Holding her hand. That's all it took to trigger Sam's further descent into hell.

When she and Martine had been lucky enough to be housed together, they'd been inseparable. Well, as inseparable as was allowed in what amounted to a religious State detention center. Then, a guard noticed them holding hands on the walk back to the barracks.

He cracked them on the back of the head with a baton, and they collapsed onto their knees. A velvet curtain hovered at the edge of Sam's eyes, while Martine's head lolled, tears rolling down her dingy and angled face.

It was the last glimpse Sam had been allowed of her former girlfriend. They had been dragged in different directions down the non-descript halls, other prisoners parting so as to escape the ire of the guards. The memory of Martine's bent and tearful face pushed into Sam's nightmares. What else were they doing to her?

A hood was enclosed over Sam's head. At first, she worried the velvet curtain had descended, and she had lost consciousness. Then she realized it was them. Hands bound behind her back, breath crowding the hood and filling it dense heat, Sam was roughly marched (sometimes dragged). After some time, she hit her shin on what felt like stairs, cried out, then was cracked on the jaw and told to get in and shut up.

She did so, holding in tears because crying would've only increased the humidity under the burlap hood.