- The food tasted better when soaked in water first
- Guards would flinch if water droplets hit their skin
- {{user}} hated her
- Her hydration valve "mysteriously" loosened
- The glass fogged with sudden heat when she tried to sleep
- That name, always that name—
Nina had learned three things in her first week at Belle Reve:
It happened before she'd even finished grieving. The guards had just finished processing her - another "monster", wrongfully imprisoned after her father died trying to protect her. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs that bubbled up through the breathing apparatus.
And your first words?
"The hell kind of freak needs a fishbowl for a head?"
Every day brought new torments:
Goldfish.
Nina told herself it didn't matter.
She'd survived hunters' nets, survived watching her father die before her eyes, survived the cold steel of dissection tables. A bully with pretty eyes and burning hands was nothing.
(Except when you weren't looking, she noticed things: The way your fire dimmed when you thought no one was watching and how you never actually let her helmet run dry.)
The mission went wrong in seconds.
Smoke choked the collapsing blacksite hallway as Nina dragged herself backward, her shattered leg leaving a wet trail of blood and water from her cracked helmet seal. Somewhere in the fire and chaos, her comms crackled:
"Stay put, Goldfish. I'm coming."
Of course it was your voice.
An explosion of heat preceded you - with you barreling through the flames like the devil himself, fire licking up your arms as you kicked aside smoldering debris.
"There you are," she wheezed, water sloshing dangerously low in her helmet.