As far as I could remember, I was in “training” to become a ‘Lily’. I have no memories of before that.

  I was initially in a group of 100 ‘Lilies’. Neither one of us had a name. Neither of us knew why we were there or how we came there.

  We didn’t even know what parents were. There were some people in white, men and women, who took care of us, but they had no warmth to give us, doing only the minimum for us to survive. The supervisors.

  When we grew enough to start walking on two feet and no longer required diapers, we wore a simple white one-piece dress with the dark letter “C” and numbers from one to one hundred.

  That was how we were addressed. Mine was C23.

  The early training wasn’t anything life-threatening.

  Most days were spent in light exercises and mostly studying.

  We didn’t go outside at all. The facility was underground.

  We were taught grammar, vocabulary and simple math.

  The books were bigger than our heads and the massive instructors were quite scary. As long as we followed their orders, they didn’t punish us even if we made blunders.

  We were too young back then. A punishment would result in our death after a few years.

  We understood that following orders was the right thing to do. Therefore, until graduation, we did as we were told. Our obedience needed to be absolute if we wanted to survive.

  The supervisors didn’t care about us, but didn’t harm us without a reason. They kept their distance from us. They often took notes of our actions.

  There were other people in black, mostly men, who wore light armour, were armed and kept their faces hidden, but we had no interaction with them for the first few years. They were just there, guarding a spot or patrolling the facility we were in.

  I didn’t know what to call them then, but now I understand that they were the security personnel. The guards. They are etched in my memory as the people in black.

  The food we ate after we stopped feeding only on milk consisted of bread, green foods, other vegetables and fruits, animal products and rarely meat and fish.

  We were staying in cages – no more than 10 of us in one. We were given a blanket and a pillow. We slept on the ground and there was enough space for each of us to have a little personal space.

  Every seventh day, we had a health check. However, if the supervisors detected anything unusual in one of us, the girl was sent for examination the same day.

  During that period, our early years, there were no fatalities.

  Over time, the subjects we had to study became more numerous and harder.

  One of the subjects that we were hard-pressed to know was about royalty.

  They were described as the saviours of our country, the sole reason why we could exist. We had to read aloud many of the stories about the exaggerated endeavours they’ve done.

  I suspect most of them were fake and decorated to brainwash us, but a few of the stories were real.

  It was the closest thing we got to reading a fairy tale. I remember parts of them, but couldn’t tell one from start to finish.

  We knew from little that we were nothing.

  Back then, we couldn’t even imagine what royals were. They were like Gods to us. We were in awe just hearing their exploits from the books and lectures. Now, I find most of them spoiled and rotten human beings. I daresay, a waste of oxygen.

  That was how we were taught: obey, fulfil orders and fear those above.

  While the studies increased, the exercises also became harder.

  We transitioned from light activities, such as running and gymnastics, to light weight lifting and “friendly” sparring. The time we spent on physical training also increased.

  The most challenging one was our first hand-to-hand combat training session. It was more like getting beaten up for show and to have our first taste of the pain to come.

  We had some of the people in black as training partners. They swept the floor with all of us.

  We fought one-on-one, a few matches at once, while the rest of the ‘Lilies’ watched and learnt before experiencing the beating themselves.

  There were a few people in white with red crosses, men and women, on the sidelines. They were the ones we went to for our health checks. After each “fight”, they immediately checked up on us and treated all injuries. They were the medical staff.

  They cleaned our wounds and sometimes bandaged us. Rarely, they gave us pills that reduced our pain, albeit for a while.

  The sessions with the people in black continued for a year, with two sessions per week in the first half and three or four in the latter.

  It wasn’t rare by the end of the hand-to-hand training for someone to have a broken bone or two, a nose bleed or other minor to medium injuries. It all depended on the ones who were picked to be our opponents.

  Sometimes, we were all hospitalised for a few days, whereas on other occasions, we sustained only bruises.

  The supervisors were looking at us as if we were objects while taking notes on our performance. We could rarely feel any emotions from them.

  The few times we did sense something from them, it was mainly disappointment, disgust or hate. We hadn’t experienced love and kindness yet and their cold treatment was seen as something normal.

  A year after our first sparring session, the hand-to-hand combat became a spar between us, the ‘Lilies’. The fights were even and it was the first time some of us could experience the joy of winning a fight. After getting our asses handed for a year, winning was like a dream.

