"You're welcome, but I'm not your boyfriend," I emphasized to avoid any further misunderstanding. She didn't reply, and I couldn't stop thinking about the men and women the officers had taken away. I stared fixedly at the door, harboring a faint hope that the officers would bring them back—that they had simply taken them out of the cell to ask a few questions.
But no one came back.
Meanwhile, hunger and exhaustion were gaining strength; the pain from my wounds never let up, and my legs were trembling. My mouth felt increasingly dry, even though my body was drenched in sweat—whether my own or someone else's. People around me were fainting while still on their feet. I lost count of how many times I blacked out in that position, unable to fall to the ground because of the crowd surrounding me.
Every time I woke up. I would search around me for the people the officers had taken away, but we were so packed into such a small cell that it was practically impossible to make out anyone in the sea of people we formed. I imagined increasingly atrocious fates for those who did not return.
During my years as a hero, we rescued countless people during our raids. It was always the same story with them: we would find them naked, malnourished, and bearing clear signs of torture all over their bodies. We would take them to the hospital, where doctors treated their wounds and psychologists helped them cope with the trauma—trying to convince them that their ordeal was over. Yet, despite having guards watch over them day and night, and despite my team and me remaining vigilant and visiting them frequently, a lingering fear persisted in them: the fear that, sooner or later, their captors would return to punish them with far greater cruelty than they had endured during their captivity. To them, any noise, any seemingly suspicious behavior, or any stranger was unequivocal proof that their captors' networks were everywhere—and that they were always watching and controlling them no matter where they went.
When asked about the hell they had survived, they described how criminals had violently abducted them at gunpoint; how they were blindfolded and taken to an unknown location after hours of travel and uncertainty—a place where taunts and death threats were commonplace—; how they were stripped naked, bound to chairs, and left in a room kept constantly lit with music at full volume, ensuring they could not rest for even a moment; and how they were subjected to constant, senseless torture. Above all, they spoke of how the absence of windows or any contact with the outside world, combined with the erratic and meager delivery of food, kept them in a state of total uncertainty, unable to distinguish where one day ended and the next began. This lack of certainty—of any semblance of routine or safety—was what slowly broke them, discouraging them from even contemplating escape or harboring hope of rescue. As the days passed, they grew submissive and fearful; the constant torture, being the only certainty in their lives, became normalized, as if it actually served a purpose.
But sooner or later, hunger or thirst, pain or exhaustion—or the simple, humiliating urge to urinate amidst so many people—brought me back to reality.
That is how I spent the next hours—amidst memories, pain, and the thin air. I would also often fall asleep standing up to forget everything that plagued me and gather a little bit of energy.
Dawn broke, and night fell again. For a moment, I thought the officers had abandoned us to our fate, but they appeared, opened the cell, and simply told us:
"Now get the fuck outta here."
As soon as the cell door was opened, the migrants standing right at the entrance collapsed to the floor, and officers had to drag them out so they wouldn't be in the way. Almost all of us migrants experienced the same thing, as our legs were numb and aching from standing for so long. Little by little, we managed to get up and leave the cell, moving with slow, unsteady steps.
"Where are the others?" I asked one of the officers when I was at the cell's entrance.
"Just get out, you fuck," that was the only reply I got, and given my sorry state, I didn't press the matter.
As I left that place, I followed the other migrants, since one of them likely knew where the nearest town was. After we had moved some distance away, I turned back toward the police station and noticed that several police cars had arrived and were unloading dozens of new migrants. That was when I understood: the only reason they had released us was that they needed the cells for the migrants they had just captured.
We walked slowly and in silence, soon reaching the nearest town. The streets were old and desolate, littered with trash, with most businesses shuttered and displaying "For Sale" or "For Rent" signs. Countless posters of missing people were plastered across the walls. Every now and then, we encountered people who eyed us warily. I noticed that several of them bore a phoenix tattoo and possessed an aura far more powerful than that of the average person. They knew how to use magic—perhaps not particularly strong, but in my condition, I was certainly no match for them.
I had to be much more careful from then on.
As we moved forward, the migrants began to scatter along the various streets. I paused for a moment, trying to decide on the best route, but someone grabbed me by the arm.
"Come," it was her, the girl who had called me boyfriend. "There's a shelter up ahead."
I followed her. Perhaps I shouldn't have trusted a stranger so easily, but I was so exhausted and in pain that I only thought of food and rest when she mentioned the shelter.
As we walked, I noticed she would go into side streets whenever she spotted a gang member nearby, so I started pointing out where I sensed auras that were more powerful than the rest, allowing us to take alternate routes.
On more than one occasion, I thought about asking her name, but I didn't do so for fear that she might recognize me if I gave her mine—despite everything that had happened, I was still proud enough to think that someone there might care who I was.
As time went on, the hunger became increasingly unbearable; at every moment, it felt as though my stomach were eating itself. My wounds ached constantly, despite having been healing them somewhat during my time in that cell. I dreaded examining them, certain that more than one had become infected in those conditions.
"We need to rest," I told her when I could no longer bear the pain in my legs.
"Here?" she asked me, looking around. "Come on," she took my hand and led me into the alley. We sat down there.
"If you protect me from Ash I can be your girlfriend," she told me and tried to unzip my pants.
"What are you doing?!" I exclaimed while I stopped her.
"Please, protect me from them," she said to me with tears welling up in his eyes. "I'll do whatever you want, but please protect me."
"Sure. I'll protect you, but I don't want anything in return," I told her—even though I wasn't in any condition to protect even myself—and she immediately let go of me and calmed down.
We remained hidden in that place for several minutes, resting our legs and enduring our other ailments. But at that moment, my biggest problem—the thing I couldn't stop thinking about—was the people the officers had taken from the cell.
"What do you think happened to them?" I asked her.
"Who?" She asked me.
"The ones the officers took away when they entered the cell—when you hid behind me."
"Oh," she snapped with a touch of disdain, as if she didn't want to be reminded of it. "They probably sold them to Ash," it was common for various gangs to resort to such practices when involved in human trafficking.
I should have known it then—though what would have changed? I could barely stand. Had I tried to protect them, I surely would have ended up sharing their fate.
Or dead.
"Like ghosts," I recalled that phrase from Flirty, another ghost I never saw again.
After a while, we stood up and continued on, but:
"Oh, no," she said, stopping suddenly. I looked ahead and found myself facing an abandoned building with a cracked, peeling façade and a worn sign above the door that read "Hopeless' Migrant Shelter."