Day 3The cube hummed low and steady, a sound Ashe had begun to mistake for silence. He woke with his knees tucked close, face pressed into the faint warmth of his hoodie. Every muscle ached in that dull, exhausted way that felt more like memory than pain.

  The sink request had been accepted overnight. A message glowed on the terminal:

  Sink Instaltion Complete - Fulfilled by: J.H.+5 Influence Tokens

  His stomach tightened.J.H. again.

  For the briefest moment, the name felt wrong—like a fingerprint left on his skin. Was he being watched? Was J.H. even a person, or just another hand of the system pretending to care?

  He pressed the heel of his hand to his throat, willing the spiral to stop. No. J.H. had helped before. Woken him when the cold had nearly killed him. Offered warmth without being asked. Shown nothing but goodwill.

  Ashe stepped closer. The sink sat half-buried in the cube’s wall, like a stainless-steel cubby carved directly into it. Beneath the basin, a one-gallon container was strapped in pce, pale blue fluid sloshing faintly inside.

  CLEANSING SUPPLY #1 — NOT FOR DRINKING

  He crouched and traced the printed warning with a fingertip.Does this mean I have to buy the water too? he thought, a flicker of irritation breaking through the unease.

  Beside his foot, a narrow secondary drain had been cut directly into the cube’s floor—gleaming, deliberate. He wasn’t sure what it was for, but it reminded him of an eye. The thought made his stomach twist. Like something trying to peek up his skirt. He tugged the fabric down on reflex, as if he could hide from it, then brushed the feeling away.

  He reached for the pump handle and gave it a few uncertain presses. A stream of cloudy liquid spilled from the faucet, coating the basin with a faint shimmer. He leaned closer and sniffed. The scent nded somewhere between hand soap and undry detergent—clean, but chemical.

  He pressed the pump again and let a small pool of the liquid collect in his palms. It was cold—room-temperature cold—and slicker than water. Hesitant, he rubbed his hands together until a faint foam formed, then rinsed them clean. Nothing burned. That felt like a victory.

  He spshed some onto his face next. The chill bit at his skin, but it also felt grounding. Like washing off what had happened in the brothel bathroom, even if it wasn’t really gone.

  Maybe he could wash his clothes in it too, he thought, watching the faint suds circle the drain. There wasn’t anywhere to hang them, but he would figure something out.

  His eyes drifted to the oversized T-shirt spyed on the floor—the one he had arrived in. It had been drenched in sweat days ago and left to dry, stubbornly damp in the freezing air. Now, finally, it looked dry.

  He picked it up and gave it a tentative sniff. The shirt still carried the faint, lived-in scent of his body—warm skin, fabric, salt, the earthy residue of long hours spent working. It wasn’t clean, but it was recognizably his. He decided to see how well the new cleaning liquid could handle it.

  He filled the basin with a few inches of the cloudy liquid and pushed the shirt into it. The fabric darkened instantly, soaking up the chill. He worked it between his hands, rubbing the worst spots with his thumbs until the foam turned gray.

  It wasn’t much of a wash—no warmth, just the faint chemical scent of cheap detergent and hand soap clinging to his fingers. He wrung it out over the sink, twisting until the water ran thin and clear, then draped it across the metal edge. The hem hung down just enough to drip into the floor drain.

  “Good enough,” he muttered. “Hopefully it’ll dry quicker this time.”

  He wiped his hands on his skirt, turned to the terminal, and opened the job listings. He just needed something to do—anything to fill the space between his thoughts.

  He selected the first option without thinking. He didn’t even read the rest.

  Cleanup Crew.

  He nded in what looked like an apartment.

  It was a single-room mess—half-eaten rations on the counter, an overturned chair, bnkets twisted on the floor as if someone had left in a hurry. It didn’t smell like the cube; it smelled lived-in. That alone unsettled him.

  Then he saw it.

  A closed window.

  Light bled through a curtain. His chest seized. He ran before he could think, tearing the curtain open with both hands—

  —and froze.

  Not a window.A mural.

  The wall was painted with an image of sky and distant rooftops, the perspective warped to mimic a view fifty stories up. A bright LED strip framed it, humming faintly and giving off a soft, false sunlight.

  He stepped closer, his fingertips brushing the edge of the frame. The paint was smooth, perfect, too clean to have ever been touched by weather.

  “What kind of apartment building even is this tall…?” he muttered, his voice barely audible.

  For a moment, he just stood there, feeling the unease crawl under his skin. The room felt staged—a memory of life, not life itself. The longer he stared, the more the silence pressed in, heavy and airless.