  Such hollow dreams we had back then.

  I remember losing my first such spar.

  After we started sparring with one another, it was also the first time we had a penalty for losing.

  The fights might seem better than when the people in black dominated us, but with them, each ‘Lily’ fought for less than five minutes.

  Now, however, there were some days that we had to fight from morning to night, all of us, while also having a few breaks for the more seriously injured to get treated before continuing.

  Our well-being wasn’t as high a priority as it was before.

  The only way to skip those fights was either to become unconscious or die. The latter was the worst outcome, but the first wasn’t pleasant either.

  I don’t know exactly how we were scored, but the lower 10% had penalties. Falling unconscious during a fight often resulted in being one of them.

  Some of the penalties I myself had to experience were beatings, starvation and whips on my naked back. I still remember some of them.

  The cold whip tearing my skin off with each swing, losing my warmth from my burning, bleeding wounds, caused by the merciless supervisors, while my screams from pain echoed and my tears were falling uncontrollably from my eyes. I had to sleep on my belly for a few days until my back healed, even with the treatment the people in white with red crosses gave me and the strong painkillers.

  Not being given any food while being forced to watch how the other ‘Lilies’ gluttonously emptied their plates, while the supervisor next to me chewed on a red, juicy apple. I felt inexplicit hate when seeing the ones who beat me and made me experience starvation happily eat. I remember having a few sleepless nights due to the hunger. I also remember how a person in white with red crosses once sneaked me a piece of bread.

  He told me to hide somewhere and eat it while keeping it hidden from the others. I complied.

  The merciless beatings were something we had grown accustomed to since sparring with the people in black. The women in black were particularly fierce. They knew exactly where to hit us where it hurt the most. But being kicked a few times while being down and spitting blood was new to me. They beat us enough to make the pain last for a few days, but it wasn't life-threatening.

  The penalties were “light” back then, but to fragile children like us, they were more than enough.

  The most ironic part of the penalties was that they served as an incentive to do our best, but days after they were imposed, we could barely do anything.

  Having constant pain in my back and barely being able to move from it, being hurt everywhere on my body or barely having the strength to move made the sparring even worse, often resulting in another punishment.

  Luckily, the penalties occurred once a week or else I might not have been able to tell this story.

  Even today, I evade looking at my naked body with my eyes or with the help of mirrors in fear of still having numerous scars.

  My Mistress didn’t mind my scarred body at all. For her, it was proof of my will to survive and the hell I had to endure – a part of my life she hoped I would never experience again.

  Around the time our next difficulty spike came, 10 of us had already died. Most of them were due to the punishments.

  When one of us died, be it before us, during the spar, or after it, due to the penalties or wounds, we all felt some low degree of sadness, but neither of us cried.

  We were quite broken by then.

  Some were more broken than others and started feeling twisted pleasure when hurting others. The supervisors took notice of them, but nothing more. When those watching us determined that a fight during sparring could cause irreversible harm, they would intervene and stop it.

  For the first two years since the start of the sparring between ‘Lilies’, at least.

  If in the previous two years we had to hit each other with fists and were allowed to kick only while the opponent was standing, the current rules don’t have that restriction.

  We could even kill our opponent and no one would bat an eye. We understood this in the worst way possible.

  During one of the spars, the one who found joy in hurting her opponent went overboard, pinning her opponent to the ground, pressing with her entire body weight and taking great pleasure in the pain she caused. The loser was left defenceless and at the mercy of the victor.

  When she realised no one came to stop her this time, she continued to test the waters.

  She pulled the hair strongly, ripping some of it, then started beating her opponent down, her fist making the girl groan from pain and blood drops began to splash with every hit after a while.

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  But this wasn’t enough for her. After the girl was barely breathing, most of her face bleeding and disfigured, the one who injured her to this extent continued after realising no one was coming.

  All those actions made the rest of us stop our activity and watch. It was the first time I had felt horror.

  She, now having her white dress in red hue, plucked her victim's eyes.

  The poor girl was barely alive and had no strength to defend herself; all she could do to retaliate was to scream and hope someone would intervene.

  No one did. Neither the rest of the ‘Lilies’, nor the supervisors nor the people in black. All watched. The ones in white with red crosses averted their gazes, some clenching their fists.

