Bath?
More time passed.
The sticky discomfort, the thirst, the daze brought on by the foul stench. Trapped in that cramped cell with a body so exhausted it was hard even to open my eyes, the confinement itself felt like torture.
Rather than any real desire to get out, the first thought that came was simply wanting to escape this situation.
“Ugh…! Nngh…!”
Beside me, Luia was being tormented by the Stimulation Spores. She was in just as wretched a state. With those large breasts of hers, sweat collected all the more easily, and she looked especially miserable. She kept biting her parched lips until blood beaded in the cracks.
And yet… even I, who found myself envying those little drops of blood, was far from normal. If I could have, I would have pulled the blood right out of my own body and drunk it. The tears I had shed, the spit… even the urine and the slick of arousal I had lost after surrendering to the Spores—I regretted every drop of them.
Just one day. Or perhaps we had already endured a full day in this merciless state. Left in that environment long enough, I found myself missing Leviathan terribly. He was frightening, yes, but if he came, we could at least get out of this.
…Haa.
The more I repeated the thought, the more ridiculous it became. When it came down to it, Leviathan was nothing more than the one who tormented and tortured me. It was even because of his leave that we had been thrown into this misery—and still I was reduced to wishing for him.
But I could think of nothing else. After all, if I traced it back far enough, I was locked in here by my own will. And what had stirred that will was nothing other than the lust that filled my heart… so every attempt at fundamental judgment collapsed, and the only thought that remained was the simple, desperate hope that Leviathan would come.
“Huu…”
A sigh came from beside me. Yejin, who still had some confidence in her stamina, shifted her body and felt along the wall.
What was it?
After checking, she whispered quietly.
“Keh…! Huu… Looks like the recovery fluid is coming out. Must be evening now.”
“…Really?”
It was welcome news. The suffering continued, but her words—that at least the environment was changing—brought a small measure of comfort.
“Yeah. The wall’s starting to get damp.”
“That’s a relief…”
“Right. Once we sleep and wake up, we should be able to go outside.”
Yejin smiled with her filthy face. Beside her, Jaehee, who had been staring blankly at the time, also managed a faint smile and leaned back against the wall again.
“Then we’d better watch what we say from now on. If this much time has passed, it wouldn’t be strange for Leviathan to come back any moment.”
“Yeah. Until we’re released in the morning, let’s stick to writing if we can. And… Nayoon.”
“Hm?”
Yejin suddenly called my name. When I lifted my head, she was looking at me with a serious expression.
“The others have probably already figured it out, but… once we’re released in the morning, we’re going to bathe.”
“…Bathe?”
That sounded welcome. Yet Yejin’s face was not particularly bright. Sure enough, what came out of her mouth next made my own expression harden.
“Yeah. A bath. But that ‘bath’ is really just water torture dressed up as washing.”
“Ah…”
A single sentence of information was enough. The mere knowledge that it was not a simple bath was enough to plant fear. We would need a fuller explanation, but if every one of my cellmates had gone stiff-faced and felt the need to pass this along in private, it was clearly not going to be anything as ordinary as having water poured over us.
“That water torture is—!”
“…!”
But the information stopped there. Yejin, mid-sentence, and Jaehee both bit their lips at the presence they felt outside. This presence was different from the false alarm that morning.
— THUD!!
“…Ngh! Hah.”
Someone kicked the cell door hard. It was a metal door, and with the door set flush against the tiny cell, the impact carried straight inside. The loud crash and the sensation of the whole cell shaking froze us in place.
Leviathan. Seems like he’s back.
Sensing the danger, we all shut our mouths and switched to writing.
Just in case, let’s lie down and rest. Pass it along.
I nodded at the message from Yejin and relayed it to Luia, who was sitting beside me. Writing was certainly more inconvenient than speaking. Still, I had to be grateful that even this much conversation was possible.
Go to sleep. You must be tired.
OK. You too.
Whether Leviathan had truly returned or not, we could not know, but our voices had not been loud enough to leak outside the cell, so we could only assume he had kicked the door once as a way of announcing his return. Moisture had begun to hang in the air inside the cell as well; night had clearly fallen.
