She rehearsed her death every single night.

Tucked away in the blue room—lined wall to wall with dusty books no one had touched in years—Sua sat cross-legged on the floor, bathed in artificial starlight cast from the ceiling. Fake constellations shimmered overhead, and somewhere in the dark, the soft buzz of electricity hummed like a distant lullaby.

A faint bang echoed from her tablet. The video froze—paused with clinical precision—right as crimson mist burst from the contestant’s neck. The body hovered in mid-fall, mouth slack, eyes wide. Sua stared, unmoving.

She didn’t flinch. Not anymore.

Slowly, her fingers drifted to her own throat, tracing the spot just beneath her collarbone where the shot would land. She held her breath, as if feeling for the phantom pain she had never known—but expected. Prepared for. Every night. Again and again.

Her other hand reached toward the floor beside her, wrapping around the cold metal of a sharpened pen, thin and pointed. She raised it. Not enough to break skin, but enough to know what it could do. The point pressed against her neck. A test. A rehearsal.

The door behind her creaked open—just slightly—but Sua didn’t notice. The silence thickened around her, as if the air itself was holding its breath.

She had made a promise with you—to tie the score, to make it fair. To survive together.

But Sua had always planned to die instead to keep you safe.