Two-Faced…?
“Today’s piercing weight is double yesterday’s. Grit your teeth and work hard.”
“Yes… Kyaah!”
The moment I stepped into the labor yard, Leviathan snapped the cuffs onto my wrists and, with that curt declaration, doubled the weight on my piercings.
Two hundred grams on each side—yesterday’s load times two. Four hundred grams in total dragged my breasts downward. More precisely, my nipples were yanked straight down while the whole of my chest felt impossibly heavy.
“Ah… augh…! Ugh…”
Just as Leviathan had ordered, I had to clench my teeth. The pull was far heavier than when I had been wired to the treadmill. My entire chest was being stretched; the ache radiated from my shoulders all the way down my arms. Yet there was no time to linger. Beside me my cellmates were already at work. The twisted faces, the labored steps—they were under the same burden. The only thing a latecomer like me could do was throw herself into the labor even harder.
“Move. Hurry.”
At the command I forced my feet forward. The bitter, tangled feelings swirling inside me had to be set aside for now. What mattered was wiping out the guilt of becoming a burden to the others by giving everything I had.
I ran ahead and took over the cart from Seoa. Unlike Jaehee and Yejin, who were shoveling earth, Seoa’s gait looked far too precarious.
“…Ugh. Uuugh.”
The instant I grabbed the handles she dropped to one knee, gasping. For her slender frame, four hundred grams of piercing weight was clearly more than she could manage while hauling a cart.
“Haa… haa. Haa.”
She steadied her breath and reached for the shovel again. Even that brief rest earned by the switch was not permitted.
— Crack!!
“Kyaah!! Haa. Haa… Ugh!”
“Who told you to stop moving your hands? A688, Kang Seoa! Get your posture right and work. And A713—why did you stop again?”
— Crack!!
“Ugh!! I’m sorry!”
“Get going.”
“Yes!”
The sparks flew my way as well. After Seoa, the whip found me; I never even managed to signal anything to her before I had to drag the cart toward the swamp.
At least the cart was empty, so walking itself was not too hard. The posture, however, was pure misery. Before, both hands had been bound behind my back and I simply hooked the chain and pulled like an ox. Now, with my hands cuffed in front, that was impossible. The only way was to grip the handles with both hands and walk backward.
“Haa. Haa. Haa… huu… haa.”
After only a few hundred meters I reached the mound of earth by the swamp. Yejin was there, swinging a shovel, loading dirt into the cart. Her expression was dark. The endless labor was bad enough, but the weight on her nipples made every scoop harder than before. She could not pull her arms all the way back; half the dirt she managed to lift simply spilled from trembling limbs.
“Huu— haa. Haa.”
Still, the terror that Leviathan might appear at any second and lay on the whip kept her moving. The moment I approached she scanned for him; sensing his gaze not far away, she forced her stalled hands back into motion. The only rest she allowed herself was a single stretch of her back when she saw me. Our eyes met for half a second; she offered a fleeting smile that vanished at once—her greeting—then I seized the filled cart and started the return trip.
The cycle of labor began again. True to the name “forced labor,” we worked in an environment designed to break us. Both hands hauled a cart heaped with earth. The instant I put strength into my arms, the piercing weight doubled in sensation. Electricity seemed to race through my entire chest. After only a few steps my prison uniform was already soaked with sweat, and inside it the swinging weights shook my nipples so violently that every arm movement felt like someone was wringing my most sensitive flesh.
I could not work like this.
“Haugh! Ah… aaugh…. Hic.”
My larger breasts, compared with the others’, were pure poison. Without a bra to hold them, the heavy piercings made every bounce agony. In the end I yanked the front of my uniform down and freed them. Guards had forced my breasts out before, but this was the first time I had done it with my own hands.
“Haa. Haa. Haugh….”
The pain did not vanish, yet it eased a fraction. The shame remained. I knew Leviathan was watching, and that the control room was monitoring through the cameras, but right now lessening the torment mattered more than dignity. Above all, if I wanted to shoulder more of the work than the others, my body needed freer movement.
“A713. Lee Nayoon.”
“Ah— yes!”
“Who gave you permission to pull your uniform down however you like?”
“…Ah. This is…”
— Thud!
“Keh…! Ah. Ahk!”
That choice led to a bad end. Leviathan strode over, pointed out my dress, and without waiting for any excuse drove his fist into my stomach. The sudden blow folded me to the ground.
“Stand up.”
“Haugh… ugh…. Keh….”
Strength drained from my body the moment the punch landed; even breathing hurt. He gave me not a second of grace, only the order to rise. I forced power into my legs. I had to stand. Somehow I had to get up. Panic urged my body, yet it refused to obey easily.
“Ten demeanor penalty points for improper attire.”
“…Yes.”
“Hurry the work. Because you’re slow with the cart, everyone else’s pace is dropping.”
“Haa. Haa. …Understood.”
Still I had to move. Just a little. Because I had tried to find an easier way, I had earned both corporal punishment and penalty points. Looking around, I saw that the others’ shoveling had indeed slowed—exactly as Leviathan said. Because of me. Because I had been sluggish.
“Eut!”
