Sleep Deprivation
…It was dark.
Even after I clicked, nothing changed before my eyes.
Huh? That’s strange.
If I remembered right, the Waltz Production logo should have appeared, then I’d access the homepage, watch about five sample videos, and sign up for membership…
Wait a second. What is this? This déjà vu…
It feels like… I’ve already done this.
Ah, right.
That’s it.
This… is my memory.
Everything I’d already done when I first accessed Waltz Production…
That was the beginning.
Ha. Haha.
I didn’t know back then.
That the me of now would end up suffering like this on Prison Island…
Ah, come to think of it—Prison Island.
Right. I’m on Prison Island right now…
Why did this memory suddenly surface?
Just a moment ago I was in the torture chamber, enduring electric torture…
…Don’t tell me I’m dead?
“….”
My last memory rose in my mind.
That moment when I gasped under the electric torture, foamed at the mouth, and everything went black.
The terror of death had seeped in and I’d resigned myself to everything…
But this didn’t seem to be the aftermath of that.
Then was this the afterlife?
Yet a single sensation soon pressed in, warning me not to think such nonsense.
“Hahk…! Ah… uungh.”
If I were dead…
If this were the afterlife, I wouldn’t be feeling this sensation from my nipples.
I grimaced in agony and finally, with great effort, lifted my eyelids.
What I saw was a narrow space.
“Nayoon. Are you okay?”
And Jaehee, crouching worriedly, looking down at me.
I gazed at her with a hazy face.
My head was still foggy; my senses hadn’t fully returned.
Why was Jaehee beside me?
“Passed out. Dragged back. Rest a little. Morning soon.”
Only then did I understand the situation.
I had fainted in the torture chamber and been returned to the cell while still out of it.
The past memory I’d just seen was a dream.
Reality… was being trapped inside this wretched prison.
The dream would have been more comfortable.
“Uungh…! Hah…”
In a moment of lowered guard, the spores at the tips of my nipples writhed with a lewd sensation, and I let out a small moan.
“Spores? Want me to touch them?”
“I’m fine. You should rest more.”
Jaehee kept offering help, clearly worried about me, but I only accepted the sentiment; I didn’t want to impose.
Still, biting my lip lightly was enough to endure this much.
“I’m sleepy. When did I get here?”
The drowsiness on top of everything made the stimulation feel less intense.
Even with my eyes open, my eyelids kept lowering on their own.
Inside the dark cell.
No matter how harsh the environment, it couldn’t overcome the heavy exhaustion in my body.
“Not long. Feels like… two or three hours?”
“Makes sense I’d be sleepy.”
Sleep crashed over me harder than the heaviness in my limbs.
But Jaehee was awake, and Yejin and Luia were sitting up as well, so it was clear wake-up time was approaching.
Either way, lying alone and taking up space in the cell made me feel too guilty not to get up.
“…Ugh.”
I pushed myself up and leaned against the wall.
Even a moment’s lapse and I’d doze off right there.
If only… if only Leviathan wouldn’t come like the day before yesterday.
The desperate urge to sleep a little longer tormented me to the point of madness.
But no such mercy came.
— Clank. Creak.
“Cell 3, out.”
Before long, Leviathan’s footsteps echoed, and the cell door opened.
I was nearest the entrance, so I stepped out first. Leviathan stood there holding breakfast and a few tools.
“Hahk…! Ugh….”
The instant I stood in front of the cell, a crushing sensation flooded my body, separate from the drowsiness.
Aftereffects of yesterday’s torture, maybe—my muscles ached.
Even the slightest movement made my joints creak, and I couldn’t move with my arms and legs hanging limp.
Just standing was all I could manage.
But Leviathan was not the sort to grant any convenience, and he already knew my condition better than anyone.
“Inmate A713. Lee Nayoon.”
“…Ah. Yes.”
“Hard, isn’t it?”
“…Yes.”
“Of course it is. You took electric torture all through last night and only got about two hours of sleep.”
“….”
If you know that so well… then please give me even a little rest.
The feelings piled up inside made my lips twitch.
