15Yulia
The heavy metal door at the end of the hallway clangs, and I jerk awake, conditioned to respond to that noise as if to an electric shock.
They’re coming for me again.
I begin to shake—yet another conditioned response. As much as I want to remain strong, they’re getting to me, breaking me down piece by piece. Every grueling interrogation, every humiliation great and small, every day that blends into night as I sit there without food and sleep—it all adds up, destroying my willpower bit by tiny bit. And I know they’re only getting started. Buschekov implied as much the last time he had me in that mirrored room.
Trying to control my breathing, I sit up on my cot, pulling a thin, dirty blanket around myself. Outside, it might be May, but in this prison, it’s still winter. The chill
