The hallway of the Mayne Theater held 16 actors when Kein arrived.
He counted them without intending to. It was a habit he hadn't managed to break—his eyes kept cataloging even when his brain didn't ask for it. 16 actors. All for minor roles.
'Competition...' Kein thought with a touch of nostalgia.
He leaned against the back wall and waited.
Most were reviewing scripts with that specific concentration of someone who has already memorized something but needs to convince themselves they remember it. One whispered under his breath, practicing emphasis. Another stared at the ceiling, lips moving on their own. A girl to his left was marking her script with three different colors.
Kein didn't have a script. He hadn't been given any prior material.
'I suppose it will be a free-form audition.'
He already knew what he was going to use.
———//————————————//———
His turn came at 2:00 PM.
He entered. He saw the director with a notebook, the producer with a coffee, and the screenwriter with a script marked in three colors.
"Free-form performance," the producer said. "2 minutes."
Kein looked at the floor for a moment.
Claudius. But without the guilt. Only the logic. He had to make it colder and more malevolent; that way, it would fit the theme of the series.
He looked up.
What he did next, he didn't monitor with the same attention he would have monitored a mission. He was inside it, not observing from the outside. When he stepped out of character, the producer's coffee was frozen halfway between the table and his mouth. The director hadn't written a thing. The screenwriter stared with the expression of someone seeing something they didn't expect to see and didn't know where to place yet.
'...It seems I did well.'
They handed him pages. He read them twice, went back to the beginning, and read them again more slowly. He improvised the scenes.
For this role, he remembered when he was in that hellhole. He remembered every detail. He didn't want to remember... but he had to get this role; the Sword of Damocles was in plain sight.
He remembered, as he had been taught, as he had been instructed... as he had been brainwashed.
By the end, he was a bit disconnected. He didn't even wait for a response before leaving.
*Click.*
He stepped out. The door closed.
In the hallway, people still remained, but Kael didn't see them.
———//————————————//———
The bus ride home took 40 minutes.
Kein sat by the window and thought about the 4-day margin he had left as a distraction.
Not with alarm—though he should have—but with the coldness of someone checking inventory before a long mission, noting what's missing without over-dramatizing it. On Tuesday, filming for *Ceniza* would resume. That was guaranteed energy, assuming Viktor generated the same reaction on camera as he did on stage.
Assuming.
'Don't assume. Confirm on Tuesday.'
The bus passed a row of restaurants with their lights already on. A family walked out of one with paper bags. The father carried three. The son, holding a small one that was clearly his, swung it with both arms as if it weighed more than it did.
Kein watched them until the bus left them behind.
He arrived at Rosslyn Lofts at 6:02 PM.
———//————————————//———
He boiled water, threw in the noodles, and stirred.
He ate standing in front of the sink with his notebook open on the desk. It was time to organize everything from the week—everything he had absorbed from Dustin and Nikolai—before it turned into noise.
The first column: **Dustin.**
*Center of gravity too high. You walk like someone ready to move fast.*
Kein wrote it down and stared at it.
It wasn't a defect of Kein Adler. It was a defect of Kael. Years spent walking ready to dash in any direction—that doesn't get erased in 14 days. But it wasn't permanent either. The body learned patterns if given enough repetition. He had seen it in training, in infiltration, in everything.
'Technical problem. Solvable.'
*Projection from the abdomen, not the throat. Breathing as a tool.* This was new. He had never needed to make noise before, so it was a skill he had to learn.
Kein had noticed the effect. He hadn't understood the mechanism until now.
'To speak, but with the volume of a shout without actually shouting.'
The second column: **Nikolai.** A single phrase.
*You confirm instead of observing.*
He reread it.
In NEXARA, that ability was functional. Cataloging in 4 seconds was the difference between completing a contract or not. Age, approximate training, defensive stance, whether they looked for the exits. All of that before the other person even opened their mouth.
Here, that closed doors.
Because an actor who already knows what the other is going to do doesn't react to what is happening. They react to what they expected would happen. And the difference—even if the audience can't name it—is noticeable. The acting arrives half a second late. It looks slightly prepared. Slightly fake.
Kein had done exactly that with the thirty-year-old man in Nikolai's class. He had cataloged him in 4 seconds, confirmed the evaluation, and executed the repetition based on that prior conclusion.
Technically correct.
Emotionally closed.
He closed the notebook. He went to the window.
On the street: a man walking a large dog that was going faster than he was. A woman waiting for the bus with headphones on and eyes half-closed. A car parked poorly; the driver got out, looked at it for a second, and left it like that.
Kein observed them without cataloging. Without deciding before looking.
It lasted 6 seconds before the habit returned on its own.
'6 seconds... Ha.'
He thought it with the sharp irony of someone who has just congratulated themselves for something a five-year-old would manage effortlessly.
But 6 seconds was more than yesterday, which had been 4.
Progress.
He put the rest of the noodles in the fridge, turned off the light, and went to bed.
At 11:00 PM, the apartment fell silent.
———
"Not like that."
"Again."
"You made a mistake. Not like that."
"No!"
"Again!"
The words didn't vary. They didn't rise or fall. They weren't shouts. They were orders repeated until they were hollow of meaning.
A child's legs were trembling when he opened his eyes.
A figure stood before him.
Tall. Immobile. The ceiling lights cut his face into harsh shadows. He didn't look angry. He looked disappointed.
"What are you looking at?"
The child blinked.
"What did I tell you?"
It took a second to remember. That second was enough for the man to barely knit his brows.
'Again.'
He turned and went back to the bag.
Black. Suspended from the ceiling. The surface wasn't smooth. It had irregular lumps, hard angles beneath the canvas.
He kicked.
