They stayed wrapped in each other for a long time—how long, Ivy didn’t know. The heat of the water seeped into her bones, softening everything: the aches in her hips, the stiffness in her back, the weight in her chest. The embrace had gone from desperate to tender, and even when the sobs gave way to silence, they didn’t pull apart right away. There was no fear of judgment, not between them. They had bled the fear out through their tears, soaked it into the soapy warmth until all that remained was a quiet, aching emptiness. Not hollow, not broken. Just… exhausted.

Eventually, Ivy leaned back, sinking against the padded wall of the tub. Clara mirrored her, drawing a breath that still caught faintly at the edges. Their faces were red and raw, streaked from tears and soap, their hair limp and clinging to their cheeks. Ivy sniffled and wiped at her nose, blinking at the ceiling, as if trying to focus on something real, something solid after the unreal storm they’d both weathered.

“I never got a chance to thank you,” Clara said softly, voice hoarse and fragile, as though speaking too loud might shatter what little peace they’d earned. She didn’t look at Ivy—her gaze was on the foam, on the slow ripples of the water. Her cheeks colored, the memory of yesterday flickering across her expression like a bruise beneath the skin.

Ivy gave a slow shrug, the motion languid. “You would’ve done the same for me.”

A pause, a beat too long.

Ivy turned her head and saw it in Clara’s face—the hesitation, the truth she wasn’t proud of but couldn’t hide. Clara wasn’t sure. Ivy saw her swallow, the guilt hanging there like mist.

“I’d like to think so,” Clara whispered, finally meeting Ivy’s eyes.

“You’re stronger than you think,” Ivy said, gently, honestly. No sarcasm, no bravado, just a truth she needed Clara to believe. Needed someone to believe it about themselves, because if Clara could believe it… Maybe Ivy could, too.

But Clara only shook her head slowly.

“No. No, I’m not.” Her voice cracked—not from emotion this time, but weariness, like something old and brittle finally being acknowledged. “The only thing that kept me going through that hell was fear. Not hope. Not strength. Just… fear. I was terrified of what would happen if I failed. Of going back to that living room. To that cartoon. To that damn seat. I knew—knew—that if I failed, that would be the end of me. Not death… but the end of who I was. I would’ve sooner died out there on that stage than give up early.”

The words hung there, stark and honest, and Ivy didn’t look away. Didn’t flinch, for she understood. Every syllable echoed something inside her. It wasn’t strength that brought them this far. It was terror. Determination forged in suffering, sharpened by degradation. It wasn’t heroic, it was survival.

Ivy’s eyes wandered—inevitably—to the walls, to the corners of the room, to the chrome panels where the ever-waiting mechanical arms rested like vultures perched in steel nests. She’d seen them enough times now to know that they never truly slept. They merely waited. “How long do you think we have?” she asked, her voice just barely above the soft hiss of the recirculating water.

Clara didn’t answer at first. She followed Ivy’s gaze, and for a moment they both sat there in silence, submerged to their chests, hair trailing in warm, floral-scented suds, shoulders bare beneath the glow of sterile light. The question wasn’t really about time. It was about reprieve. About freedom. About the sliver of peace the two of them had stolen between tortures. Clara shrugged eventually, her expression tight. “Not long enough, I imagine,” she muttered.

Ivy didn’t argue; she didn’t have the energy to, nor was Clara wrong.

Of course, it wouldn’t be enough. It never was. Every moment of quiet, of stillness, of something almost human was always on borrowed time. They could already feel it slipping through their fingers like the heat rising from the water. As long as they remained within these walls—this machine, this show—they would never truly rest. Even peace came with strings attached, tangled in invisible threads of anticipation. 

A soft splash as Clara shifted again, her eyes casting upward now, scanning as Ivy had done. Her voice broke the quiet, softer than before. “Do you think they’re watching us now?”

Ivy turned her head. Looked again—really looked. The walls were seamless, polished to a mirror shine. No visible seams, no blinking LEDs, no mounted domes. And somehow that made it worse. Because she knew the truth, the absence of cameras didn’t necessarily mean privacy. They were likely there, simply hidden from sight.