Special handcuffs and the harness gag had already made me a burden for days; even after returning I was still dead weight. The thought twisted inside me. For a fleeting moment I imagined their faces full of resentment. These were the same cellmates who, from the instant I arrived on Prison Island, had always protected and helped me. Seoa especially had looked after me from the bus that first brought us here. Jaehee and Yejin had aided me without ever asking for anything in return. Why? I could not be certain, yet if I had to name a reason it was surely the hope that I would pull my own weight as a cellmate. One person’s hole could drag everyone into a worse situation—that much I had understood even before the program changed. Penalty points were tallied individually, but on days when one person made too many mistakes the guards’ mood soured and the total points for everyone rose. To keep that atmosphere from forming, all of us had to work together.
“Haa. Haa. Hic….”
By that measure my present state was the worst possible. I could be called the hole of the cell and have no defense.
It’s okay. Hang in there.
On the return trip Seoa stopped shoveling, came close, and left those words of encouragement written on my thigh. Yet could her true feelings really match the message? Even if she wrote something kind on the surface, might she not be resenting me deeply inside? The chance was high—especially now that the program had shifted to cooperative labor. Yejin, with stimulation spores planted in her clitoris, still ran her full share on the treadmill with superior physique; fragile Seoa and slender Jaehee likewise covered every meter required of them. The only one becoming a burden was me. That was why I kept receiving these little pep messages at every turn.
“Haa. Haa. Hic… heuk.”
Tears spilled. Guilt. Rage at myself. And regret over every choice I had made. I could never know everything that lived in my cellmates’ hearts, yet one truth was clear: everyone keeps something unsaid. Yes—just like my sister. Even after more than twenty years under the same roof as family, there had been parts of her I never knew. How could cellmates I had known for less than two months possibly hold nothing but pure goodwill toward me? Especially the face Jaehee showed me this time—brows knotted, staring at the cart I had brought. That expression was surely another way of showing what she felt about me.
“Haa. Haa. Hic… euhk.”
The tears came harder. The more my body suffered, the more my heart twisted each time I met their eyes while hauling the cart back and forth. Yet nothing changed because of it. Showing my distress would help no one. All I could do now was pour every last scrap of strength into the work so that, at least for today, I could leave them with the sense that I had finally pulled one full person’s share. That meant never stopping the cart.
“Ha… haa. Haa.”
How many round trips had it been? Far more than yesterday or the day before. The soles of my feet were raw; wherever skin remained, blisters had risen. Gripping the cart too hard had blistered my palms as well, and the cuffs had left deep blue bruises on my wrists from the constant friction of force. The piercings, weight concentrated on my nipples, delivered savage jolts every time the spores writhed. Several times the blend of pain and pleasure was so cruel I climaxed while still standing—a merciless torture that wracked my whole body. Even so… I never stopped moving.
“Huuu~.”
As night began to darken, Yejin exhaled a long breath and wrote something on the ground with her shovel.
Don’t overdo it.
A gentle message from a kind cellmate right to the end. I deliberately ignored it. I simply erased the letters with the cart wheels and gave the barest nod. Yes. There was no need for her to keep putting on that face now. I would do better. So those half-hearted shows of concern… she could stop them. I swallowed the words I could never speak and once more took the cart she had prepared, heading toward the others on the far side.
“Haa. Haa. Haa. Haa.”
Sweat and spit. Tears stung my eyes until I could barely see. Hours of nonstop labor had left my throat raw from thirst; bile and blood-tinged saliva clung there. My body was so spent that on any ordinary day I would have collapsed. Legs trembling. Yet will and sheer mental force dragged me onward. I had to walk. I had to pull. Strangely, every time a cellmate’s gaze brushed me today, a frantic urgency clawed at my chest.
Only when the sun had fully set and shoveling became nearly impossible did Leviathan call us together.
“All right. That’s enough for today. You actually got a fair amount done. Maybe because Nayoon finally pulled her weight?”
Leviathan smiled in a way that was not like him at all. Those empty words barely registered; if anything they only scorched my heart further. Was he saying I had been useless until now—just phrasing it sideways?
“If you keep this up you might finish tomorrow. But you all know, right? Tomorrow the piercing weight doubles again. Heh. I wonder if you’ll even be able to walk. The day after that it’s double tomorrow’s load. I don’t particularly want to watch nipples tear off, so finish as much as you can tomorrow.”
“…Yes!”
Exactly as he said, blood had beaded on every nipple. If this weight after only a few hours produced that result, doubling it and letting the breasts swing freely could rip the flesh at any moment. The thought tightened my chest even more. Even with the special handcuffs and harness gag, if I had worked the way I did today… the job might already have been finished yesterday, or at least today. But the past could not be rewritten.
“We’ll eat dinner right here, then head to the torture area. Prepare for the meal!”
“Yes!”
At Leviathan’s order everyone bowed their heads. Dog bowls were set on the ground one by one; the usual dried-pill water was served as dinner. My cellmates and I all crawled to our bowls and swallowed the contents. The time limit was three minutes, yet we finished in less than half that—we had grown used to this life.
…All of us except one.
Except me….
After dinner we were taken to the torture area. Or rather, we walked there on our own feet. We stood before our individual torture chambers. Today’s first entrant was the only one who had received penalty points—me.
“A713. Lee Nayoon. Get inside!”
What waited for me inside the chamber was a single backless chair welded to the floor with a hole cut through its seat, and a machine fitted with a dildo.