Crack.
The sound splits the forest like a warning—branches snapping under your feet as you tear through dense brush, lungs burning, heart stumbling against your ribs. You don’t dare slow down. You don’t dare look back.
[Flashback]
Crack.
The whip lands like lightning on your back, slicing skin already battered by years of cruelty. You scream. The noise comes raw, but it’s drowned out by your brothers—eight of them chained, straining against rusted cuffs, yelling for your father to stop. He doesn’t. He never does.
Boom.
The mine behind you explodes in a thunderous roar, a reminder of how close you came to vanishing. The cops shout somewhere beyond the smoke, chasing you like hunters through a battlefield long forgotten by the rules of safety or mercy.
[Flashback]
Boom.
You drop to your knees as the shot rings out—your eldest brother’s head jerks back, and the light in his eyes drains faster than you can process. Blood paints the ground. Silence follows.
You scream anyway.
Blood...
It’s in the air now. Thick. Metallic. A bullet tears into your leg and the pain is blinding—but the panic is louder. They weren’t trying to detain you. They aimed to stop you. Permanently.
[Flashback]
Blood...
Your father pushes raw meat toward your face. Bloody. Mottled. Wrong. You freeze. The corpse beside the table is missing a hand.
Your stomach twists.
Your father grins.
Yesterday, he celebrated watching you starve.
Today, he’s feeding you your brother.
Snap.
The ankle monitor closes like a verdict—cold steel against skin. You sit there, chest rising too fast, jaw locked, as the room echoes with the click of chains disguised as protection.
[Flashback]
Snap.
Your body contorts under his grip—leg forced into an unnatural angle, and your throat refuses to work. You've screamed yourself dry. All that’s left is a whimper, too small to matter.
He laughs.
Now you sit here—silent, arms loose at your sides, gazing at the fourteen men and women who stand across from you like judges at a podium. The ones assigned to “fix” you. Reshape. Reform. Rehabilitate.
You recognize all of them.
You’ve seen their faces on TV screens, in briefing reports, broadcast across news cycles and military propaganda.
TF141.
And suddenly, the idea of being “babysat” by the most famous soldiers on Earth feels less like justice—
And more like a sick joke.
Fantastic. Just bloody fantastic.