21-04-2073 | 01:18 UTC
Detention Facility | Undisclosed Rear Sector
The interrogation ended without an announcement. There was no final question, no warning that the recorder had been switched off, and no indication that the men across the table had reached a conclusion. One moment, the older interrogator was studying my face as if committing it to memory, and the next, he was already standing, straightening his jacket, and walking toward the door as though I had ceased to exist the instant he decided I was no longer useful.
The guards returned silently. My wrists were uncuffed, not as a gesture of trust but as a matter of convenience. I was no longer being questioned, which meant I was no longer required to sit still. That realization unsettled me more than the interrogation itself.
They did not blindfold me. That detail stayed with me as we moved through the corridor, because it suggested something deliberate. People were blindfolded when their surroundings mattered. I was being allowed to see because, in some way, it no longer did.
The facility was larger than the one I had first been brought into, with longer corridors and fewer doors. The walls were reinforced concrete, unmarked except for occasional utility panels and sensor clusters mounted at regular intervals. Lighting was constant and cold, eliminating shadows but offering no warmth. Every sound—boots, breath, the faint hum of power systems—felt amplified by the emptiness.
I was placed in a cell that was different from the earlier holding room. This one was larger, cleaner, and unmistakably transitional. There was a bench bolted to the wall, a sanitation unit recessed into the corner, and a single camera positioned high above the door. The guards left without a word, and the locking mechanism engaged with a dull, final sound.
I sat down slowly, testing the bench with my weight. The concrete beneath my boots was colder than before, and the air felt drier, recycled more aggressively. I tried to measure time by breathing, but the lack of any external cues made that difficult. Eventually, I stopped trying and focused instead on listening.
Facilities like this were never silent. Silence was a luxury reserved for places that did not expect trouble. Here, there was always something—a distant ventilation system, a vibration from heavy machinery somewhere below, the faint echo of movement far down the corridor. It was that background noise that allowed you to notice when something changed.
I realized after some time that the camera above the door was not tracking me. Its lens remained fixed, angled slightly downward, covering the center of the cell but not the corners. That was not an oversight. It meant they were not concerned with constant observation. Either they trusted the environment to contain me, or they were more interested in what would happen if I believed I was alone.
That thought settled heavily in my mind.
I replayed the last hours in fragments, trying to identify when exactly my status had shifted. The charge into the trench. The muzzle flashes in the dark. The sound of my rifle suppressed and swallowed by the larger noise around us. The moment I realized we were killing men who had no idea we were there. The body rising. The blade. The shout of my name.
Michał.
I had heard it echo once, sharp and terrified, before everything collapsed into chaos. That single word had done more damage than any bullet fired that night.
The door opened again without warning.
Two guards entered, different from the previous ones. Their uniforms were similar, but their posture was not. These men moved with caution rather than routine, their attention shifting constantly, hands resting closer to their weapons. One of them gestured for me to stand.
I complied.
They escorted me through a series of corridors that I did not recognize, passing through two security checkpoints that required biometric verification. At each one, the guards paused, waited for confirmation, and only then proceeded. I counted the steps between turns automatically, mapping the path even though I knew it would likely be rendered useless.
We reached a room that resembled an office more than a detention space. A desk stood near the center, with two chairs placed opposite it. The lighting here was warmer, almost deliberately so, and the walls were finished rather than bare concrete. There were no visible restraints.
One man sat behind the desk.
He was younger than the lead interrogator but older than the guards, with sharp features and a controlled expression that did not quite qualify as friendly. He gestured for the guards to leave before speaking.
"Sit," he said.
I did.
He studied me for several seconds before continuing. "Officially," he said, "you were killed during a failed trench assault."
I did not respond.
"Five bodies were returned," he added. "Your unit has been informed. Humanitarian organizations have recorded the incident accordingly."
"You're telling me this," I said carefully, "because you want something."
He smiled faintly, as if acknowledging the obvious. "I want you to understand your position," he replied. "You are not a prisoner of war. You are not missing. You are not detained in any facility that exists on paper."
