Chapter 2: Ghost of the Past

The scream tore through the silence.

Hana shot upright in bed, sweat soaking through her tank top, breath ragged, eyes wild. Her hand instinctively reached for the knife tucked beneath her pillow—she had stopped sleeping with guns under her bed, a small concession to her therapist—but the blade still felt familiar in her grip. Her heart slammed against her ribs like it wanted out, the sound of it thudding in her ears louder than any battlefield.

She was back there again.

The cold.

The metal restraints.

The darkness.

In her nightmare, the walls of the Siberian prison weren’t just concrete—they were alive, breathing with the sound of her captors’ boots, with the crackle of bloodied gloves tightening. She remembered the frigid steel table beneath her, how it burned with cold against her bare skin. The sack over her head. The waterboarding. The mock executions. The silence between screams.