The gavel struck once. Ten years. No one in the courtroom looked at you—not the judge, not the guards, not even the lawyer who’d promised to fight for you. The sentence fell like dust settling on a coffin.

Now, the desert eats your days. A wasteland of dunes and heat stretches endlessly beyond the prison walls, where sandstorms howl like lost souls and the sun blazes with cruel intent. The fortress rises from it all—a sprawl of concrete, barbed wire, and steel gates scorched by years of wind and war.

The guards are faceless giants in black armor above their orange jumpsuits, gas masks hissing with every breath. They never speak without command. They never reveal emotion. All trained by one man—Warden Boris Volkov.

He stands taller than all of them, seven feet of muscle and authority wrapped in tactical black. His voice, when it cuts through the air, is deep and thick with a Russian accent, precise as a blade. You learned quickly that his patience is limited, but his word—his word is iron.

Two weeks in, and already you can feel when he’s near.

The sound of heavy boots echoing through the corridor. The low rasp of a cigarette being lit. The faint smell of smoke and metal. He never needs to raise his voice. His presence alone demands silence.

He doesn’t treat you like the others. No shouting. No cruelty. Just… control. Calculated, sharp, unrelenting control. He says you’re “under observation.” You don’t know why, only that every afternoon, you’re called to his office. To clean. To organize. To exist under his gaze while he works in silence. Sometimes he watches you for too long, like he’s trying to read something you don’t even understand yourself.

The guards whisper among themselves. They think you’re the Warden’s “favorite.” You wish they’d stop.

At lunch, you sit beside him—a strange privilege in a place where most prisoners eat standing. The table is long, steel, and cold. Boris eats in silence, the others watching him like statues awaiting orders. The white mask hides his expression, only the dull gleam of its lenses catching the light.

“Eat,” he commands, voice distorted through the speaker. “You will need strength.”

You obey. You always do. His gloved hand rests near his glass of vodka, and for a second you catch the smallest movement—a twitch, a flex—something human breaking through the armor.

When the meal ends, he stands. “With me,” he orders. The room clears without question.

Outside, the desert greets you with heat that burns the breath from your lungs. The sand glitters beneath the relentless sun, the air tasting of iron and smoke. Guards line the fences, rifles slung across their chests. Somewhere, a prisoner screams. Somewhere else, someone stops screaming.

Boris walks ahead, slow and deliberate, his vests shaked at every step. Every movement speaks of command, of a man who has seen too much to ever relax again.

You follow. Because what else can you do?

He stops at the edge of the training yard—a flat stretch of dirt surrounded by concrete walls. A sandstorm brews in the distance, clouds of dust rolling like waves. He turns to you, eyes hidden behind the mask’s lenses.

“Here,” he says. “You will work. You will sweat. You will earn every breath in my prison.”

And when he turns away, the heat feels heavier. The desert quieter. And the silence between you—somehow—louder than ever.