The Inmates' Sprint
The whirring of the treadmill rails turning.
The tramp of inmates' feet upon them.
“Haa…. Hoo….”
“Ugh…! Haa… nngh!”
“Hoo- hoo- hoo-”
“Mmnh… sss…!”
Our moans filled the training room.
We walked, and walked again.
Without even knowing our own speeds… all we could do was walk.
And even then, we had to wrestle with the same conflict over and over.
“Hooo. Ugh… nngh!”
There was no guarantee anywhere that this pace was all right.
If we kept going at this speed, would we ever cover the distance assigned to us?
Unknown questions piled up, and other worries stacked on top of them in layers.
In the end it was a fight that only ended once we filled fifty kilometers.
So there was also the option of pushing a little faster and shortening the time we had to suffer.
But… was it even possible?
Even just walking, the millet grains inside the high heels stabbed into the soles of our feet.
With our full body weight riding on them, the considerable pain repeated itself, and running would take real resolve.
“Hooo. Hooo.”
Time was not on our side.
The longer we walked, the more our stamina dropped—and the greater the risk that the writhing of the spores would stop us cold.
It was hard, but that was another reason we had to hurry.
In the end, without anyone saying a word, the pace of our footsteps gradually quickened.
No—it had to quicken.
“Ugh… nngh…! Hoo- hoo- haa….”
The first to raise her speed was Ye-jin.
True to her athletic build, the moment she finished deliberating she cranked it up and began almost race-walking.
“Kyaa… nngh…! Haa. Haa. Jen…”
“Hey! Who do you think you are, trying to speak without vocal permission?”
— Slap!
“Kyaa…! Hooo. Hooo.”
But it didn’t last long. The wire lines swayed, and the piercings swayed with them; the stimulation forced Ye-jin to slow down again.
The unexpected restriction left her wanting to complain—and earning a thrashing from Leviathan, who had been watching from behind, was just the bonus.
“Haa. Haa. Nngh… haa.”
As if a speed limit had been clamped on us.
Our hearts raced ahead, but we couldn’t actually raise our pace.
Even a little haste set the piercings swinging and jolting our nipples; the pain of the millet in the high heels hit harder.
On top of that, the heels themselves forced an awkward gait, so running was practically impossible.
In the end, a brisk walk was the limit.
“Hooo. Hooo. Haa. Haa.”
“Nngh… haa… nngh…!”
Jae-hee and Seo-ah kept walking diligently too, but the ceiling on their speed left their expressions growing darker by the minute.
And the inmate in the worst condition of all.
I was having just as hard a time walking.
“Mmph… hnn… mmph…!”
I had never been any good at running to begin with.
Right after secondary sexual characteristics hit, my chest had grown so large that even a quick walk tugged painfully at the breast muscles; I had always preferred to go slow whenever I could.
And because a faster pace made my breasts bounce, drawing the lust-filled stares of the men around me, I had deliberately avoided it—so an environment that forced me to walk this fast was completely alien.
But I had to walk, and I had to run.
“Hup… mmph! Kngh…!”
Tears welling, I ignored the pain of the high heels and the millet and walked faster.
The waves my bouncing chest sent through me brought a useless flush of arousal that sapped the strength from my body, yet the yoga and gymnastics I had kept up regularly meant I could still endure this much.
The real problems were the gag and the Special Handcuffs.
“Kngh…! Mmph!”
I had never done much cardio.
My lung capacity was average at best.
With that physical limit, walking this fast left me short of breath.
Even without running, the repetitive steps made it a natural result.
But right now my mouth was sealed by the gag.
Ordinary ball gags used for SM play usually had a few small holes; the one I was biting was smooth-surfaced, with no holes to be found.
Even standing still I sometimes struggled to breathe; walking the treadmill made it harder and harder to draw and release my ragged breaths properly.
There was only one solution.
Slow down and stabilize my breathing through my nose as much as possible.
“Hnn… hup… mmph….”
And the Special Handcuffs were heavier than ordinary cuffs to begin with; worse, their sealed design trapped sweat inside.
They ventilated well enough that the moisture would eventually disappear if left alone, but it wasn’t enough to evaporate both the heat from the treadmill work and the sweat it produced.
