“I won’t say a wor… Aaah!”

Jeon Hyosung, the oldest of the group, hugged Junhong tightly against her. The young boy was crying and shaking, hearing his friend’s pleads.

“Why don’t they stop?”, he asked the older girl between muffled cries.

“Minhyuk is strong. He’ll be okay.”, Hyosung said. She didn’t sound convincing – or convinced, for that matter.  Junhong’s cries intensified and, to calm the boy, Hyosung started humming a lullaby she remembered hearing when she was younger.

“I’m next.”, a boy whispered. He had sharp eyes, a beautiful face and an eerie aura around him, that contrasted with his cute, boyish light brown hair.

Junhong, who was calmer since Hyosung had started singing, broke down in tears again.

“Yukwon, just shut up!”, Hyosung scolded, while patting Junhong’s back.

That was a normal day in the Asylum, sector 137. Every day, without failure, the seven prisoners, considered maximum security, were interrogated via unorthodox ways. And every single day Junhong cried, Hyosung sang and Yukwon waited for his time to come.

“When will they come and rescue us?”, a bulky young boy asked in despair. He too had sharp features but, unlike Yukwon, there wasn’t a trace of cuteness in him. Only sadness and fear. He had dark brown hair and was only a year older Junhong.

“We can only be rescued by ourselves.”, another boy answered. This one had an oval shaped face and soft features. He had brown hair and a scar on his face, from his right eye to his chin.

“Jongup, Youngjae, shut up, both of you.”, Hyosung sternly said. She had been trying to calm down Junhong since Yukwon’s not so appropriate comment, but every time she thought she had managed to do so, someone would say something that made the boy even more disturbed.

“You guys have to maintain positive thoughts. You can’t let them win.”, a girl said. She wavy strawberry long hair and was sitting next to Junhong.

“Sunhwa, you can’t be serious right now.”, Youngjae looked at the girl.

“We are going to be fine. All of us.”, she said with confidence. Her eyes still had spark, strength. She still had hope and she still believed that everything would be okay. 

Hyosung and Youngjae were the first ones to get caught. They had left to find food and were instantly recognized by Detectors as rebels and illegal.

The Detectors were a special task force in charge of identifying illegal people. Those who took the serum had a special tattoo implemented on their necks. It was transparent and no one knew how it was – and so, it was impossible to fake it. The Detectors had the necessary means to see those tattoos. Needless to say that, everyone born after 2107 didn’t have that tattoo.

Tattoo or not, most illegal were far too young to have been able to take the serum and stay that age, so the always raised suspicious.

Had they not been identified as rebels and only as illegal, both Hyosung and Youngjae would probably be sent to a detention center where they would hear about how they were society’s disgrace and, from there, they would be sent to a particular house as servants or to a hard labor center in order to “contribute to Thuos Kor’s respectable culture”, as the government would always say.

Unfortunately for them, both Hyosung and Youngjae were identified as rebels.

Yukwon was arrested soon after. He tried to run and fight back, but there was no use. Ironically, he was going to be sent to a detention center, as he had not been identified as a rebel. However when, in an act of both courage and stupidity, he yelled at an officer that he would never rat out his friends and that the government would be destroyed, the plans immediately changed and he was sent to the Asylum – the place to where national traitors and rebels were sent – after being beaten almost to death.

Sunhwa, Jongup and Junhong were caught during one of the many “Illegal Raids”. Every two months or so, three or four units were in charge of searching for rebels and illegals around the suburbs and deserted neighborhoods. During all the confusion – screams, people running everywhere, shots and tear gas – Junhong was caught by a bulky man with a big scar on his face. In his short, but experienced live, never had Junhong been beaten so badly by someone. Seeing is friend in trouble, Sunhwa ran to him and tried to knock out the man, but she was dragged by another officer. She tried to fight back, but he used pepper spray on her and the knocked her out. When she woke up, she was in a van, being taken to the Asylum. Next to her were Junhong and Jongup, who had been captured when trying to escape. The three of them were put in separated cells, in the same block as Yukwon, Hyosung and Youngjae.

Minhyuk was the last one of the seven to be arrested. He was captured after beating up two Legion members and was placed in the same cell as Junhong.

It wasn’t long after that one of the officers responsible for that block noticed that the seven of them knew each other and probably belonged to the same team of rebels – it was common knowledge that the rebels were organized in teams of fourteen or fifteen. After communicating it to his superior, the seven were transferred to the lower floor of the building known as The Room. At first, it was an odd and not so scary name, but, once downstairs, no one would say that.

The Room was actually more like a complex of rooms known as sectors. Each sector was nothing more than an empty, cold room with capacity up to fifteen people. Besides old, thin blankets, nothing more in the room was there to provide comfort. It was exactly the opposite. The main goal of a sector was to instigate fear in the prisoners. Of course, a single cold room wouldn’t do that. But, allied to that, were the tortures.

It started with bearable cruelties. The seven were put together in the same sector in hopes of making them talk. The guards started by not giving them water or food, private them of blankets and provoke them with empty threats.

Because it was of no use, the beating started. In the beginning the guards would simply go into the sector and brutally beat the seven of them, almost like a mini riot. But that also didn’t work. They would always stick together and help each other, without say a single word.

And so, the real torture began. They would choose one of them and take them to a small room adjacent to the sector they were in: it was the interrogatory room. The others could hear everything, but didn’t see what was happening.

The interrogations would last hours. Still, no one said anything. And so, the interrogations escalated: they became daily and it one after the other. When one of the prisoners was done, the next would follow immediately. During the interrogations they were brutally tortured using every method possible: beatings, starvation, use of debilitating drugs, weapons, even mockery. Everything was used to make them talk. But no one ever did.

Probably the worst torture was waiting for their turn to be interrogated. But, to that, they were already used.

“You will talk!”, the guard screamed and a loud thud was heard.

Junhong hugged Hyosung as tightly as he managed and muffled his cries in her chest.

“Just die you mutherer!”, they heard Minhyuk scream. Another loud thud. And then, the sound of something being dragged.

The sector door opened and Minhyuk’s unconscious body tossed inside. They always knew they wouldn’t die during an interrogatory – they didn’t want them dead, they wanted them completely devastated, both mental and physically. Besides, rebels were always killed in the upper floor, so everybody would watch and learn.

“Kim Yukwon, it’s your turn.”, the bulky guard that had beaten Junhong during the raid said, with a erse smile.