But the next words from Leviathan made me glad I hadn’t spoken.
“That’s exactly why you need to keep your head straight. Don’t go spacing out and racking up more Demeanor Penalty Points for nothing.”
“….”
“And once you get through training time and torture time, you’ll be wide awake for sure. Well… if you pile up too many points, tomorrow will be hell too. So work harder. Understood?”
“…Yes.”
In a state where I had to suppress the sleep pressing in, I barely clung to consciousness and answered.
Fear of the day ahead washed over me.
Would I… really make it to night without earning any points?
“All right. While we’re on the subject, Inmate A713, start the Prisoner’s Oath.”
“…Yes. The Prisoner’s Oath!”
In the end, my hopes… were completely shattered.
The fog from sleep deprivation was worse than I’d thought.
I botched the Prisoner’s Oath twice, and during breakfast I dozed off while chewing a lump of food, racking up points the whole time.
Just the morning’s Demeanor Penalty Points totaled thirty.
The severe abdominal pain during the enema cleared my head a little, but only briefly… Even while moving to the training area my steps staggered; my body was in terrible shape.
“If you collapse, points. Your score right now. Dangerous. Hang in there.”
Yejin passed me the message as we walked the corridor.
Writing while walking was risky in itself, yet she took that risk just to worry about me.
I tried my hardest to stay sharp at her words and headed for the training area.
Even now, training still focused on the throat.
The inmates gathered in the training area sat beneath neon signs engraved with their numbers and had to suck dildos.
The difference from before was that the dildos were extremely long.
And…
“These are recreations of beast dildos. You who have no human rights must be ready to take beasts whenever the order comes!”
“…Uuuh.”
“If only you are gasping and struggling, what’s a beast supposed to do? So practice hard so you can satisfy a beast!”
The dildos we had to suck this time were beasts’.
Even a human cock shape was hard enough to suck—now a beast’s…
My heart wanted to break.
The fear that I might actually be forced into bestiality—into mating with animals—froze my mind solid.
Under the call of today’s training-area supervisor, Marmon, I stared at the beast cock that appeared beneath the neon sign.
The one assigned to me was a canine’s—a retriever’s.
I ignored the useless information the neon sign kept flashing and opened my mouth.
The inhuman shape and hardness triggered revulsion, but I had to suck it.
I had to suck…
My eyes closed.
Ah—
Even in this moment I was this sleepy…
My vision flickered for an instant.
I fought several times to stay conscious, but it was useless.
“A713. Wake up.”
It got so bad that my fellow inmate A688, watching from beside me, pressed hard on my thigh trying to rouse me.
Thanks to her help I managed to snap back a few times.
But there I was, dozing with a dog’s cock shape in my mouth.
I repeated the ridiculous scene over and over, that sleepy.
This wasn’t simple fatigue.
During university I’d pulled all-nighters for assignments often enough, and at work I’d done overnight shifts.
But I never felt this sleepy then.
In other words, the drowsiness now wasn’t only from lack of sleep—it was the body’s overloaded demand for rest after days of exhaustion.
The mild headache creeping in was part of that too.
Normally a person would rest at a time like this.
“Oh? This bitch is really sleepy, huh?”
“Uu… uuuh.”
“Hurry up. A713. You’re almost last right now… Keep this up and you’ll be dragged to the execution ground after only a week inside.”
“Mmmp… Yes. I’m… sorry.”
But rest was never given to inmates, and my eyelids grew heavier and heavier.
In the end, today’s training finished with me just one place above last.
More Demeanor Penalty Points added.
This time it was forty-two.
The only silver lining was that the sudden mention of the execution ground at the end startled me awake long enough that the points weren’t even higher.
Still, my total was high.
Beside me, A688 who came in last had about sixty-nine points.
She’d started with a lot and kept piling them on, but she should still be lower than me.
“Ha. I’ve got so many points. I’m probably the one getting executed.”
But A688, unaware of the truth, kept reassuring me that she would be the execution target.
No.
You’re talking about points you don’t even know about…!
I wanted to tell her I’d received three hundred points in one go, but a sudden thought stopped me.