“Given how much they already know about us,” Ivy said quietly, her voice flat with tired certainty, “I’d be shocked if they weren’t watching us right now.”

Clara’s face twisted—not surprise, but discomfort, that kind of cold that slithered up your spine when you realized you were never alone. Both girls instinctively sank a bit deeper into the water, bubbles rising around their necks as if the surface might shield them from unseen eyes. Ivy felt the water lap at her chin, its warmth no longer quite so comforting. She was aware of her every motion now. Her fingers, her breath, the curve of her spine against the tub’s incline.

It wasn’t just the cartoon, the diapers, the endless feedings, the trials—it was this. This is a stripping of privacy. This knowledge that no matter what she did, no matter how human she tried to remain, someone out there—millions of someones, perhaps—were watching. Not helping. Not intervening. Just watching.

Their suffering wasn’t a side effect.

It was the product.

The water had cooled slightly, but neither Ivy nor Clara seemed to notice. The warmth had done little to ease the tension that still coiled beneath their skin, just beneath the surface. Ivy leaned her head back against the padded edge of the tub again, staring up into the too-clean ceiling. The kind of sterile perfection that tried too hard to hide its secrets.

Clara broke the silence, her voice soft but brittle. “What do you think the purpose of all this is?”

Ivy blinked and turned her head. Clara wasn’t looking at her — her gaze was distant, fixed somewhere beyond the bubbles, beyond the room. “I mean,” Clara continued, “obviously people are watching. There’s funding. Infrastructure. This whole... nightmare is too elaborate to be random. But why? What are they trying to prove? Or sell? Or… condition us for?”

The word condition sent a chill down Ivy’s spine. She exhaled slowly, curling her arms over her stomach beneath the water. “I used to think this was just another twisted game for the rich,” she said. “Some sadistic showcase for the elite to feel powerful while the rest of us perform for their amusement. But after today?”

She shook her head. “It feels… bigger.”

Clara raised an eyebrow. “Bigger how?”

“I don’t know,” Ivy admitted. “The production value. The logistics. The language they use. It’s not just about watching us suffer. It’s about transforming us. I remember hearing something earlier in the Trials… something about the cost of each contestant. Not just in a monetary sense. Investment.”

Clara’s expression darkened. “You’re thinking this is some kind of conversion program?”

“I don’t want to believe it,” Ivy said, her voice tight. “But think about it. The way the systems react when we comply. How quickly our bodies adapt — the formula, the restraints, the loss of control. It's like they're testing thresholds.”

Clara’s lips pressed into a thin line. “So then what happens to the people who don’t make it?”

That question hung in the air, thick and heavy.

“They don’t just disappear,” Clara went on. “There has to be something. Some next step. But if it's worse than this…” She didn’t finish the thought.

Ivy gave a bitter laugh, but there was no joy in it. “And the worst part? Not one word about this place has ever made it out. No leak, no survivor account, not even a glitch in the system. It’s like we don’t even exist anymore.”

“Like we’re not on Earth anymore,” Clara muttered.

It was a ridiculous thought — but only on the surface. Ivy opened her mouth to refute it, but the words didn’t come because something was off. The silence beyond the walls. The lack of external reference points. The absolute control of their environment. Everything they saw was curated.

If it wasn’t off-world… it was off-grid, it had to be, right?

The quiet returned between them—not the tense, waiting silence of the Trials, but something softer, vulnerable. The water had gone tepid, but neither girl moved. Their arms rested across the foam-laced edge of the tub, their heads leaned back, and they breathed steadily for the first time in what felt like weeks.

“I still can’t remember anything right before all this,” Clara said after a long while, voice distant, as if she were reading from a faded photograph instead of speaking her truth. “Not just the capture, not even the weeks leading up to it. It’s like someone took scissors to my timeline. Everything’s just... gone.”

Ivy turned her head, her brows furrowing. “You too?”

