Focus Character: Sia
Waking up didn't feel like a fresh start.
It felt like resurfacing too fast from deep water a sudden, violent pressure change that made Sia's ears ring.
She lay perfectly still in the bottom bunk. The mattress was thin, smelling faintly of pine sol and someone else's old fear.
Above her, the rusty springs of the top bunk squeaked rhythmically as Zara, the girl who wore her trauma like bright warning label tossed and turned in some frantic dream.
Sia didn't have frantic dreams. She didn't have dreams at all. She just had the black empty space of sleep, and then the static of being awake.
Day One, her brain supplied unhelpfully. You have to get up. If you don't get up, they win.
"They" were her parents. The impeccably dressed, soft spoken monsters who viewed her clinical depression not as an illness, but as a breach of contract. A stain on the family brand.
They had sent her here as a final ultimatum: get fixed, get elite, or get deleted from the family trust and institutionalized until she was "presentable."
Sia turned her head slowly to the side. The Deathpigs Hall suite was a disaster of crammed humanity.
Seven people, one bathroom, zero privacy.
Across the room, Ravi was already awake. Of course he was. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, fully dressed in his crisp new uniform, his shoes already shined.
He looked terrified, vibrating with an anxious energy that seemed to suck the little remaining air out of the room.
He caught her eye and immediately beamed a desperate, fragile smile.
"Morning, Sia! Big day, right? I was thinking we could all walk to the cafeteria together for breakfast. Strength in numbers, you know? Build that unit cohesion early."
Sia just looked at him. His optimism felt physical, like someone shining a high lumen tactical flashlight directly into her eyes when she had a migraine.
It was painful. It demanded a reaction she didn't have the energy to manufacture.
"I'm not hungry," she said. Her voice was raspy, unused.
Ravi's smile faltered, just a little. "Oh. Well, you should probably eat something. Low blood sugar affects cognitive performance, and the orientation packet said the first lectures are intense..."
She rolled over, pulling the scratchy, standard issue blanket over her head, effectively ending the conversation.
She heard Ravi sigh a soft, defeated little sound that made a tiny spike of guilt pierce through her numbness.
Add it to the list, she thought dully. Another person I've already disappointed before 7 AM.
An hour later, she was walking through the fog.
The campus of Vara Rose Institute was designed to make you feel small. The ancient stone buildings loomed like cliffs, their tops lost in the perpetual gray mist. The modern additions glass walkways that sliced through the air like transparent veins, glowing with cold blue data streams only made the stone look older and darker.
Sia walked alone, slightly behind the main herd of freshmen. They moved with purpose, their heels clicking sharply on the damp cobblestones. They were already competing, jockeying for position on the sidewalk, eyeing each other's Horacatein ranks.
Sia didn't look at anyone's rank. She looked at her feet.
"Hey! Pig!"
She didn't look up until the third time they called it.
A group of three students from Aurore Hall were blocking the path. They were impossibly glossy, their uniforms tailored to perfection, their hair defying the humidity.
In the center was the girl with the platinum bob so sharp it could probably cut glass Phina . Her rank, 004, pulsed with a soft, superior white light on her chest.
Sia stopped. She didn't feel fear, exactly. Fear required energy. She just felt a weary sort of inevitability.
"You're blocking the path," Sia said. Her voice was flat, monotone. It wasn't a challenge; it was just an observation.
Phina smiled. It was a terrifying expression, devoid of any actual warmth. "We're just doing a little quality control. You're from Deathpigs, right? You smell like mildew and mediocrity."
Her two lackeys snickered. It was such a cliché high school bully tactic that Sia almost laughed. Almost.
"Okay," Sia said. She tried to step around them.
Phina stepped sideways, blocking her again. "I'm speaking to you. When a superior officer speaks, you listen. That's how the hierarchy works here. You're bottom feeding trash, and you need to know your place."
Sia finally looked up, meeting Phina's green eyes. She waited for the intimidation to hit her, for the shame to curdle in her stomach like it used to.
It didn't come.
When you spent every day wishing you didn't exist, threats to your social standing felt absurdly trivial. What could Phina actually do to her? Make her life miserable? Too late.
"Are you finished?" Sia asked. She genuinely wanted to know. "I have a class."
Phina blinked. The utter lack of reaction seemed to glitch her programming for a second. She was used to fear, anger, or desperate fawning. She wasn't used to nothing.
"You think you're tough?" Phina hissed, leaning in closer. "You think acting like you don't care makes you strong? It just makes you easy to break. I'm going to enjoy watching you crumble."
"Probably who knows," Sia agreed. "Can I go now?"
Phina stared at her for another long second, then scoffed, flipping her violently expensive looking hair over her shoulder. "Whatever you'er a waste of airspace. Come on." She rolled her eyes.
They moved aside, laughing loudly as if they had won a great victory.