  He started with the obvious—the spilled noodles dried to the counter, the ration wrappers scattered underfoot. A small trash unit blinked in the corner; he fed it one item at a time, listening to each soft hiss as the system consumed the waste.

  The work didn’t require thought, which was exactly what he wanted. Wipe, rinse, repeat. The smell of the cleaning solvent was sharp and fake, the same sterile sweetness as the sink’s.

  When he reached the bedside table, his rag stopped.

  A picture frame y face-down beneath a tangle of bedsheets, its corner chipped, the gss spider-webbed. He picked it up carefully and turned it over.

  Inside was a photo, its edges curled.

  The man drew his eye first: tall, easily over six feet, broad shoulders filling half the frame. His hair was dark and cut short, the kind of uneven fade that looked self-done. Even in stillness, something about his stance radiated confidence—the quiet, natural kind that didn’t need to prove itself.

  Beside him stood a woman tucked into his side. Not crushed against him, but held there—his arm low on her waist, thumb brushing the fabric of her dress. Her hair was pale, sunlit blonde; her skin fair, her frame small enough that she looked almost delicate next to him. She couldn’t have been much older than Ashe himself.

  And something about her face snagged him.

  The soft jawline. The slightly upturned nose. The shape of her eyes—light-colored, maybe gray or blue—open but uncertain.

  Not identical, but close enough that for a second he thought he was looking at a distant retive he had never met.

  He frowned down at the photo, unease creeping up his spine. Maybe this pce really had been lived in. Maybe someone had actually existed here before him. He couldn’t make sense of it.

  Everything in the room looked right—a half-drunk mug on the counter, shoes by the door, the faint smell of detergent and dust—yet none of it felt right.

  His gaze drifted toward the window again.

  From this angle, the illusion almost worked—warm light bleeding through the painted skyline—but the perspective was wrong. The horizon sat too high, as if the world had been shoved miles below him. It made his stomach turn, like looking down from a height he didn’t remember climbing.

  He turned away, throat tight, and set the frame back on the table. Then he forced himself to keep cleaning, though his eyes kept darting back to the photo as if it might change when he wasn’t looking.

  When the elevator finally chimed to alert him that the job was complete, he flinched like it had caught him doing something wrong.

  Back in his cube, the silence felt worse than before. His shirt dripped softly in the background, each drop a quiet reminder that there was nothing left to do. The air felt heavier without a task at hand.

  He didn’t want to think—didn’t want to feel anything—so he reopened the terminal and selected the next job on the list.

  Thread Spooler.Fine. Whatever that was. Anything to stay busy.

  The room was narrow and white, lined with humming machines that spat out thin silver thread. Each spool waited to be wound, one after another, in neat little rows.

  He sat on the only avaible seat, a stool, and a dull ache settled into his wrists. His fingers didn’t want to cooperate; every time he tried to feed the thread through the guide, it snagged or tangled.

  The machines purred on, uncaring. Their rhythm filled the silence that would otherwise have swallowed him. By the third spool, his hands were trembling again.

  Was it from the chill still lingering in his body—or something else entirely?

  When the thread finally snapped, it shed upward and flicked his cheek with a sharp sting. His hand didn’t go there, though—it went to his throat instead, fingers digging in as if he could steady his own pulse. The room suddenly felt smaller, the hum of the machines pressing in on him. He shut his eyes and forced a breath out before panic could take hold.

  The sound of the machines blurred together—whirring, clicking, winding—until it almost sounded like breathing. Not his. Not anyone’s. Just the room itself, alive and waiting.

  When the task finally cleared, he felt no satisfaction. Only the ghost of motion in his fingers long after he had stopped moving them.

  Twenty-five credits for the Cleanup Crew. Eight for Thread Spooler.

  He sighed. Guess I’m built for keeping house, not for building anything that sts.

  The terminal blinked, waiting for him to choose again. Only one option remained:

  ??? (Random Job)

  He hovered for a heartbeat, then stepped back. The glow followed him across the cube’s floor like it didn’t want to let him go.

  There had to be other ways to keep his mind busy until bedtime.

  Credit Total: 70

  Day 4

  The cube felt different that morning. Warmer—not cozy, but comfortable enough that he didn’t need to curl beneath the bnkets. The forecast had been right for once; seventy-six degrees felt like luxury.

  The small addition of a sink made it even better. Cold water against his face, a quick rinse of his hands—it almost felt like a morning routine was beginning to form.

  He smiled faintly, thinking of J.H. Whoever he was, he really did seem to look out for him. Ashe was sure he would use the tokens in the best way possible. It felt good to believe someone out there cared.