*Ploc.*
The sound wasn't that of fabric filled with sand.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
*Ploc.*
A thick liquid descended down the bottom seam and fell to the floor with a steady rhythm.
The child swallowed hard.
"What are you doing?" the instructor asked.
"I'm-sniff- I'm hitting the baaa-sniff- bag, sir."
The answer came out clipped by the breath trying not to turn into a sob.
"No. What are you doing?"
The child hesitated.
Another kick. Harder.
The impact traveled up his tibia like an electric lash. The canvas scraped open skin.
The instructor moved.
**BANG.**
The world tilted. The ceiling swapped places. The wall received him without warning.
The air abandoned his lungs.
The man lowered his leg with the same calmness someone uses to set a book on a table.
"That is hitting."
He leaned down enough so his eyes were level with the child's.
"Do you see my face?"
The child tried to focus. His vision was vibrating.
"Do you see me crying?"
He didn't answer.
He couldn't.
A spasm wracked his body. He vomited to the side. He vomited until he was only spitting up bile.
The instructor watched him as if evaluating a defective part.
"Pain is not the problem. Showing it is."
Silence.
"If your enemy sees that it hurts, they see your weaknesses. You're already dead."
The child breathed with difficulty. He tried to control the trembling in his jaw. He failed.
The instructor sighed.
Not with annoyance. With boredom.
He pulled something from the inner pocket of his jacket. A small metal syringe. He pressed it against the child's neck without warning.
The pressure was brief.
The liquid burned as it entered.
Ten seconds.
His vision stopped oscillating. His pulse stabilized. The dizziness receded as if someone had flipped a switch.
The child blinked.
The pain was still there.
But further away.
"Stand up."
He got up.
His legs obeyed.
"Continue."
He returned to the bag.
He kicked.
*Ploc.*
The liquid began to fall again.
He didn't press his lips together this time.
He didn't frown.
He didn't show anything.
The instructor watched for a full minute.
"Better."
He turned around and walked out.
The child kept kicking until he was told he could stop.
---
The hallway was long. White. Windowless.
He walked, putting more weight on his right leg.
The door at the end was ajar.
Voices.
He stopped.
"He's no good."
The voice was the same one that had given the orders.
"He's slow. He gets distracted. He looks too much."
Another voice responded. Lower. Closer to something human.
"He's eight years old."
"Others at six already don't react."
"Kicking him against the wall doesn't speed up the washing."
A brief silence.
"It was necessary."
"No. It was excessive."
"Excessive is allowing him to retain doubts."
The second man exhaled.
"He just needs time."
"Time is a resource."
"And breaking him before molding him is one too."
A pause.
"Leave him to me for a few weeks."
"It's not a competition."
"It never is."
A slight rustle of fabric. Someone moved.
"I'll handle the next block."
The first instructor didn't respond immediately.
"As you wish."
Footsteps.
The child backed away before the door opened.
He kept walking.
He assumed they were talking about something else, about how his clothes always had stains.
'I need to wash my clothes well; I can't always get dirty in training,' the child thought with determination.
Then he looked down; his pants were stained red...
---
The next room was larger.
Children lined up.
Shaved heads. Same gray uniform. Same size.
They were striking their legs against hanging bags. These didn't have lumps. They didn't drip.
The sound was uniform.
*Thud.*
*Thud.*
*Thud.*
Purple legs. Swollen knees.
Neutral faces.
One clenched his fist every time he made impact. Another tensed his jaw until the neck muscles stood out.
But no grimace.
No tears.
No sound.
The child took his place in the line.
Before starting, someone approached.
Same height. Same uniform.
But cleaner.
Without stains.
Beside him was a closed bottle of water and a folded towel.
"You're late," he said in a low voice.
"No."
The other smiled barely.
"I heard you. It could be heard all the way here."
The child didn't answer.
"They say if you don't scream, it hurts less."
"It doesn't work that way, Z."
"I know."
He offered the bottle.
The child looked at it for a second. He licked his lips... with one last reluctant glance.
"I can't. They'll scold me. It's your effort."
The child called Z shrugged and drank the bottle.
"When we get out of here, it's going to be worth it."
The child looked at him.
"Get out?"
"Yes."
The smile was small. Convinced.
"They choose us. The best."
He said nothing.
"You have capacity training today, right?"
He nodded.
"Good luck, A."
He went back to his bag.
The child called A began to kick.
This time without complaining.
---
The next room smelled of metal.
Long tables. Tools arranged with clinical precision.
A different man explained without raising his voice:
"Disassemble in less than 20 seconds."
A weapon fell in front of him.
"If you fail, you start over."
A tried.
His hands were still trembling slightly from the injection.
15 seconds.
17.
18.
A part rolled out of place.
"Again."
Hours later, he learned to assemble with his eyes closed.
To identify weight by sound.
To calculate trajectories on a chalkboard without erasing the previous error.
If he failed, he repeated.
If he succeeded, he repeated.
He repeated like a machine.
By the end of the day, there was no visible difference between success and failure.
Only repetition.
---
At night, they called him for his block.
He entered a small office.
The second instructor was sitting behind the desk.
No harsh shadows. No shouting.
A warm lamp illuminated the paper in front of him.
"You've made progress."
The child stood firm. Standing in a military pose.
"But not enough."
Silence.
The man watched him for a few seconds.
Not with contempt.
With evaluation.
"Starting tomorrow, you will be under my supervision."
A faint smile crossed his face.
It wasn't wide.
It wasn't kind.
But it wasn't cold either.
"We'll see if you learn faster with me."
The child nodded.
He didn't ask why. He didn't ask what would change. He just went with the flow; he was used to it by now.
He only held the man's gaze.
but I hope the clues and small details regarding Kael's character are coming through.