Sia just kept walking. She didn't feel triumphant. She just felt tired.
The lecture hall for "Philosophy of Ethics" was a cavernous amphitheater built of dark wood and acoustic tiles that absorbed sound, making the room feel eerily quiet despite holding two hundred students.
Sia found a seat in the very back row, in the shadows near the exit door. She pulled her oversized hoodie tighter, trying to disappear into the fabric.
The professor, a man named Dr. Aaron Thorean who also happened to be the Dean, stood on a small circular stage at the bottom of the amphitheater. He didn't use a microphone, but his calm, cultured voice carried perfectly to every corner of the room.
"Ethics," Dean Thorean began, pacing slowly, his hands clasped behind his back, "is usually taught as a framework for doing 'good.' For making the 'right' choice."
He stopped, looking up at the rows of students.
"At Vara Rose, we do not care about 'good.' We care about 'necessary.'"
Sia rested her chin on her hand, staring blankly at the Dean. The words floated over her, untethered to meaning. It was all just noise.
"Let us begin with a classic," Thorean said. "The Trolley Problem. You are at a switch. A runaway trolley is hurtling down the track toward five people. You can pull the lever to divert it to a side track, where it will kill one person. What do you do?"
Hands shot up all over the room. Eager, desperate freshmen wanting to prove they were smart, that they belonged.
Thorne pointed to a boy in the front row. "You. The eager one."
"You pull the lever, sir," the boy said confidently. "Utilitarianism. The greatest good for the greatest number. Five lives are worth more than one."
"Standard answer," Thorean, his voice dripping with mild disappointment. "Textbook. Boring."
He turned, his eyes scanning the upper rows until they landed, inexplicably, right on Sia in the back corner.
"You," he called out. "The one trying to merge with the darkness in the back row. Ms... Abara, is it?"
Sia froze. The sudden attention felt like a physical blow. Every head in the auditorium turned to look at her. Two hundred pairs of eyes, assessing, judging, dismissing.
"Yes," she whispered, though she knew he couldn't hear it.
"Speak up, Ms. Abara," Thorean commanded gently. "If you are to survive here, you must learn to occupy space. What is your answer to the problem?"
Sia's throat felt dry. She didn't care about the trolley. She didn't care about the imaginary people on the tracks.
"It doesn't matter," she said, loud enough this time.
A ripple of murmurs went through the hall.
"Explain,"Thorean said. He didn't look angry. He looked interested.
"The premise is flawed," Sia said, feeling the words detach from her brain as she spoke them. "It assumes I have the right to decide who lives or dies. It assumes my action is better than inaction. But if I pull the lever, I am a killer. If I do nothing, I am a witness to a tragedy. The outcome is death either way. The only winning move is not to be at the switch at all."
All the sounds in the room just went quiet.
Thorne stared at her for a long, agonizing moment.
"Abdication of responsibility,"Thorean said, more to himself than her. "A common defense mechanism for those overwhelmed by the weight of agency. Interesting."
He turned away from her, breaking the terrible eye contact. "Ms. Abara prefers to be a victim of circumstance rather than a creator of fate. Many of you will feel the same. You will fail."
He continued pacing. "The Vara Rose answer to the Trolley Problem is this: Who tied those people to the tracks? And why aren't you hunting them instead of agonizing over the lever?"
The other students scribbled furiously on their tablets, desperate to capture this pearl of wisdom.
Sia just stared at her blank screen. Victim of circumstance. He was right, wasn't he? She was just letting things happen to her. The ferry, the dorm, Phina, this class. She was just drifting until she hit a rock and sank.
Her pocket buzzed.
It was a sharp, violent vibration against her hip, completely out of sync with the muted world around her.
She pulled her phone out under the desk, shielding the screen with her sleeve.
SENDER: MOTHERDr. saynud said your initial Horacatein placement is unacceptable. 490s? Are you even trying, or are you just seeking attention again? Fix it by midterms, Sia. We will not pour more money into a void. Remember the alternative.
The alternative.
The pristine, white walled facility in Switzerland they had threatened her with last summer. "A place for you to rest and reset and not be a fucking eyesore," they had called it. It was a prison where they could drug her into compliance so she wouldn't embarrass them at charity galas with her inability to smile and being done with this planet.
Sia stared at the text until the pixels blurred.
Suddenly, the gray static in her head cleared, just for a second. It was replaced by a cold, sharp spike of absolute dread.
They would do it. They would actually lock her away and forget she ever existed.
She looked up at Dean Thorean, who was now talking about "acceptable collateral damage."
I have to stay here, she realized. The thought was sickening, like swallowing a stone. I hate this place. It's cold and cruel and full of monsters. But it's better than the white room.
For the first time since arriving, Sia felt something other than numbness. She felt trapped.
And a trapped animal, no matter how tired, eventually has to bite.