«ᴍᴀꜱꜱ ᴇꜰꜰᴇᴄᴛ: ʀᴇᴅʀᴇꜱꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ʀᴇʙᴜɪʟᴅ» (Cantarella/Sync)

[Cantarella]

Omega Correctional Facility
The Terminus Systems, 2201 CE
​

Time gets a little funny in a cell. Doctor Rilina Atesir could attest to as much; she had given up on counting the days long ago. That old cliche about prisoners using tally marks on the walls of their cells? It halfway applied to the asari, but the thing was, it was near impossible to tell the days apart in the darkness of space. Besides, her cell was windowless. Time sort of blended together for an inmate in the maximum security prison. At first, Rilina had kept track of the time by minding the mealtime schedules. With this being a locked cell block, the inmates did not take their meals together in a cafeteria. Food was fed on a tray through a slot in the bars to the waiting, hungry prisoner beyond those bars. Rilina learned to be grateful for that; she was a reedy thing, bookish, not like the rougher sort who were doing time in the inside of the clustered cells. She stood no chance should a scuffle take place during those mealtime hours. But in the presence of the knowledge of such security came the loneliness, the isolation, and it was a constant and oppressive presence. A pressure upon her shoulders that was slowly flattening her, like Sisyphus crushed by his own punishing boulder, or Atlas overburdened by the globe upon his shoulders.

Until that day came.

Rilina was lying on the thin mattress when the rap of knuckles echoed off the solid metal door startled her from her reveries, splayed above the papery bedspread that had cut the chill from the doctor's bones for many a lonely night. Pushing up on her forearms, she peered through the darkness toward the offending sound, more than a little annoyed by the intrusion. Having spent so much time in this silence, the doctor's voice came out in a hoarse, ugly croak.

"Hello?"

Silence was her answer. That span of quietness with naught but her own voice echoing, ugly as sin, back at her seemed to last ages... until the sharp creak of the cell door opening filled the spartan quarters. The red light of the hallway beyond was blinding, and the asari lifted her hand to her eyes to shield them. She blinked, and she was out in that hallway, pacing through the narrow walkway between the rows of silent cells. She was led by the wrists like a bound lamb, and she could not help but think something sinister was afoot.

"Please, what is happening? Where are you taking me?" Her queries fell on indifferent ears, and she continued to pepper the guards with them as she was pulled down the hallway, down a flight of stairs, and into the wide world beyond. It being Omega, the brightly-lit room she was led to was cramped and dirty, but she was finally met with the warden of the correctional center, along with a face she did not recognize.

"Where is the other asari?" Came the gruff voice of the unfamiliar one.
"She is being prepared as we speak. She should be here within the next five minutes."

Rilina, not fond of being spoken about as though she were not present, huffed in frustration and spoke up again. "Please, I don't want to ask again. Why am I here? Have I been selected for some other duties? My sentence, you see--"

"-is not up, I am aware. I'll brief you once your companion is here. It won't be much longer. We are offering you something that is in your best interests, and should be in your companion's as well. Please wait patiently, it won't be much longer."

And so Rilina did. All she could do was wait, arms clasped behind her back, for this "companion" to arrive. And she did not have to wait long.

@Sync