  He reached for the small cellulose sponge—5 cr, one of the few things he had bought yesterday. Filling the sink with the cool cleansing solution, he began wiping himself down beneath his clothes. The water wasn’t warm, but it was clean, and that was enough.

  He worked slowly, cautious of the chill and careful to preserve his modesty. It wasn’t much—just a sponge bath—but the simple act of cleaning himself made him feel a little more human. The small luxury eased some of the tightness in his chest.

  He reached for his new single-use toothbrush and the tiny capsule-sized tube of toothpaste. The mint was faint but real, grounding. He brushed calmly and methodically until the bristles began to bend and colpse in his mouth.

  So the single-use part wasn’t a lie after all. Designed obsolescence at its finest.

  He rinsed with a sip from his water bottle, spat, and tossed the flimsy brush and empty tube into the bucket toilet.

  Afterward, Ashe crouched to check the cleaning-water supply beneath the sink. The container was nearly empty—just a pale slosh at the bottom.

  He sighed and opened the terminal.

  One repcement cleansing unit, one breakfast ration of protein paste, one fresh water bottle. His morning checklist, apparently.

  The orders blinked confirmed, credits deducted, and the hatch gave its usual mechanical hiss.

  He ate slowly this time, taking small mouthfuls and washing them down with cool water. It wasn’t much, but it settled in his stomach and eased the hollow feeling in his chest.

  When he finished, he folded the two thin bnkets with careful hands, smoothing the wrinkles as if the fabric might notice. The emergency foil sheet went on top, neat and gleaming. His T-shirt followed—clean, folded, waiting.

  It was warm enough now that he didn’t need it. The hoodie wrapped around him like a small promise of safety, soft at the edges, familiar in a way nothing else here was.

  He stood and stretched until his back popped. Time to earn his bread—or whatever counted as bread here.More like earn his protein paste… and another roll of toilet paper.

  The thought almost made him ugh. Almost.

  He gnced once around the cube—the folded bnkets, the drying shirt, the faint hum of the sink—then tapped the terminal to open the job listings.

  After two nearly back-to-back work shifts, with only a brief water break in between, Ashe trudged back into his minimalist cube.

  Well, he thought, if I keep this up, maybe I’ll earn all the comforts of a prison cell.

  He drifted back to the terminal, hoping for something to do.

  First stop—Shop, then Clothing.

  Still nothing useful. No pants. No boxers. Not even something as neutral as a pair of sleep shorts.

  What did appear, though, made his stomach dip—a pale pink training bra, the kind a teenager might wear. Light padding, soft straps, a note underneath reading: “Designed for comfort and confidence.”

  He snorted under his breath. Confidence. Yeah—nothing screamed manly like a starter bra.

  He sighed through his nose and scrolled on, more out of habit than hope, until he nded on the Daily Luxury Item tab. The title alone felt like a joke. He didn’t expect to afford whatever shiny object the system had decided to dangle in front of him today, but curiosity still made him tap it open.

  Weighted Comfort Shawl – 250 crTagline: “Simutes gentle embrace.”

  A sleek, neutral-gray shawl that draped over the shoulders. The fine print listed temperature regution, haptic pulse simution, and adaptive tightening pressure.

  The number nearly made him ugh: two hundred fifty credits. More than twice what he had ever held at once.

  He could almost feel it, though—the imagined warmth, the phantom squeeze around his shoulders. The way it might have felt to be held for real.

  He closed the tab before that thought could dig any deeper.

  Maybe tomorrow the shop would stock something useful. A real shirt. Maybe even pants. Shampoo would have been nice, too.

  He leaned back against the wall and exhaled, letting the gentle hum of the cube fill the silence until it was the only sound left.

  ?? Worn ClothingOversized gray hoodie — faint boy smellShort skater skirt — soft from repeated wearWarm knit thigh-highs — charcoal; estic still snugReplica duck-print panties — hanging from sink to dry

  ?? On-hand (sleep / backup):Thin cotton bnket x2Foil emergency bnketOversized T-shirt — Clean & Dry

  ?? Room & Gear InventoryBucket Toilet (Tier 1) — gel liner ≈ 50% usedThin Toilet Paper Roll — 50% usedWall-mounted Sink1-Gallon Cleaning Liquid — ≈ 80% used16 oz. Steril Water Bottle — ≈ 75% usedCredits: 83 crInfluence Tokens: 4 (Chloe)

  ?? Physical & Mental SnapshotHunger: Full, wanting varietyThirst: mildFatigue: wearyCleanliness: moderateBody temperature: warmStress: moderate — copingMental stability: moderate — copingLust: moderate — pnned release.

  System Log — End of Day 4