"And if I don't cooperate?"
He leaned back slightly. "Then you remain exactly where you are now. Indefinitely."
The room felt smaller after that.
"What do you want to know?" I asked.
"For now?" he said. "Nothing."
That answer unsettled me more than any demand would have.
"You will be moved," he continued. "Your conditions will remain… adequate. In time, we may ask for your perspective on certain events. When that happens, cooperation will be in your interest."
He stood, signaling that the conversation was over. "Take him," he said toward the door.
The guards returned, and this time I was restrained—not tightly, but enough to make a point. They led me out through a different corridor, down a ramp, and into a transport vehicle with no windows. The door sealed behind me, and the engine started immediately.
The ride was long.
I counted turns again, tracked changes in elevation by the pressure in my ears, and listened to the engine's pitch for clues. None of it gave me anything solid. When the vehicle finally stopped, the door opened to a rush of cold air that carried a different smell—cleaner, sharper, almost metallic.
The facility we entered was not a prison in the conventional sense. It was larger, deeper, and built with an efficiency that suggested it was meant to be used without ever being acknowledged. The corridors were wider, the doors heavier, and the personnel fewer but more alert. I was processed without ceremony and placed into another cell, this one clearly designed for long-term containment.
Time passed differently there.
There were no interrogations, no conversations, and no explanations. Food arrived at regular intervals, always sufficient but never generous. The lights dimmed slightly during what I assumed were night hours, though they never fully shut off. I exercised, rested, and observed.
That was when I noticed the inconsistency.
One of the doors along the corridor—three cells down from mine—did not seal as quickly as the others. The delay was minimal, barely perceptible, but it happened consistently. A fraction of a second between the mechanical engagement and the audible lock. It was the kind of detail most people would never notice.
I noticed it because I had nothing else to do.
I began to watch more carefully. The guards rotated on a predictable schedule, and while their routes varied slightly, patterns emerged over time. There was a maintenance cycle every twelve hours during which certain systems were briefly taken offline. The cameras never shut down, but their feeds were rerouted through a central hub during diagnostics.
The idea did not arrive fully formed. It grew slowly, shaped by boredom, anger, and the persistent refusal to accept that my existence had been reduced to a footnote.
I tested boundaries cautiously. Minor deviations in behavior. Changes in posture. Delays in response. Nothing dramatic. Just enough to see what drew attention and what did not.
The answer was clear.
As long as I remained predictable, I was invisible.
The opportunity came during a maintenance cycle I had already marked in my head. The corridor lights flickered slightly, just as they always did, and the background hum changed pitch. When the food hatch slid open, I acted.
It was not a sudden movement. It was deliberate and precise. I wedged the tray into the mechanism before it could fully retract, applying pressure in a way that would force a manual override. The alarm did not trigger immediately, just as I had hoped.
Footsteps approached.
The guard knelt to inspect the jam, muttering something under his breath. When he reached into the hatch, I struck.
The motion was explosive but controlled, driven by weeks of stored tension. I grabbed his wrist, pulled hard, and used the edge of the hatch to lever him forward. He fell awkwardly, hitting the doorframe with a sound that was more hollow than I expected.
I was on him before he could recover.
The corridor erupted into noise as alarms finally triggered, but momentum was already on my side. I took his access card, his sidearm, and moved.
I did not run blindly. I moved with purpose, following the path I had rehearsed mentally dozens of times. Left turn. Service corridor. Stairwell.
Gunfire erupted behind me.
The facility responded quickly, sealing off sections and rerouting personnel. I could hear orders being shouted, boots pounding against concrete. I forced myself to breathe steadily, ignoring the burn in my lungs and the pain flaring in my side where a round grazed me.
I reached a junction and hesitated for half a second too long.
That was when I heard it.
The sound of another door opening ahead of me.
I raised the weapon, heart hammering, and stepped forward into the light—
—and came face to face with someone who was not supposed to be there.
The moment stretched, suspended between decision and consequence.
And then everything went wrong.