Ariana’s POV
They didn’t touch me at first. They didn’t need to. The silence in that room did enough damage on its own, pressing into my skin like something heavy I couldn’t shake off. I didn’t even know how long I’d been sitting there anymore. Time didn’t feel real in a place like this. It just blurred together, broken only by the flickering fluorescent light above me that kept dying and coming back like it couldn’t decide whether it wanted to exist or not.
There was no clock to look at. No window. No sound from the outside world. Just four walls that smelled faintly of damp concrete and something metallic I didn’t want to name. They gave me water once, in a dirty plastic cup, and I drank it because my throat was so dry it felt like sandpaper. It tasted wrong, like rust and something bi
