Chapter 5: The break
The five minutes stretched into something shapeless and heavy. Time pooled on the mats with the sweat. The fluorescent light buzzed like a trapped insect.
Lilly pushed herself slowly onto her elbows. Every muscle in her torso protested, a symphony of deep, vibrant pain. She looked… transformed. Her skin was mottled with vivid red impressions of soles and tread patterns, a roadmap of the impacts. Her abdomen, usually flat, was softly distended, a tender dome that rose and fell with her shallow, careful breaths. A smile touched her cracked lips. It was a raw, private thing.
“Water,” she croaked.
Someone from the periphery—a girl with wide, fascinated eyes—handed her a plastic bottle. Lilly poured some into her mouth, letting most of it run down her chin and neck, cooling her heated skin.
On the mat to her left, Maya hadn’t moved. She was curled on her side, knees drawn up, facing away from the room. Her shoulders hitched silently. The bright colors of her hair were darkened with sweat, plastered to her scalp.
“Maya,” Emely said from the right. Her voice was flat, drained. “You okay?”
A ragged, wet laugh escaped Maya. It was a horrible sound. “Okay.” She repeated the word as if it were in a foreign language. She uncurled slowly, wincing, and rolled onto her back. Her face was puffy, tear-streaked. “I can’t do that again, Lilly. I can’t.” Her voice broke on the last word.
Lilly shuffled over, moving with the stiff care of an old woman. She reached out and took Maya’s hand. Maya’s fingers were cold. “You don’t have to. You can stop.”
“And leave you with them?” Maya’s eyes darted to the crowd, which had mostly dispersed to the edges of the room, murmuring, checking phones, but still palpably waiting. “Look at the line. It didn’t get shorter. It got longer.”
She was right. During the break, the queue had reconstituted itself against the far wall. And it had grown. New faces, drawn by the noise or the whispers snaking through the dorm, had joined. Some who had already gone were back, talking in low, excited tones about wanting to try a different technique, a different angle.
Emely sat up, groaning. She looked at her own stomach, touched the blossoming bruise there with clinical detachment. “What was the point of the break?” she muttered. “It just gave them time to get more people.”
“The point,” a voice said from above them, “was metabolic recovery. Lactic acid clearance. Prevent systemic shock.” Ben stood over them, holding three protein bars. He dropped them onto the mats like he was feeding animals. “Eat. Simple sugars. Quick energy.”
He settled onto his haunches, his large frame looming. The neon glow from a hastily-strung ‘EXIT’ sign painted his face in garish greens and reds.
Lilly didn’t touch the bar. “You’re enjoying this.”
“I’m observing,” he corrected. His eyes scanned her battered midsection with an unnerving, analytical hunger. “The data is fascinating. Your pain tolerance is exceptional. Her’s,” he nodded toward Maya, “is about at its statistical limit. Interesting divergence in responses to identical stimuli.”
“We’re not data points,” Emely said, her quiet voice gaining an edge.
“Aren’t you?” Ben’s smile was thin. “You signed up for this. You’re variables in Lilly’s experiment. I’m just helping… optimize the parameters.”
Maya wiped her nose on her arm. “What’s next, Ben? You got a wrecking ball swinging from the ceiling pipes?”
Ben’s smile widened, a flash of genuine pleasure. “No heavy machinery. Not tonight.” He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur the girls had to strain to hear over the room’s din. “The double drops were effective. But inefficient. The force distribution was asymmetrical. Wasted potential.”
He picked up a discarded sneaker, turning it over in his hands. “The next phase is about sustained, focused pressure. We’re moving from impulse to… application.” He looked at Lilly. “You ever seen a laminar press? In your robotics lab? Where they apply even, immense pressure to bond composite materials?”
Lilly’s breath hitched. Not with fear, but with a dreadful, thrilling understanding.
“No,” Maya whispered.
“Think about it,” Ben continued, his tone light, almost conversational. “Three participants. One per mat. They don’t step off. They step on. And then they… stay. They apply their full weight, through one foot, for a sustained period. Sixty seconds. Ninety. The static load does different things. It’s not about the impact shock. It’s about the slow, constant compression. The… flattening.” He let the word hang in the thick air.
Emely felt a cold terror crystallize in her gut. The impacts were violent, but they were over in a moment. This was something else. This was being slowly, deliberately pressed into the floor.
“The queue’s longer now,” Ben said, standing up and brushing his hands together. “Lots of new volunteers. And some repeat customers eager for a second… serving.” He glanced at the line. “Means I can be more selective. Pick the heavier ones. The ones with the best balance.” He looked down at the three of them. “You should prepare. Mentally. It’s a different kind of challenge.”
He walked away, clapping his hands again. “Line up! We’re resuming. New protocol. Single-file now. I’ll assign the targets.”
A low, eager murmur rippled through the waiting participants. Shoulders squared. People stretched.
Maya grabbed Lilly’s arm, her nails digging in. “Lilly, please. You have to stop this.”
Lilly looked at her friend’s terrified face, then over at the growing line, at Ben who was now consulting a list on his phone, a general marshaling his troops. The ache in her core was a deep, resonant throb. It was an emptiness begging to be filled, a limit begging to be breached. The laminar press. Even pressure. It sounded… perfect.
“Just a few more,” Lilly said softly, her eyes glazing over, fixed on some point beyond the peeling walls. “We’re so close to the end.”
“To the end of what?” Emely asked, her voice hollow.
Lilly didn’t answer. She slowly, painfully, lay back down on her mat, assuming the position, her arms at her sides, her battered belly offered up to the flickering light.
Ben’s voice cut through the noise, crisp and commanding. “First three. You, you, and you.” He pointed to a solid-looking guy in a weightlifting belt, a tall woman with a backpack still on, and another man who shifted his weight with the poised balance of a rock climber. “Platform is retired. Just step directly onto the designated area. Center of mass. Apply full weight. Hold for ninety seconds. I will time it.”
The weightlifter cracked his neck. The woman with the backpack shrugged it off, letting it thud to the floor. The climber tested the grip of his socks on the rubber mat.
Ben’s eyes found Lilly’s. He gave her a slow, almost imperceptible nod.
Then he said, “Begin.”