Seized
Chapter 2: Seized
Ameena surfaced slowly, like drowning in reverse.
The first thing she noticed was the cold.
Not the kind that made you shiver, but the sterile, lifeless kind. Her skin stuck to the metal beneath her—slick with sweat, or fear, or both. Her lashes fluttered, but all she saw was black. A blindfold. Her wrists ached. So did her ankles.
Strapped down.
She moved her fingers. Good. Still hers.
A faint whimper broke the silence. Not her voice.
Someone else.
No—several someone elses.
Ameena stilled, holding her breath, listening. The room was large. Echoes danced. Soft breathing. One girl sobbing softly, another muttering a prayer.
How many?
Four? Five?
The air smelled of bleach and steel. The distinct sharpness of fear.
She tried to focus. Stay calm. Remember.
The red X. The enforcers. The shock rod. Then nothing.
A soft mechanical hum vibrated beneath the gurney. Then a hiss—like hydraulics—and the calm, detached voice of a Ministry AI filled the room.
“Welcome to the Female Reassignment Facility, East Sector Three. You have been identified as Unassigned Female Stock and are undergoing the purification and assessment process. Obedience is your purpose. Resistance will be restructured. Compliance ensures painless transfer.”
Painless transfer.
Ameena's stomach turned.
Her tongue pressed against the roof of her mouth, parched. Her voice rasped, low and fierce.
“Bastards…”
The blindfold came off with a sharp tug. Light stabbed her retinas. She blinked rapidly, trying to focus.
The room was vast—white, blindingly so. Gurneys arranged in perfect rows. Every woman strapped down, dressed in the same pale, backless shift gown. Surveillance drones buzzed slowly overhead. Armed guards flanked the corners.
A man stepped into her line of sight.
Neat uniform. Cold eyes. He carried a tablet and a practiced sneer.
“Well. You’re awake.”
She said nothing.
He clicked a button on his device. “Ameena Sayeed. Twenty-eight. Former educator. Charges: Refusal of assignment. Insubordination. Hoarding contraband. Attempted subversion.”
“You forgot breathing without permission,” she muttered, her voice hoarse.
He looked amused. “Noted. That’ll be added.”
He walked around the table slowly, dragging two fingers lightly along her arm. “Such a waste. Girls like you used to lead classrooms. Now you’ll be taught obedience instead. Beautiful symmetry.”
She recoiled from his touch. The restraints bit into her wrists.
“You’ll die for this,” she whispered.
He leaned down, eyes inches from hers. “Maybe. But you’ll beg long before that.”
A new figure appeared in the doorway.
A woman, slim and sharp-boned, clad in a scarlet lab coat. Her eyes were flat as glass. A technician.
“Room is cleared for Level One. Commander Voss has approved a partial view,” she said to the man. “He’ll be observing Subject 17—this one.”
Ameena’s throat tightened.
Commander Voss. She didn’t know the name, but the way they said it—like it belonged to a god or a demon—made her skin crawl.
The man smiled, cruel and clinical. “Let’s give the Commander a proper introduction.”
Before Ameena could speak, they placed something on her head—a halo of cold metal with small embedded nodes. Electrodes pricked her scalp. The woman in red tapped a few commands on a tablet, and a high-pitched sound pierced her ears.
Then—
Pain.
Not the kind that ripped flesh or shattered bone. Something more intimate. More terrifying.
It crawled through her thoughts.
Flickers of memory twisted—her mother’s face, the smell of books, the laughter of children—all burned away in flashes of white-hot static. Her breath hitched.
She wanted to scream.
She wouldn’t.
Don’t give them the pleasure.
But then the pulse deepened. The machine adjusted to her brainwaves. She couldn’t stop it. Her heartbeat accelerated. Her pupils dilated. Images appeared in her mind—forced fantasies. Bodies. Touch. Shame. Desire laced with pain. Not hers. Not real. She knew that.
And yet…
Her body responded.
Heat pooled low in her stomach. Her nipples tightened against the gown. Her thighs twitched. Her body betrayed her.
She gasped—soft, involuntary.
The technician smiled. “You feel it, don’t you? This is Level One. Sensory corruption. The mind is weak. You’ll crave what we give you. Soon, you’ll beg for it.”
“No,” she breathed.
But it wasn’t loud enough to matter.
From a dark window above the observation deck, someone watched.
Commander Voss.
She couldn’t see him, but she could feel it—like eyes peeling away her defenses one layer at a time.
She turned her head, refusing to look up. But her body was shaking now, caught between rage and shame.
The technician leaned close and whispered, “This is foreplay. The real breaking begins tomorrow.”
Ameena closed her eyes.
Don’t scream. Don’t give them anything.
But deep inside, a new fire ignited.
And she would make Commander Voss choke on it one day.