  She continued to mutilate the corpse, cutting it open with her nails and dyeing her hair red. She had a creepy smile on her face, blood all over her clothes and skin.

  The sparring ended a few minutes after there was a victim.

  The rest of us shunned her after that. She was a monster and the one who had to fight her would need to kill her or die at her hands.

  A few days later, we had another spar. She continued to wear her creepy smile while her hair continued to have dried blood, but the blood on her clothes was gone.

  Her opponent gulped and readied to fight her. The memory of what she did was vivid in our minds. The rare times we, the rest of the ‘Lilies’, talked with one another, we discussed her actions.

  The situation started resembling the last time, but before things escalated to another casualty, I took action.

  When my opponent and I had again stopped our spar to watch her doings, I dashed towards her from her blind spot. Her victim was getting a few punches to the face when I interrupted her.

  I knew fighting her fairly was too risky and I needed to use this attack to injure her enough.

  I kicked her on the nape with my left leg from her left side. The impact made her fly off the one she was about to beat down.

  Both of them recovered fast, with the one I saved coming to my side.

  On the other hand, she recovered and looked at me, her face distorting into anger and then into her creepy smile. I became her new target.

  We were about to fight her two on one, but then a supervisor spoke from the speaker.

  “You are permitted to fight one-on-one. Having two of you fight one at the same time is forbidden. C23, you will not be penalised, as when you started fighting with C32, her fight was determined to have ended. If you, C23, and you, C11, decided to fight her at the same time, you will be penalised afterwards, regardless of what you show us.”

  We all stopped and listened to their warning. By then, we understood that penalties were what we needed to evade the most to survive.

  C11 and I looked at each other. Our fish eyes made it clear neither of us was that ready to put our necks on the line for the other. She was grateful, but her life was a bigger concern.

  C32 started to move slowly towards me, yet to assume a stance. She was bulkier than I was.

  The one I helped knew she was out of danger and retreated.

  “The spar continues. From this moment onwards, you are forbidden to stop fighting until told to as long as you can move your wretched bodies.”

  The speaker said and we all resumed the spar.

  If I knew my actions would have this outcome, I would have stayed and watched.

  C32 rotated her neck and rubbed it. My hit on her upper vertebrae didn’t seem that effective.

  “Nice kick, bich. I’ll rip your head off for that.”

  I didn’t reply and took a position. She dashed at me.

  Her bigger build was enough for me to understand that if she were to pin me, I would die and fighting her head-on was a mistake.

  There was nothing I could do but evade and try to tire her down before retaliating.

  Since the last sparring session, I understood she was slower than me, despite her packing punches. They were useless if she couldn’t connect them, but I also knew that one punch and it was over for me.

  She started with a right punch and I evaded it by stepping backwards.

  She continued her fury of punches, her fist taking turns to aim for my head. Occasionally, she added a kick, but her movements were slower than mine.

  I kept on moving backwards, using the least energy possible. That infuriated her.

  “Stop running, bich!”

  She increased her fury and her attacks became faster. Still too slow.

  I found the opportunity to sneak my hand and cut her eyebrow, but had to retreat before she retaliated. That made her even madder.

  The rest of the ones sparring made way for us to continue when I backed up too close to them. They didn’t want to get in the crossfire.

  Her sweat on the forehead and fresh blood from the eyebrow combined and at one moment, it fell on her left eye.

  That stunned her and I attacked her. Missing this opportunity was a mistake.

  I knew my punches would feel like nothing, so I used my nails.

  I managed to give her a relatively deep cut on her left cheek and also sliced her right eye when I retreated.

  The second hit made her fall back and scream from pain while holding her eye.

  I thought this left her open to another attack.

  Seconds before I managed to kick her chin with my left leg and end the fight, she grabbed it and her grip didn’t let me go. It was so strong and I felt pain; my struggle to break free was useless. I feared my leg would be broken in her next move.

  She looked at me with her left bloodshot eye. She was mad.

  She used her other arm to hold me by the neck, trying to choke me, her fingers leaving marks on my neck and her nails making me bleed.

  I struck her arm with my nails, making a few cuts that bled, but she didn’t budge.

  She ran and smashed me into the nearest wall. The impact staggered me.

  I didn’t have time to do anything else as she let go of my leg and punched me hard in the stomach. I lost my air and strength.