Clara nodded, slowly. “But I remember before. Before all that. Childhood. Friends. Summers so hot we’d peel our legs off plastic lawn chairs. My brother used to throw frogs at me.”

Despite herself, Ivy giggled. “Frogs?”

Clara grinned faintly. “He said they were magical. Said if I kissed one, I’d turn into a princess. I was six. I believed him.”

There was a wistfulness to her tone, like the memory floated just out of reach, a relic too distant to touch but too precious to forget.

“What about you?” Clara asked, shifting to look at Ivy. “What do you remember?”

Ivy closed her eyes for a moment, sifting through her own haze. There were fragments, scenes replaying like snippets of film cut loose from their reel. “I remember a bookstore,” she said softly. “Old, dusty shelves. I used to curl up in the corner between the classics and sci-fi and just… disappear. My mom owned it. I think. I remember her voice more than her face.”

Clara didn’t interrupt. She listened patiently.

“She used to hum when she worked. Not a song. Just... a tune. Always the same one. I’d hear it through the walls when I fell asleep.” Ivy paused, swallowed. “That sound made everything feel safe.”

The water lapped gently at their skin, filling the silence between memories.

“You think we had good lives?” Clara asked, more to the ceiling than to Ivy.

“I hope so,” Ivy replied. “It’s easier to believe we were happy, once. Even if I can’t prove it.”

Clara rested her cheek against the tub’s edge. “I used to draw. A lot. Filled sketchbooks with princesses and monsters and really weird animals. My mom wanted me to be a dentist. My dad... I think he just wanted me to stay little forever.”

There was weight behind that, unspoken and uncertain.

Ivy tilted her head. “You still draw?”

Clara blinked at the question, surprised. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it in forever. I think—” She looked down at her hand. “I think I forgot how.”

Ivy followed her gaze, her fingers soaked and limp. “Then we’ll remember. When we’re out of here, you’ll draw again.”

Clara smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “If we ever get out.”

“No,” Ivy said firmly. “When.”

They held each other’s eyes then, not as competitors, not even as survivors — but as people, clinging to the pieces of who they had once been. For a moment, the Trials didn’t exist. There was no Mistress, no cameras, no diapers or dehumanization. Just two young women, floating in lukewarm water, trying to keep their memories alive.

*

The soft squeak of padded feet on tile was oddly rhythmic — a gentle crinkle-thump, crinkle-thump, like the world had been muted to nursery tones. Ivy’s arms pumped in slow circles as the baby-walker’s rigid plastic ring guided her pace, forcing her into a stiff, pigeon-toed gait. Every step was shallow. Every motion, corrected. It wasn’t just a way to restrict movement — it was a methodical reshaping of how she existed in space.

Clara ambled beside her in silence, her walker creaking with each shift of weight. The soft lavender of her sleeper hugged her frame in an almost cruel way — it emphasized vulnerability while disguising exhaustion. Ivy’s sleeper was sky blue, stitched with cheerful clouds that now felt more like masks than patterns. Neither girl had said much since the dressing arms had deposited them in the corridor outside the bathing chamber. They were too busy listening, watching, and waiting for what came next.

The hallway felt different now. It was not threatening—that would imply something obvious, something there. No, this was subtler, like something had been scrubbed away. There were no alerts, no overhead announcements, no thrum of distant machinery. Only the quiet shuffle of their walkers echoed through sterile halls, as though the Nursery had drawn in a deep breath and was holding it.

Clara finally broke the silence. “No babies.”

Ivy nodded slowly. “No assignments,” she muttered, looking up at the blank screens that should have shown their status as caregivers and their assigned babies.

That alone was troubling. Every cycle of the Trials, every moment of “caregiver privilege,” had been tied to a specific responsibility — one that doubled as leverage. The babies had been anchors, justifications for the system’s manipulations. And now? There was only them.

They rounded the final corner and approached the living room, a familiar dread building low in Ivy’s gut — the scent of powder and plastic lingering faintly in the air like a ghost. But what stopped her wasn’t the smell; it was the glass.

