoped it would end soon, and that even a little rest might be granted afterward. Clenching my teeth, I endured.
Then, a short while later, the alien pain at my nipples vanished, leaving only the sensation of A522’s chewing. My thoughts blanked for a moment before I recovered. Certain that the Stimulation Spores had stopped, I carefully pushed her body with my knee. A522 released her mouth, turned away, and steadied her breathing.
“Haa— huu….”
She must have been exhausted herself, yet she had helped me. My gratitude was immense. Before I could express it, however, A522 curled up and fell straight back to sleep. Soon the cell filled once more with the soft sound of breathing. And that breathing was two sets. From it I learned that the other inmate I could not see had also woken because of me, yet had waited silently without complaint until the ordeal ended.
…I’m lucky.
It seemed I had met good cellmates. I had not even properly seen their faces, yet I was grateful they had helped me without hesitation. If they had expressed displeasure at being woken by me… just imagining it was dreadful.
And so the first night continued. Taking my cellmates’ breathing as a lullaby, I closed my eyes again. The fear that the spores might activate once more still pressed close, yet I fell asleep easily. All of it was thanks to A522.
My eyes opened. More precisely, I was in a half-dreaming state, no longer certain how many times I had already woken. The uncomfortable surroundings and the throbbing of my arms and legs—my restrained body now screamed that it would allow no more rest. At last, realizing I would not sleep again, I propped myself against the wall and steadied my breathing.
A pitch-black room. Soft breathing still sounded around me.
“Huu…”
I let out a quiet sigh. Quite some time seemed to have passed… was it still night? Without a clock or even a glimmer of light, my sense of time felt paralyzed. The important point was that, even so, only a few hours had passed since I was locked in the cell. I did not know how much sleep was allotted, yet judging from the condition of inmates shown in Waltz Production videos, it did not seem they were given enough. Of course, this wretched sleeping environment itself had to be taken into account as well…
“Mmm…”
Just then a silhouette rose in the darkness. It was A522, who had been sleeping beside me. She sat up, looked around, spotted me sitting there, and scooted close. Taking the same position as the night before, she rested her hand on my thigh. It tickled, but knowing her intent I endured it.
Sleep. Well?
The message that arrived. I had not even heard her voice yet, yet the feeling that reached me was so welcome and warm. I started to answer with a nod, then stopped, bent my arm as far forward as I could, and placed my hand on her forearm. Following her method, I expressed my heart in writing.
Thanks. To you. So much.
Good. You. Number?
A713.
Please. My side. A711.
OK.
Unfamiliar with the method, the conversation was not smooth, yet with simple word combinations we somehow managed to continue. A711, though. Considering that A688 had entered before me, the numbers seemed to follow order of arrival. A cellmate whose number was not far from mine. Wait… then how long had A522 been locked up?
The question was answered soon enough.
Now. Month. Day?
Yesterday. September. 21.
A711. After entry. One month. You. Sentence. Months?
Six months.
Envy. Me. Eighteen months. Six left. Leave. Together.
It was astonishing. I had expected she had been here longer than I, but I never imagined a full year’s difference. Still, having been here that long, of course she would know a solution like last night’s. A small sense of security settled in me. As if sensing my feelings, A522 paused mid-message and leaned her body against mine in a gesture of closeness. We had known each other only a few hours, yet I easily understood the gesture meant “let’s look after each other from now on.” I rested my head against her in return. For a while the two of us simply leaned together, sharing the knowledge that we were comrades through body heat, without words or further movement.
— Clank.
“…!”
But a moment later a sound rang from the door, and A522’s body trembled. Without a word I could feel she was afraid of something. Seeing her, who had already spent a year here, still fear the morning, an instinctive terror seeped into me as well. Yes—from the transfer until now, everything had already been terrifying. Yet from this point on it would be even harder. The real imprisonment was only just beginning.