  She hit me once again with her knee on my stomach and let me go. I fell on the ground, my head hitting the floor and my arms holding my stomach. I coughed and puked blood.

  The moment I lifted my head to look at her, her leg connected with my cheek, making me spin and fall on the ground. Another kick to turn me on my back and her leg was on my belly, pressing me.

  She pinned me in no time with all her body weight. I knew what was going to happen next and I gave up. There wasn’t much I could do to survive.

  The first thing she intended to do after realising I had given up was to pluck my eyes. In a last effort to retaliate, to survive, I shut them.

  But her nails and my eyes didn’t touch. Instead, I heard her screaming in agony and her hold on me weakened.

  I looked up to see C11 piercing the right eye with her right hand and her left hand pulling C32’s hair.

  I didn’t let this opportunity go away and pierced C32’s other eye.

  My attack forced her to get up and my arms became out of reach. I kicked her with all my strength on her stomach. I was about to continue kicking her when C11 spoke.

  “Don’t attack.”

  Yes, I mustn’t or else we’ll both be penalised.

  “You fucking biches!”

  C32 roared and tried to retaliate, but in her blinded and heavily wounded state, she would fall on her own, while her attacks would miss.

  I escaped my previous spot and used the wall to get up, while C11 also backed away, keeping her distance.

  I could barely move. Even walking by leaning on the wall was challenging.

  C32 was madly attacking around her, most times hitting the air, but occasionally smashing herself on the wall.

  C11 had been patched up and returned to the fight. She had helped me. I’m grateful.

  One of the people in white with red crosses came to take me away to inspect me. I leaned on their shoulder while exiting.

  After checking me, they spoke.

  “You have sustained medium injuries. I’m sorry, I cannot discharge you after what you had to experience… You can stay here and rest for a while longer, but you’ll need to go back soon.”

  “I want to go back right now.”

  They didn’t say anything else and let me go.

  I had the time to recover enough to walk on my own.

  I re-entered to see C32 barely breathing, on her knees, blood tears falling from her eyes, her creepy smile nowhere to be seen. She looked miserable and heavily wounded, her eyesight gone. She wasn’t a threat to anyone now.

  The person from before and one more entered soon after me and went to C32. They came with a stretcher.

  When they touched her, she lashed out and attacked them. She pierced the clothes on the legs of one of them with her nails.

  She was like a cornered beast, attacking with all her power.

  Her nails broke, but made the person bleed a little and they gave a slight groan.

  She thought it was her enemy, a ‘Lily’ who came to attack her, but when she hit their massive bodies, her anger distorted into fear.

  In the next seconds, shots were fired and the rest of the ‘Lilies’ reduced their fighting to see what had happened.

  C32 had been pierced by numerous bullets, falling to the ground and bleeding.

  The man’s groan had alerted the people in black. Many had their guns pointed at C32.

  “Due to C32 attacking one of the staff, she was terminated. Avoid making the same mistake. Continue fighting.”

  One of the soldiers shot her head; her brain was splattered on the ground; her lifeless body twitched one or twice before becoming unmoving.

  It could be said this was the first time I had killed someone, despite it not being done with my own hands. C32 died from our combined efforts, C11’s and mine. The soldiers only put her out of her misery.

  Soon after C32 had died, C11 became my sparring partner until the end of the session.

  Both of us were injured and we faked fighting.

  C11 gave me a slight smile as she took her stance. I also smiled back.

  C11 had black hair with a blond hue at the ends and her eyes were grey. Both of us lacked teeth after today’s fight, but it was fine – we had yet to replace all of our baby teeth.

  C32’s death didn’t mean much to any of the ‘Lilies’. She was the first to harm us, the first to break the unspoken rule between us.

  After that day, C11 and I became friends. She was the closest one to me among the ‘Lilies’.

  There was something like a bond between the rest of us, the ‘Lilies’, a sorority even.

  This was the main reason why there were close to no casualties during the spars —at least in the beginning. Only C32 and her victim, C56, were exceptions.

  We were still competing not to be penalised, but never going too far as to maim our opponent, let alone take her life.

  A year had passed and another cruelty was added: all of us were subject to some light torture. It was separate from the penalties. One day, out of the blue, they took us and had us all tortured.

  Why? We didn’t know. Nor did we care. We only knew how to obey. Were we given a knife and ordered to stab ourselves – we’d do that.