Where once a door had stood, there now stretched a full-pane wall—clean, flawless, and seamless, from floor to ceiling. It refracted the fluorescent light like crystal, casting faint distortions across the interior beyond. Ivy reached forward instinctively, fingers pressing against the cool surface.

Inside, the room had transformed.

The familiar bouncers and foam mats had vanished, replaced by four large bassinets, spaced evenly like pieces in a showroom. Each bassinet was sealed along the top with a transparent dome, and within each one, nestled like infants in cradles far too large for their age, lay the other contestants — Maria, Mason, Sarah, and Jamie.

Ivy’s breath caught.

All four lay motionless, their limbs spread out slightly, pacifiers sealed over their mouths. Their eyes were open—not wide, but glassy, unfocused, as if staring through the ceiling or beyond it. Above each of them, suspended by robotic arms, were screens tilted at precise angles. The looping images were unmistakable: soft colors, saccharine voices, endless songs. Naomi and Oliver.

Clara’s hands pressed to the glass beside Ivy’s. “What the hell...?”

Ivy leaned closer, squinting, looking for signs of awareness, of movement, of anything human behind their stares. But the babies didn’t respond. Their bodies rose and fell with shallow, automatic breaths. Their faces were slack, peaceful in the most unnatural way.

Their eyes met through the low arc of the walkers’ front trays — padded plastic smeared with pastel prints, soft enough to suggest safety but rigid enough to mock autonomy. Ivy saw her dread mirrored in Clara’s face, both of them holding the same unspoken question: what now? The living room had been a windowed tableau of passive torment — a stage with no entrance, a theater where they were not performers, but audience. And yet somehow, that had made it worse.

“What else are we supposed to do?” Clara asked, voice small, uncertain. Her hands shifted in their mittens, as if trying to wring them out, only to be met by soft resistance.

Ivy’s response was a shrug. A tired one, not apathetic, but hollowed out. “I guess we’re not caregivers anymore. At least, not for now.”

There was a strange gravity in that admission. Like the roles they’d been given — the titles they’d earned and clung to — had been stripped from them as easily as their names. It left something loose inside Ivy’s chest. A hollow she didn’t yet understand.

They turned without another word, their walkers creaking and swaying with each awkward step. It was a humiliating rhythm, forced, the sort of movement that reduced their bodies to shapes in a system. The hallways stretched quietly and sterile beneath the buzz of ever-present lights, until the crib room opened before them like a yawning void.

Six cribs.

Six.

Where once a hundred had filled the chamber like a nursery of lost children, now the space felt cavernous. Every empty spot was a ghost. A name erased. Ivy paused at the threshold, her fingers brushing the curved lip of her walker, and stared at the remaining cribs as if they were coffins in disguise. “How many trials do you think are left?” Clara asked, glancing around the room.

“I don’t know. Two, maybe three,” Ivy said. She didn’t look away from the cribs as she spoke, her voice thin and thoughtful. “Could be more. Could be one.”

The silence returned, but it didn’t last.

Clara’s breath caught first. Ivy’s eyes followed her gaze and found it — a door.

Far at the end of the room, partially ajar.

Nothing special in its appearance, barely noticeable. But something about it made Ivy’s chest tighten. Not fear, not quite. It was deeper than that. Like her body understood something her mind didn’t — that this door was for them, that it was inevitable.

She nodded toward it. Clara followed the gesture, her eyes narrowing. The walkers creaked as they turned together, stiff plastic scraping against the floor in slow rhythm. Their progress was clumsy. Their legs were forced wide by thick padding, and their knees were bowed outward like toddlers learning to walk.

With each step, the weight in Ivy’s stomach coiled tighter. The hallway behind them grew quieter and more distant. By the time they reached it, the silence was a presence unto itself—thick and absolute.

Clara reached first, her mitten brushing the edge of the metal, and Ivy placed her hand beside it.

Together, they pushed.

The door creaked inward.