They didn't speak. Maybe they couldn't.
They barely grunted, groaned, or mumbled anything.
Not even with the light held before them did they reach out, as they had just a moment before.
Any shock they had on their face before vanished, but there was still fear.
It was all that remained.
When Sonder looked to one and held their gaze for a moment longer than the rest, they opened their mouths slightly, as if to try and say something, but nothing came.
No sound.
Just a dry, empty motion.
Maybe they never learned, or they were punished for trying, or it was taken from them.
Maybe they never knew any other way.
She watched them.
The way they moved, the way they hesitated, and the way they reached.
It wasn't urgent, not even truly desperate, but dull.
Conditioned.
They learned not to expect anything.
It was all too much for Sonder.
The smell, the people, the memories of similar holdings, and the things she imagined that had and would happen to them.
This wasn't just a prison or a place of storage. This was a farm. These people were here to be eaten.
Anger came. But not all at once; not explosive.
It settled deep within her.
She looked at the bars again.
At the locks.
At how many there were.
There were too many. If she were to open all of them, then she didn't think she could save them all.
How would she even do that?
Her head turned slightly, her attention shifting away from the cells.
Away from the people.
To the thread, the shard.
Power. That was what she needed.
Not sympathy or pity.
With it, she could...
Sonder didn't fully form the thought.
She didn't need to.
She turned away from the cell.
One of the prisoners reached out again as she moved, their fingers brushing weakly against the bars, as if trying to follow the light as it began to leave them.
She didn't stop.
"I'll be back," she said, softly.
They wouldn't understand what it meant, but she said it anyway.
Her steps carried her deeper into the chamber.
Toward the place where the thread pulled strongest.
Toward the shard.
The light from her blade slid along the bars of the cells as she passed, and with it came movement.
The prisoners followed as far as their cells allowed and then reached with their hands.
The further she went, the weaker they seemed to become.
More and more of them were too weak to even stand, but they gave what little they had left to give.
Leaning forward where they could, pressing closer to the bars, fingers stretching, reaching for the light that drifted past them, as though it were something tangible, something that might be taken, held, or kept.
But they never spoke.
It didn't matter.
Sonder didn't stop. She couldn't.
The thread pulled her onward. It was there, demanding to be answered.
Drawing her deeper.