A tray skidded across the uneven cold floor with a loud, cringing noise towards her bare, dry feet.

She scrambled backwards to the wall with a jump at the sudden noise, her mind back into her cell once more, dreadfully.

She carefully eyed the contents on the beaten tray that tilted upward on one side. Of course, it was food—although, she didn’t want it.

  “Eat.”

Trinity looked up to the boy she met once before—a long while ago—with a hard edge. She was still frightened of him, yet slowly she had learned to show fear meant feeding these people of what they wanted. She had to be strong; she had to represent her family’s unending will.

  “Poison,” she whispered, her voice contrasting her face.

The boy stared at her for a long moment, not even twitching. Her hysteria was eating away at her, feeling the utmost intimidation of his small, wide eyes, as if he was waiting for her to start screaming at him.

But she wasn’t going to feed him.

  “No,” he simply spoke, his voice bored, “You need alive.”

  “I am needed alive,” she brought her audacity forth, correcting the boy’s poor English—even though hers was just as much awful.

The boy sat down in front of the bars, stiffly putting his hands in his lap as if he’d never done it before, “Eat.”

Her stomach subtly rumbled at the thought of being sated, but her mind told her to not eat. Not out of untrusting the boy, but to show she could be defiant to their orders; she’s already worked for them harshly, underwent unneeded punishment of excruciating pain of whips, taunted and bullied for her small size by the other creatures, and cut open to go lengths to find out her anatomy.

It wasn’t fair to her. She hadn’t even known who she was; what she was. This thing inside of her, whatever it was, never made an entrance in her life. She hadn’t known how she didn’t know—she didn’t know if her parents knew, either. She couldn’t count as this ‘Daegrent’ because she never lived as one; or she at least thought she hadn’t.

  “No,” she slowly pushed the tray away with her sensitive foot, the shackles preventing her to move it far without her other one.

  “You prove nothing,” the boy pointed out, voice still showing boredom, “You not prove strength.”

  “I no need to give you anything,” she back talked, bringing her knees to her chest, holding them, “You give me nothing.”

By then, silence ensued. It was a stare down between the human and the Daegrent, but Trinity couldn’t be sure what kind of stare down it was. Hatred? Communication? Thoughtful?

The creatures around started growling louder and , up against their restraints, the bars, and started yelling at the boy in mixed languages all at once. Trinity didn’t understand why everyone was suddenly blowing up on him, but upon assumption, she concluded he was included in their lives, specially. He did something to them or at least participated in it.

Why wasn’t she like them and doing the same?

Was this proving she wasn’t like them?

  “What is my name?” the boy leaned in to the bars.

Without hesitation and with a great memory, she instantly labeled him, “SangJung.”

Trinity swore she could see a twitch of his mouth moving upward. Maybe he was being a bastard; arrogant that he was able to leave himself in her memory.

  “Good,” he nodded, “You good.”

  “What do you want?” she asked him over all the loud voices, trying to get him to his point.

  “You never knew what you are,” he said, repeating what he noted their first meeting, “You never knew you were creature.”

She kicked the tray hard until it flipped over to the ground, her temper suddenly flaring, “And why is it important?! It changes nothing for me!”

SangJung looked at the tray with the contents scattered below it, a mocking smile ensuing, “That changes for me.”

Trinity clenched her jaw, keeping completely still, waiting for him to speak again as if he hadn’t finished his thought. He really hadn’t; he didn’t explain to her what he meant. Why would it change at all? She was still suffering day by day.

  “What change?”

SangJung disregarded her question, “What was it like growing up?”

Trinity was taken aback by the sudden change of subject, “It was like everyone else. I did as others do.”

  “What happened when parents angry?”

By the mention of her parents, the wound reopened in her chest. She was still not over it. She couldn’t get over it, “I go to room.”

  “Go away?”

  “Yes.”

SangJung nodded again.

In that time, SangJung asked more poorly said English questions in which Trinity answered. She didn’t know why exactly she would open up like this, but maybe, internally, she thought if she proved she was more humane, she’d have a chance of getting out. It could be the change SangJung spoke about.

  “Question for you,” she stopped him from speaking, slowly inching closer, “Why you like this with me? Any other?”

  “Just you,” he cocked a brow, “You only one who did not know. I have interest—”

Down the hall of cells, something banged hard and the floor shook. SangJung sprang to his feet and looked down the hall, reaching into something attached to his belt—a gun—and aiming it down the hall, screaming in his other language.

The floor shook moment by moment, following a constant path of footsteps. Half of the inmates ceased growling and watched, others yelled in English to ‘Free them too!’

Something broke out. Something was escaping.

On the opposite side of the hall, a door swung open with yells of older mankind, positioning themselves alongside SangJung with varieties of guns in their hands.

  “Close your ears,” SangJung looked at Trinity out of the corner of his eyes, “Close them!”

Shakily, so frightfully unaware, she covered her ears and tucked her face between her chest and knees. She never saw a gunshot in her life, never saw a life taken before, and she wasn’t ready now.

  “You still hear,” she could hear SangJung whisper.

She hadn’t understood how she could hear such a small sound—she noted before, but to think about it now confused her further.

  “Do not listen.”

Someone yelled out and fires went off at different times, with different sounds, and different reload noises.

It was a long process of reloading to take whatever the creature was down—they continued firing at the creature showing resistance.

Trinity shook as she tried finding someway to go deaf. The thought of more death was causing her façade to disappear and show the true color of her inferiority. She didn’t like this at all; she couldn’t stand being in the presence of death.

When the firing quit altogether, the men left her cell to the creature they had killed; all but SangJung.

  “Keep your head up,” he said, “You need show strength.”

When she looked up, SangJung was staring at her while he put his weapon away, tilting his head to her before joining the other men.

 It took her a little while to start really breathing again before she slowly moved, scooting towards the tray she had flipped over only minutes ago.

Still shaking, she removed the tray and searched through the content madly for any trace of foreign ingredient or discoloration. This food she had seen before, but she still had to be sure.

When her slowly thorough search came to an end, she hesitantly grabbed a random part of the course and held it to , nibbling just on the surface. From that small nibble, her stomach began searching for the remnants.

She backed herself against the wall, hunched over the food and taking slightly bigger bites just as the men started carrying something unknown in front of her cell and away from the hallway.

SangJung was the last one behind them, slowly walking past her cell, nodding to himself as he saw her with the crumbling food in her hands, following his fellow men out of the hallway silently.

----Note~----

Hi. c:

So I've determined, every time I don't have an actual chapter up, there will be at least two updates from here! Sounds good? Deal!

I tried writing the actual chapter this week, and... well, never got to it. But I'm getting to it today, hence, it won't be ready.

I have three chapters for you today! This one, and two about the Royal falling! (/cough/ writing the second one now /cough/)

Anyway!

A chapter all about SangJung and Trinity.

I'm not really sure what to write, right now, about them. This is like the exposition of the future contact they'll have together. Any idea what SangJung's up to though? xD

It's pretty simple.

Idek what to say about them. xD

But yup, the first Royal fall chapter should be out in hours, and the second one should follow to tonight or tomorrow. c:

See you soon!

~FlaMinhoe