She was only saying it out of worry for me anyway…
Rejecting her kindness would look bad, and there was no need to make her worry more.
Besides, to tell her I’d have to scratch her thigh with my hand, and I didn’t even have the strength for that.
The moment training ended, all I wanted was to rest without adding any more points.
I really wanted to rest.
Even if I couldn’t rest, I just wanted to lie down.
Sleepy… sleepy.
So damn sleepy.
This itself felt like torture.
After that, I had no memory of how I left the training area, what I thought while walking, or even how I breathed.
When I opened my eyes, I was somehow in Leviathan’s guard office. A searing sensation made me look forward—Leviathan was glaring at me.
“Hey. A713. Lee Nayoon.”
“….”
He called me.
I heard him call.
Then the normal thing was to answer immediately…
I knew that… yet my mouth wouldn’t move.
I should have spoken even a beat late, but my lips stayed shut, and what followed was a kick.
— Thud!
“Uungh…! …….”
I collapsed to the floor.
The cold aura of the floor… felt so good.
I wanted to stay lying like this.
…Really, just one hour. No, even ten minutes… I wanted to sleep.
I was that sleepy.
“Hmm. Oh? Falling asleep in that state? Heh. This bitch must be crazy. A522. A691. Get that bitch on her feet.”
“Yes.”
I hadn’t meant to, but I was so drained that I just lay there, so Leviathan ordered Jaehee and Yejin to haul me up.
They grabbed my arms and forced me upright.
I planted both feet on the floor and tried to stand properly, but it wasn’t easy.
My body stayed foggy, and the oncoming sleep seemed to have erased my sense of danger.
I was afraid of Leviathan, and yet…
My brain filled with the thought that I’d rather take a few hits and just sleep.
“So. Now you’re just going to ignore a guard’s words, is that it?”
No. That’s not it.
What are you trying to say right now.
I just… want to sleep.
I just want to sleep a little.
I don’t have any intention like that.
“Fine. If you want to sleep that badly, I’ll put you to sleep.”
Ah, really?
Hehe. Looking at how you’re acting…
You must have realized how pitiful and exhausted I look.
“Let’s see how long you last. A691. Get it ready.”
“…Yes.”
At Leviathan’s order, Yejin went to the corner and brought something back.
I couldn’t tell whether I simply hadn’t heard the subject or whether my ears had failed me… but the moment I saw what she carried, I understood the punishment Leviathan had decided on.
The privilege of the guards.
What they called their most powerful means of controlling inmates.
Solitary confinement.
“Ah…”
The solitary cell right in front of me.
The interior of the carrier Yejin had opened was visible.
I was supposed to go in there now?
…Ah. Maybe it would be okay?
The first time I saw it I’d doubted whether my body would even fit, but now I wanted to cram myself in no matter how tight the space.
Going in there would mean skipping dinner, but it would also mean avoiding torture time.
More than anything, a space where I could close my eyes for even a moment was right in front of me, so there was no need to weigh the pros and cons.
“Get in.”
“…Yes.”
Hoping his mind wouldn’t change, I answered quickly and climbed into the carrier.
Just as I’d expected, the inside was narrow.
The interior was hard; I had to crouch with my hands forward, and even then I had to bow my head.
Still, I managed to fit.
Knees drawn up, my chest was crushed and it hurt, creating a stifling pressure, yet simply being inside the carrier on my side felt like comfort.
I hoped the door would close soon.
Even now I could fall asleep the moment I shut my eyes, but I forced myself to hold on, afraid that dozing might reverse Leviathan’s decision and cancel the solitary sentence.
“Close it.”
“…Yes.”
When Leviathan’s order came, Yejin and Jaehee pushed the parts of my body that stuck out back inside, then slowly closed the carrier door.
And at the very end, I saw their pitying eyes.
It’s okay.
I chose this because I couldn’t take it anymore.
So don’t make that face.
…Haha.
I deliberately put on a smile.
A smile that said don’t worry, and that I’d see them tomorrow…
— Thud. Click.
And just like that, I was locked in solitary.