The car doors slammed shut, muting the chaos of the streets outside.
I sat in the back, pressed against the leather seat, still dizzy from the furnace heat and the stench of burning bodies. Captain Thorne drove in silence, jaw tight, his hands locked around the wheel. Beside me, 08/85 stared out the tinted window like the world beyond it wasn't real.
The city outside was alive. Neon lights. Shops stacked high with colors I had never seen. Families walking. Laughter drifting through open doors. To them, it was just another evening in 2065.
To me, it was blasphemy.
How could joy exist so close to hell?
We parked in a quiet district, where every streetlight glowed gold and the sidewalks were clean enough to eat from. Thorne led us into an apartment block guarded by sleek glass doors and silent cameras. He punched in a code, and we rode an elevator higher than I thought walls could stand.
His apartment was spacious, warm, calming everything the camp wasn't. For the first time in my life, I stepped on carpet.
"Sit," Thorne said, tossing his coat onto a chair. He poured himself a drink, his movements sharp, restless, like he needed the glass just to stop his hands from breaking something. His eyes burned as he finally faced us.
"You want to know why," he said. "Why the world out there eats and drinks and laughs while you rot in a pit."
I nodded slowly.
Thorne leaned forward, voice low but trembling with restrained fury.
"Four hundred years ago, a man named Vasilus stole the throne. He butchered the old royal family, bled the empire dry, and called himself king. He was Kulum. Pale-skinned. Talented. One of the so-called elites. And when he died — when a woman he forced into his bed drove a hairpin through his skull — not a single guard lifted a hand to save him. The priests said hell wasn't enough. His bloodline would carry his punishment."
Thorne's grip tightened on the glass until I thought it would shatter.
"At first it was just his children. But the Kulums weren't just his family. They were bankers, performers, rulers — the darlings of high society. And hatred doesn't stay clean. The people wanted more. They wanted every pale face to pay. So the priests gave them what they craved. God-Given Generation Punishment. A curse turned into law. And soon, it wasn't just his line — it was every Kulum."
He drained his glass and slammed it on the table, voice rising.
"Not every Kulum ends up in camps. The empire couldn't hold them all. The ones outside are shoved into slums where the air kills faster than hunger. Others hide in basements, living like shadows. But whether in a pit, a slum, or a hole in the ground, the message is the same — you are not human. You are punishment."
I swallowed hard, but the words kept coming, sharper now, as if he had held them in for years.
"Do you think the people don't know? They know. Everyone knows. But life is hard enough, so they look at their children and say, better them than us. They watch the news, and the only Kulums they see are criminals — rapists, killers, thieves. They go to church, and the priests remind them: this is holy justice. Their kids are taught in school that Kulums are cursed by blood. Every story, every broadcast, every sermon feeds the same poison: They are monsters. They deserve it."
My chest burned.
Don't they know we're harvested like cattle? Don't they know our organs are ripped out, our bodies thrown into furnaces? Don't they know most of us never even committed crimes?
I clenched my fists until my nails cut skin, forcing back the tears that threatened to break me.
Thorne's voice broke through the silence, low and bitter.
"This is 2065. Phones, skyscrapers, neon streets. A future on the surface. But underneath? Hatred rules. Hatred built this empire, and it keeps it alive. And it is carved so deep into people's bones they don't even question it anymore."
He stared at me then — not as a soldier, not as a warden, but as a man who was furious at the very world he lived in.
"This," he said, his words like iron, "is the truth you've been born into."
Thorne stood suddenly, crossing the room. He pulled a slim black book from his shelf and tossed it onto the table in front of us. Names filled its pages — hundreds of them, arranged neatly in rows.
"You're both dead now," he said. "06/50. 08/85. Those numbers don't exist anymore. If you want to live outside, you need names."
I glanced at 08/85, who stared at the book like it was written in another language. I wasn't much better off.
Thorne's eyes narrowed. "And another thing. You're too pale. Everyone will see you for what you are if you walk out there looking like that."
He went into the bathroom and returned with two small bottles. The cream inside smelled sharp, chemical. He tossed them at us.
"Tanning cream. Rub it on. It'll darken your skin enough to pass. Do it."
We exchanged a look. I twisted the cap off, uncertain. The cream was cold against my skin, spreading unevenly at first until I smeared it over my arms and face. Slowly, the sickly pale tone dulled into something warmer, darker. More… ordinary.
I stared at my reflection in the window, unrecognizable.
"…I look healthier this way, honestly," I whispered.
08/85 didn't answer. He was still rubbing the cream in silence, his jaw set.
For the first time since the camp, the future stretched out in front of us.
But whose faces were we wearing?