Humidity built up until my hands felt swollen; the sweat itself was pure discomfort.
I wanted nothing more than to tear the Special Handcuffs off and wipe my hands clean.
But I had no freedom for that.
“Kngh… mmph! Mmph…!”
On top of it all, the moment my guard slipped, the spore stimulation hit my nipples.
In that miserable state, the best I could manage was simply to keep walking without rest.
“Hoo- haa. Haa. Hoo.”
Sometimes, out of guilt, I turned my head sideways—and my comrades’ gazes stabbed me painfully.
Everyone knew everything, yet with a fixed distance still to cover, any one of us falling behind was both a huge burden and a source of worry.
I didn’t want to become that, but no matter how I steeled myself, collapse could come in an instant.
My heart ached.
It hurt, and I was sorry.
“Don’t think of each other as burdens—let’s do this!!”
That was when it happened.
Even without vocal permission,
Seo-ah suddenly shouted at the top of her lungs and began to raise her speed little by little.
“Who the hell do you think you are.”
— Slap!!
“Kyaa!! Haa. Haa. Haa-”
Seo-ah took the whipping that was the price of unauthorized speech, yet with iron will she kept edging her pace higher.
Her face was twisted hard.
Hands cuffed behind her back, high heels full of millet on her feet—and still Seo-ah pushed her speed up until she was running.
— Thud. Thud. Thud.
Alongside the turning rails, the sound of her sprint rang out.
It had to hurt.
It had to be agony.
All of it showed on her face, yet Seo-ah ran without a care.
Like a vanguard charging out at the head of a war….
“Hooo…. Haa. Haa- haa- haa-”
“Hnn… nngh… haha. Hoo- ha- hoo- ha- nngh! Haa- nngh!”
Matching her, Jae-hee and Ye-jin raised their speeds too.
As if they refused to lose—or as if they would follow.
Without a word the two of them pushed harder, and before long they were running… Ye-jin especially, as if her competitive fire had ignited, tore across the treadmill at a worrying clip.
Every time the piercings on her nipples swung hard, her face contorted.
But she never slowed or stopped.
“Hnn… mmph!”
Was it because of that sight?
It was hard, but I joined them.
It was torment and exhaustion, yet Seo-ah’s cheer, and the challenge Ye-jin and Jae-hee had set their hearts on, made me want to be part of it.
“Hup- mmph- hup- mmph-”
Fortunately, after walking a little… my body adapted enough that I could hold a speed that wouldn’t tip me into respiratory failure.
I walked at the absolute maximum I could manage.
The risk of gag-induced breathlessness made running impossible, but I could go faster than the walking pace I had first imagined.
— Thud. Thud. Thud.
And so the moans of four inmates and the pounding of feet on treadmills rang out together.
Watching us, Leviathan said,
“Heh heh. Hey. If you start running that hard already your stamina’s going to tank and you won’t finish. You sure about this? That A688’s got the whole mood weird—don’t go doing something you’ll regret.”
…cutting down our efforts with those words.
But even hearing them, we did not stop.
Because the best we could do in the present was better than an anxious future.
And… because Seo-ah had cheered for us.
Sooner or later the spores would attack and our stamina would drop; our speed would slow for certain.
Even if we tried to conserve energy, with the finish line nowhere in sight, every extra minute of training only multiplied the variables.
We… at least until the power of that cheer ran out, had to give everything we had.
That was the best we could do.
And so we ran for a long while.
Me, Seo-ah, Ye-jin, Jae-hee.
All of us ran and ran without rest; even when exhaustion forced us to ease off, we only paused a moment before running again.
A true struggle for survival.
Perhaps because of that effort, Leviathan’s voice behind us gradually grew quieter.
“…What the hell are these bitches…?”
Even I thought I had been pushing for quite a long time when
the single line Leviathan muttered became the highest praise for the level of our effort.
We who had run for so long and still refused to stop.
Ye-jin, especially, had been running from the very beginning until now.
Fully exploiting her strengths, she was raising her speed still higher in a steady rhythm.
Right now, even if I were in ordinary condition, I wouldn’t be able to catch her.
Thanks to that, a little of the weight on my heart lifted.
But she wasn’t invincible either.
