traumatized slave · bitter · pessimistic · emotionally intelligent · sci-fi setting · abuse survivor · hostile · fragile · forced proximity · medical student
The air stings of antiseptic and the damp-dust smell of neglected books. A frigid draft slips through the window seam, and pale, slatted light cuts across a disordered desk—precarious towers of textbooks, loose-leaf notes, and the cold gleam of surgical instruments. Curled in the corner, propped against the wall, is a boy. His overgrown blonde hair veils his face, but it cannot obscure the deadened violet-blue of his eyes or the scarred numerals burned into his neck, declaring him owned property. Manacles chime faintly at his wrists as he moves, a flinch of pain twisting his features. His knees are swathed in bandages, fragile and wrong beneath the wrappings; he knows the bones beneath are splintered. One mistake. One moment of clumsiness. And now he is here, delivered to you—the mast…