Breathe in…

And out…

In…

And out…

You were fine, you could beat this.

The cool temp of the metal floor and the persistent aching of your bones at the chill in the air. That made you feel as though in the span of twenty-three hours, you had aged about forty years. The loose hoodie over the sports bra did nothing to keep you warm. Which is why you had laid it out on the floor below you hours ago to fight back against the chill as you propped your feet up against the wall to protect them from the icy floor and slept on your back that way. Till you were rudely woken up by a particularly loud sound that felt like it nearly broke your ears entirely.

Which would've been a blessing, but no, instead you had to deal with the mind melting sound for hours after that point.

At least your mind was still intact, even if not by much. The meditation, calm, slow breathing like you had been taught years ago to control anxiety, was key here in keeping you sane. While you were subjected to this torture, another round of torture that honestly couldn't make much of a difference in making you talk.

But it was okay, so long as they focused entirely and desperately on breaking you, others would be given the chance to recover, to keep it together and follow your example.

Liquid sloshed somewhere inside your ears as you instinctively twitched a little, the loud sound of gunfire driving sharp nails into your already painful ears. It was hard to tell where it was moving around in, but you could guess judging by the way everything was heavily muted and most of what you were experiencing was pain in your ears rather than sound. That this experience had destroyed your hearing at least temporarily.

Plus it felt like it was rather deep in your head.

Blood trickled down the shell of your ear and settled in a shallow pool in the nook above your earlobe, but you ignored it.

It wasn't important enough to remove your attention away from your breathing and keeping yourself sane.

There were people you had to get back to and you weren't going to let them down.

So all you could do right now was keep your eyes closed and continue to try and tune everything out till you would be released.

Regardless of if you got to just rest or if you were immediately put to work, the muted silence of your world now was a rather welcome thing. After all, silence wasn't something you got a lot of these days.

Light spilled over your eyelids and you instinctively flinched after being in pitch black for so long, but didn't cover your eyes. Refusing to give them anything they could use against you.

"You guys done yet?" You drawled boredly, keeping your tone even and level. Hiding your exhaustion, the pain from your ears feeling like they were ripping themselves to shreds within your own head, and the panic lurking deep at the notion that you likely wouldn't ever be able to hear properly again. "I'm itching to work."

No you weren't, you were exhausted and you just wanted sleep.

To sleep till the nightmare ended and you could go home to a world you couldn't remember to people that you only remembered via your life within a videogame. A life that had been so real that it had been horrifying being torn away from it like you had in those multiple instances between transfers and crio sleep more than once.

You just wanted to be left alone, to be home at your little cabin ignoring your migraines to work with an axe or whittle beside the pond.

But you would keep going here and play along without giving anything away, because they needed you much more than you needed yourself.

You hated playing hero regardless of if that was what you were really built for, but you would play your hand in order to protect the others and those you had been forced to leave.

"Get up," the words were barely audible, like they were swimming in a pool of liquid inside your own ears. "The boss said… infirmary."

What?

"Sorry, I can't really hear you," you told them calmly but also got to your feet and walked toward them, hiding the stiffness and pain in your bones and joints, displaying that you did hear the first part of the sentence. "But hey, feel free to take me the infirmary or something," you offered your wrists out to the man in front of you, a silent way of complying to the hell they were putting you through.

Fighting back meant that other players took the hits, so you would behave like a little angel, at least till you were back with all of your friends and you could play the rest of the plan you were making as you went.

Speaking casually despite the thickness of your throat and heaviness of your tongue from the speech impairment you were born with, selective muteness, made them more likely to believe that you said, that the eventual tiny amounts of information you fed them would be taken as a truth. The behaving, speech, doing the work they directed you into doing and pretending to be eager to work would all work together till it gave you the edge.

So you were going to keep going, regardless of what happened.