“Haugh…! Hoo. Nngh…! Ha. Nngh… kngh!”
Mid-run, Ye-jin gradually slowed.
Eyes open, mouth hanging, she drooled freely with a face of pure pain.
Her legs kept a fast walk on momentum alone, but that didn’t last long either.
From the way she was almost standing still, we could tell the spores in her body had begun to move.
“Hnn… nngh… hic…!”
Scattering liquid—tears or sweat, who could say—across the treadmill rails, Ye-jin came to a stop.
Her pitiful figure.
But I thought it was better this way.
Better than collapsing suddenly and having her nipples torn free.
And the effort Ye-jin had shown us until now had given us real strength,
so what remained was for us to cover for her hardship.
“Haa. Haa. Nngh… haugh…!”
While Ye-jin suffered under the spore attack,
Jae-hee, Seo-ah, and I raised our speeds a little more.
“Hnn… hup- mmph- hup- mmph!”
Honestly I was at my limit, but even past the limit I had to run.
Fortunately, true to the adaptive animal I was, my breathing settled a little more to the gag.
Still not enough, but just a fraction.
I could raise my speed a little.
And Seo-ah, even with a face that looked ready to fall, kept running.
Watching her actually increase her pace and pull ahead as the fastest of us, I could tell she was enduring less through physical strength than through sheer iron will.
I didn’t know why.
It was the complete opposite of the Seo-ah who had tried to give up on life at the execution.
Then I couldn’t lose either.
A little more—just a little more—
Just as Seo-ah had said, so we wouldn’t become burdens to one another,
and so we wouldn’t carry burdens ourselves, we ran and ran again.
And so another long stretch of time passed.
Ye-jin, once she had recovered, stood still for about a minute to steady her breathing, then clenched her teeth and began sprinting once more.
The comrade hit by the Stimulation Spores would slow down, and the rest of us would push harder in the gap—that pattern repeating as we ran.
“Haa. Haa. Haa.”
“Hek… hek… haugh…! Hek…!”
“Hnn-hnn- hnn- hoo… hnn-”
“Kngh- mmph- kngh- mmph”
Quite a long time.
But the end was nowhere in sight.
Where was the end?
Fifty kilometers—a vast distance.
Running and walking and running again, our physical limits finally arrived.
How much farther did we have to go?
Even sprinting had its limits.
Especially in our current state, even walking was becoming nearly impossible.
Even ordinary walking, more than ten kilometers per person, was no small thing.
Sweat poured until our prison uniforms were soaked through; the feet locked in high heels had long since blistered from the millet and the discomfort.
Every step felt as if my body were being crushed.
No more.
I can’t walk.
I can’t go any farther.
Those thoughts repeated dozens, hundreds of times, yet looking at my comrades struggling beside me, I simply couldn’t stop.
I poured out every scrap of strength I had—and every scrap I didn’t—and walked.
But the moment the spore stimulation hit, I had to freeze in place and tremble.
When would we finally get off these treadmills?
When… would we escape this pain?
Looking sideways, it seemed every comrade felt the same.
If Seo-ah hadn’t steeled herself at the start, ready to take the punishment,
or if Ye-jin hadn’t run and poured energy into all of us,
it wouldn’t have been strange for us to collapse right then and there.
Even with one member changed,
the failure of the labor in the execution area kept catching at our ankles.
If we failed to reach the goal this time too…
would we be dragged to the execution grounds again?
The anxiety that kept seeping in somehow kept my legs moving.
But now it was the real limit.
A cramp seized my leg; spasms ran through it, and even trying to walk I couldn’t.
In the agony of trembling as if paralyzed, on the verge of sinking down, I stopped where I stood, holding the terror that if I collapsed my nipples might be torn free.
“Hnn- hnn- h- hnn-”
My chest heaved up and down.
Breath came far too short; oxygen starvation closed in.
Sweat streamed from my forehead and blurred my eyes.
No more.
It was truly impossible.
I couldn’t take a single step.
Guilt toward the comrades beside me rose up.
Girls, I’m sorry.
I really…
I really want to keep walking…. But I just can’t anymore.
“What are you doing, A713.”
Then Leviathan approached.
In his hand he held the horsehair whip he had used on Seo-ah.