Morning came silently, with no sound. It was a new day, but the same old routine for Kshaya.
The light through the ceiling windows was pale and wrong, neither day nor night, a color that sat somewhere between tar and silver. A mix of black and white. Kshaya rose up from his bedframe, slowly making his way to the main hall.
His radio and the compass accompanied him, tied and secured around his waist. The radio was already starting to wake up, as the static hum sounded once again inside the empty prison.
"…breaking news from the Green desert region. Researchers are recruiting for volunteers to help them in the final stages of their Project Yaadaash. If successful, the procedure will allow us to rebirth with entirely new sets of memories. Identities that will have nothing to do with our current lives.
If you want to sign up, quickly travel to the Green Institute of Sciences located in the heart of Desert Haven city..."
It looked like the world was as lively as ever, even though birth and death had eluded humanity for four decades.
Kshaya let the static voice engulf him, as he lost himself in his daily routine. Whatever the world did had nothing to do with him any longer. He had lost his purpose, so here he was, imprisoned by his own doings.
He sat down in the lotus pose, arms by his side, palms facing the sky and spine erect. Slowly, his breath stabilized, getting in rhythm with the world around him. He lost himself in that feeling, as if he could leave the body that had become his shackle.
Breath in, breath out.
Everyday he would start his day with meditation. He had no reason, but then again, his whole ritual of a routine had no reason. If he was to try to give it one, it was simply give his existence a purpose.
But such an existence...
Distracting himself from his depressing thoughts, Kshaya slowly came back from his trance, opening his eyes, as the broadcast also came to an end.
With precise timing, he made his way to the gym room and began his morning workout. Deadlifting weights, curling dumbbells, it was a very standard split. Muscle growth was not a concept in the current era, but the activity itself was soothing. Therapeutic.
Soon after he was finished, he went out to do his daily task of cleaning the perimeter. The swamp was ever growing, never stopping its advance. The desert on the other hand didn't like being challenged, so it answered back in equal. But they both were stuck with him mediating in the middle.
He moved through his ritual as the day progressed: cleaned the corridor walls that needed no cleaning, checked the sealed vents that were never opening ever again, adjusted the mechanical joints at his wrists which were a part of his body now, permanently. Each step measured, deliberate--a man tending to his mind rather than function.
By the time he returned to the main hall, the chaotic light from the ceiling had dulled to gray again. He stopped in the center, leaning briefly against an iron table as an unfamiliar vibration shivered through the floor.
A voice followed, low and resonant, echoing from nowhere and everywhere at once.
Not metallic, not static but something deeper, old.
"Kshaya."
He froze. The air tasted heavier all of a sudden.
"It's been years since you've spoken, Jailor," he answered quietly.
"Thirty and five years," the voice replied, soft but steady. "Visitors have reached the outer boundary. Three markers crossed."
He straightened slowly, eyes narrowing toward the corridor. "From which direction?"
"They come from the swamp. Six souls," the voice answered. "Metal, flesh, and light. They seek you."
His thoughts flickered, fragile and distant. It had been so long since anyone sought anything. From him. When he retired in this corner of the world, he had made it clear. He wanted nothing to do with the rest of the world. No jobs, No bounties, No request.
The familiar voices stirred again in his mind: a metallic one, sharp as a knife.
'Signal distortion. Cut contact.'
The second came heavier, dragging through the air like weight soaked in water.
'You knew they would arrive eventually.'
He stared up at the cracked ceiling.
"I kept balance," he murmured. "They disturb it now."
The hall vibrated once more, then settled back into stillness. The prison said nothing more.
He spent the following hours inside his routine's shell--fixing doors that were fine, patching cracks, cleaning dust that never gathered,,, yet every sound carried a slight hesitation now. The way his metal arms moved, his rhythmic breathing, even the pace of his steps. All of it felt disturbed now. The color wasn't returning to his world; it was a fractured view now, instead.
White and black merging, vibrating together until gray shook into blur.
He felt strange. Why now?
Trying to slow down, he went inside one of the rooms that he had not visited in a long time. At the beginning, this room was also a part of his routine, but then slowly he realized maybe, it was no longer needed.
But that seemed to no longer be true.
He looked at all his gear. The Weapons, now blunt and rusting. His equipment, covered in dust. Everything here looked like a relic. But now, just to be safe and sure, he felt he had to wake them all up from their hibernation.
"Jailor, can you wake them up. I don't want to be ill prepared. If the visitors are here with bad intentions, I'll have to ask you to help me out."
There was no response to his query, but he watches as the rust fell from the blades, the dust vanished and the equipment all looked clean.
The jailor did not speak often. It was straining for it, to form thoughts and words. But it was honest and loyal.
With his gear ready, Kshaya felt a little more at ease, as he went about to finish his daily routine. The visitors were still a few markers away, would take them another hour before they arrived at his entrance. Better to clear his schedule than to keep them waiting.
When he finally stepped outside, the air burned cool against his skin. Desert wind met swamp vapors, gray fog running through dull light. He crossed the courtyard, the radio hanging from his belt whispering bits of half‑language under its breath and the compass swinging from side to side.
He was draped in his old gear. A simple balaclava covered his face. His joggers replaced with black trousers and a softshell jacket covering his torso. Black goggles to finish his look, the Specialist was ready to greet his visitors.
At the far edge of the compound, the shattered fence swayed faintly. He paused at the gate, the same spot where years ago he'd placed a monolith into the ground.
The monolith was still there, but something else was off.
He frowned. Footsteps followed faintly beyond the trees: measured and deliberate, too synchronized to be beasts.
The prison spoke again, quieter now,,, as though afraid to be overheard.
"They stand beyond your walls."
He looked toward the shimmer folding above the horizon,,, gold and green chasing one another into the fog.
"I see them," he whispered. "So they've finally found me."
"It was bound to happen."
"Don't let them feel your presence," he advised. The faint shiver of the fence agreed in response.
Kshaya stood before the gates, his mind erupting into chaos as he tried to understand that which he had no knowledge of.
'Let them in,' the metallic voice urged.
'Or end it now,' murmured the heavy one.
He adjusted the strap on his wrist and began to walk forward. The sand crunched once, twice, until the sound of his steps merged with the hum of the living fence. Each pace turned the air heavier, the shimmer above the path outside brightened like breath drawn in.
Through the gaps in the ruined wire, he observed them.
Six figures, half‑drowned in fog, outlined by the faint aqua light that pulsed between desert and swamp. Metal packs on their backs, their shapes moving like ghosts over the uneven ground.
He stood still, watching, letting them see him first. The air stopped vibrating; even the wind grew uncertain.
The eldest of the group, white coat dulled by mud-lifted a hand, cautious, not hostile.
Kshaya didn't move.
For a long moment, distance was rule.
Then the prison whispered directly in his head, its tone more human than he remembered.
"Shall I open the gate?"
Kshaya exhaled, slow and measured. "No," he said, eyes on the strangers beyond the fence. "Not yet."