With that thought, we pressed our hips into the corners of the walls and lay down, bodies stacked against one another. The handcuffs and leg irons still made a comfortable posture impossible, but we managed something close to lying down.
Hang in there tomorrow too.
Yeah. Good night.
OK.
We each gave one another’s thighs a brief touch by way of good-night, then closed our eyes. The thirst that still remained, and the bone-deep weariness. Conversation would have made the time pass faster, but that was no longer possible, and the fatigue of a day spent struggling in this narrow space gradually weighed down our eyelids. The smell rising from one another’s skin would not let us fall asleep easily, but for now we had to rest.
“Huu…”
I closed my eyes. Fortunately, the Stimulation Spores seemed to have finished their allotted time; after the long torment of the morning, they had not activated again. Please, let me sleep through tonight without the Spores waking me…
Even though I was an atheist, I closed my eyes and prayed to God.
My hopes proved empty; I could not sleep through the night in one stretch. I was woken by the Stimulation Spores any number of times. Especially in the early hours of morning, they pulsed every three minutes at ten-minute intervals, turning into an unwanted session of forced caresses.
When I woke in the morning, the daze and the rising heat of arousal were almost too much to fight. Part of me wanted to beg Luia beside me to touch me. But there was no time for that.
We had been falling asleep and waking at irregular intervals, and just as our faces finally met—
the iron door opened.
— CLANK. Click.
“Cell 3, out.”
“…Yes… cough.”
“Yes!”
“Yes…”
“Keh… ugh… Yes.”
Leviathan’s voice, heard after a full day and more. At the sound of it, every one of us rose and hurried out of the cell.
“Ngh…!”
A body that had been locked in that tiny cell all day—longer than a day—was stiff. Every joint produced a stabbing ache with each attempt to stand.
“Numbers.”
“A522… cough.”
“A691! Kek… haa.”
“A711! Ugh!”
“A713… nngh.”
On top of that, our throats were ruined. Throats still unslaked, throats so dry the moisture had burned away, forced to speak with effort—tearing pain flooded through them. All of it was the change produced by being locked away for just one day.
“What a mess. I leave for a single day and you lot fall apart like this. And sniff sniff… Do you actually want to live smelling like this? Honestly… you smell worse than pigs.”
“….”
Leviathan deliberately spelled out what we already knew and condemned us for it. His sharp gaze raked over our bodies, and the shame and humiliation were so intense I wanted to crawl into a hole.
“Especially you, Luia. What’s this under these tits? Planning to make salt?”
“Haah…! Ngh.”
Leviathan even gripped Luia’s breasts by the nipples alone and lifted them. Between her breasts and her torso, where the flesh folded, the sweat she had shed all night and the salt left behind as it dried had left visible marks.
“Your prison uniforms are all torn to shreds too. At this rate you’re no different from the animals in the pens over there. Honestly. And you still call yourselves human… No. Wait. You’re not human, are you.”
“…?”
“You bitches who went mad with lust and threw away your human rights are trash lower than animals. Heh heh. Ah, I almost made a mistake there. Just because something talks and stands on two legs doesn’t make it human.”
“…Kh!”
At the merciless verbal abuse, Yejin made a small sound. Probably her bratty nature refusing to stay completely silent.
“Got a problem, Yejin? Hm?”
— THUD!
“Kyaah!! Ah… uuugh!”
Even that small sound, Leviathan did not let pass. The instant she made a noise, he lifted his foot and kicked Yejin in the stomach. Caught completely off guard, she crumpled to the floor and writhed in pain.
“Get up. A691. Kim Yejin.”
“Yes… uugh! Haa. Haa.”
“Don’t get cocky. I told you the day before yesterday, didn’t I? Keep acting up. Next time I’ll stuff ginger and Chinese yam into every hole in your body. Or… maybe you’d rather go straight into solitary?”
“Ah! No, sir. I’m sorry!”
“Behave.”
“Yes!”
