Chapter 2
She arrived blindfolded.
The cloth had smelled faintly of starch and citrus disinfectant, as if it had been laundered in a place that believed cleanliness was not just a preference but a performance, and she had felt the descent long before she understood it — the lift of transport, the humming drop through what must have been underground corridors, the way her ears adjusted to pressure changes that told her she was far below any place she had ever walked on her own.
When the blindfold was removed she was alone.
A single chair at the end of a long wooden table stretched before her like a runway toward indulgence, the grain of the wood polished to a shine that reflected the soft amber light above. There were no windows. No clocks. No visible doors. Only the sense that somewhere beyond the walls machinery breathed.
She did not know where she was.
She did not need to.
The rules had been clear.
For seven days she would want.
For seven days she would take.
For seven days she would not be judged.
A waiter entered the room as if conjured from shadow.
He wore a black pinstriped suit that seemed tailored not for a man but for an idea of refinement — too precise, too immaculate — and he carried a menu thick enough to feel like a novel when he placed it in front of her.
“Welcome,” he said softly, though the word carried no warmth, only obligation.
She opened the menu.
And the world expanded.
Ribs glazed in sauces whose descriptions read like poetry. Cakes layered in creams she had never tasted. Milkshakes in flavors she could not pronounce. Roasted chicken crisped to gold. Duck breast seared and resting on jeweled reductions. Burgers stacked beyond structural reason. Quesadillas folded around molten centers she imagined stretching like silk.
Her throat tightened.
In the factory city, protein came measured. Sugar was rationed. Flavor was a memory passed down by older mouths.
Here, nothing was rationed.
She began to order.
The ribs.
Chocolate cake, extra cream.
One milkshake in every flavor except banana.
Roasted chicken.
Duck breast.
A hamburger.
A quesadilla — because she ordered it everywhere even though she had only tasted it once in her life and had decided then that mystery was worth repetition.
The waiter wrote without reaction.
When he left, she leaned back in her chair and allowed herself to feel the weight of arrival.
This was her first Tooth Week.
Her first removal.
The tooth had come out that morning in a clinic room that smelled of antiseptic and ceremony, the dentist congratulating her as if pain were a rite of passage rather than a transaction. The small molar had been placed in a velvet-lined box and logged into the national registry, its absence in her mouth now a hollow she explored repeatedly with the tip of her tongue.
Teeth were currency.
Teeth were discipline.
Teeth were proof that you could resist yourself.
Or proof that you could not.
Her mother had cried the night before, though she had tried to disguise it as pride.
Her father had told her to choose something safe.
No high-risk hunts. No violence simulations. No unsupervised thrill sectors.
Something age appropriate.
Something dignified.
But the menu of weeks had tempted her.
Gluttony.
Romance.
Adventure.
Fear.
Power.
Oblivion.
She had chosen indulgence.
Because hunger had defined her childhood more than any moral argument ever could.
The first tray arrived.
Steam rose in fragrant spirals.
She did not wait for permission.
She ate.
She ate until the edges of her vision blurred and her stomach stretched into an ache that was almost holy, as if fullness were a sacrament denied too long, and she drank milkshakes in succession until sweetness coated her teeth and dripped down her chin and she laughed at herself in a way she had never allowed within the factory walls.
For hours she consumed.
And for hours unseen cameras recorded the pleasure.
In a control room far away, technicians adjusted audio levels, boosting the sound of her chewing, isolating the sigh that escaped her when chocolate met tongue.
A producer leaned back and smiled.
Gluttony always tested well.
Back at the table, she wiped cream from her lip and leaned forward, breathing heavily, wondering what tomorrow would bring.
Because the letter had promised more than food.
It had promised escalation.
And as she reached for another forkful of cake, the lights above flickered — not enough to alarm her, only enough to remind her that indulgence, like all fantasies, was curated.
And somewhere, in a forest she would never see, a boy’s gunshot echoed into her future.