Leviathan, after only a day apart, greeted us with an even harsher edge. I had wished for him to come back quickly, but not like this… Even though we had spent the day steeped in the recovery fluid’s effects, the wounds from the whipping had not fully healed, and the abuse and coercive treatment we had to endure first thing in the morning were, honestly, harsh enough to make endurance difficult.
“Today you’re scheduled for a bath. If I don’t get dirty bitches like you cleaned up fast, I won’t be able to show my face to the other guards. I’ll scrub you raw, so today’s oath will be recited by everyone together. Begin!”
“Begin!”
“The Prisoner’s Oath!”
At his command, we all dropped to our knees on the floor and faced Leviathan as we shouted. Even though our throats felt ready to tear, my cellmates raised their voices, afraid that speaking too softly might cause trouble. I raised my own voice with them and recited the Prisoner’s Oath.
“…I will obey the Guard infinitely. I humbly ask for your guidance again today!”
Fortunately, not one of us lagged or made a mistake; we finished the Prisoner’s Oath cleanly. Apparently satisfied, Leviathan nodded and permitted us to stand.
“Follow me.”
The moment we rose, it was time to move. Huh? That was strange. Normally, after the Prisoner’s Oath came breakfast, didn’t it? The thought that one step of the routine had been skipped suddenly occurred to me. In particular, though the agony of thirst had made me forget, more than a day of starvation had left me hungry. Breakfast was an ordeal, but it did bring a sense of fullness, so I had been looking forward to it inwardly… for whatever reason, I felt the lack of it.
But a glance at Yejin’s and Jaehee’s faces told me that meals were normally omitted when a bath was coming. Taking the experienced pair’s demeanor as my guide, I quietly followed behind.
It must have been a little early; the corridor was quiet. No other inmates were in sight, and the only sound of a guard’s boots that we heard every morning was Leviathan’s alone.
We walked for a long while.
“This way.”
The place we were headed was the most remote corner of the Confinement Area. Leviathan stepped into a corridor that branched off toward the Training Area and opened a door set into one wall.
And the sight that met us.
“…Ah.”
The space that appeared beyond the entrance, marked with a nameplate reading Inmate Laundry Facility, was an enormous laundry room. Along the walls stood machines that looked easily twice the size of ordinary washing machines, lined up in a row, and in the center of the room was a console-style control unit.
Inmate Laundry Facility
Leviathan pressed his fingerprint to the machine and operated a few buttons.
— Whirr.
Commencing laundry for Cell 3. Each inmate, enter the machine marked with your inmate ID number.
At that, four of the machines along the wall opened their doors.
“Stand in front of your washers.”
The situation was full of questions, but we could not ask them. Driven only by the order, we took our places in front of the machines.
“….”
The washers had an unusual design. From the outside they looked like ordinary drum washers scaled up, but the doors were rectangular, and they opened by dropping forward the way a dishwasher door does. When the door opened, a space large enough for a single human body appeared before my eyes. A narrow stainless-steel chamber. A space so tight that if you curled up, you would not be able to move.
“All right. A713. Relax.”
“Yes.”
While I was still staring blankly at the unfamiliar sight, Leviathan approached and removed my handcuffs and leg irons. The restraints that had bound my arms and legs for so long fell away, and my throbbing wrists ached even more.
“Get in. Strip off the prison uniform, go inside, and sit with your pussy and asshole lined up against the holes.”
“…What?”
“Didn’t you hear me? Get in and sit.”
“Ah. Yes, sir!”
I had questioned him without meaning to. Fortunately I did not receive any Demeanor Penalty Points, but Leviathan’s displeased gaze cut off any further questions.
“….”
He moved on to free the others of their cuffs and irons. Once he had left, I carefully peeled off the prison uniform I was wearing. It was already nearly torn to pieces, but the moment I was about to become completely naked, I felt ashamed. Everything that could be seen had already been seen; we had even mixed our bodies—and yet, ordered by a single word to strip myself, my hands would not move readily.
“A713. Are you going to get in or not?”
“Ah…! I’m sorry.”
But I had no choice, and I was given no time to think. At a single bark I apologized for the fault and stripped off the prison uniform. I hurriedly threw the rags aside and stepped up to the washer…
What met my eyes there were two long, slender rods.