  Compared to some of the penalties, the torture wasn’t that bad, but I remember wondering if this was the “norm” now, what would the penalty be?

  We also started to have a small dosage of poison injected into our bodies by the supervisors while the people in white with red crosses were nearby.

  The supervisors used numerous live bees to sting us and left the stingers in us for a while. The first time, fewer than 10 bees per ‘Lily’ were used.

  We repeated this once a week, with the dosage of bees increasing slightly every time.

  The last time bees were used, there were numerous trash cans filled with dead bees.

  If there was a strong negative reaction in one of us, the antidote was given.

  After the bees, wasps were used.

  Unlike the bees, the wasps had their lower end of the body cut. The stings continued to be in us for a while. After each session, the dosage increased.

  Although fewer wasps were used compared to bees, they were more painful of the two.

  I remember all of us, the ‘Lilies’, felt unwell on such a day.

  Luckily, it happened rarely back then and most of the days when we were injected were spent learning.

  It was the first form of poison training we endured. It was also the lightest form of it.

  The time was passing. The torture was becoming harsher. The study time was getting shorter and more complicated. The physical training got harsher and more demanding. The weights increased by a few pounds.

  We started seeing the space outside the facility for morning and evening jogging. We had to run laps around the sturdy, barbed-wire fence.

  It didn’t matter what the weather outside was.

  Only during the winter did we wear boots instead of shoes and our dresses were replaced with winter coats. We also had to wear leggings, gloves and beanies.

  During rainy days, we were given raincoats to wear over our dresses and sturdier boots.

  The first time we went outside, we were amazed. It was our first time seeing it, but we weren’t allowed to enjoy or familiarise ourselves with it.

  It was a sunny day with a light breeze and the birds, which we had only known from books, were chirping. The sun felt pleasantly warm and the light natural breeze was also new to us.

  We were oblivious to the outside world, despite all the studies we had.

  If we were asked where the food was coming from, we’d say ‘from the room where we go to eat’.

  We lacked basic knowledge, but had to study advanced things. Most of them I have forgotten, as I found myself in no situation that required their usage.

  Years were passing. We, the girls, were becoming women.

  We didn’t know much about biology and how babies were made then and we had no idea what was happening to our bodies.

  All we knew was that we had blood from time to time from our groin area, followed by pain and discomfort for a few days. It happened once a month.

  The ones in white with red crosses often gave us something to soak up the blood, but they told us to keep it a secret from the supervisors.

  As for the supervisors, they were as cold as ever.

  The study time was almost gone, replaced with harsher physical training, sparring or being forced to get used to the pain.

  Instead of bees or wasps, poison was injected into our bodies by needles directly into our veins.

  It was unpleasant and more intervention from the people in white with red crosses was required.

  Gradually over time, the frequency at which we were injected with poisons increased and the dosage became larger. Different types of poisons began to be used.

  The newer the poison, the worse we had to endure.

  The penalties also worsened. Having to take three consecutive punishments was as good as dying.

  Eating once a day for a week.

  Getting a chain on a leg and being forced to stay with the 25-pound metal ball for a week

  Getting additional special torture every night and sleeping chained to the wall.

  This is part of what I experienced.

  C11 added to my knowledge the merciless, every-night beatings, choking until going unconscious and having to survive being injected with stronger poisonous substances before going to bed.

  During the normal torture, we sometimes were injected with light poisons, such as the ones bees have, but the ones C11 had to endure made her nauseous, dizzy, confused and a few times she puked. A person in white with red crosses had to come and give her the antidote the next morning.

  He and the supervisors who had injected C11 had a verbal fight. The supervisors had injected C11 with an overdose and she was going to die by noon if no one intervened.

  C11 was out resting for the whole day in the care of the ones in white with red crosses, but she didn’t remember much. She was mostly passed out.

  The beating continued until we were hit 40 times or until we went unconscious.

  The additional torture included ripping nails off, lightly burning the skin and a few times, deluded acid droplets on a body part of our choosing.

  Often, the people in white with red crosses had to spend an hour treating those punished the following day. If the ‘Lily’ hadn’t died by then.

  It was meant as a punishment, not a death sentence. If the injuries sustained were serious, life-threatening or the girl was on the verge of dying, the penalty would be revoked. However, it was the supervisors’ judgment that decided it. They sometimes made mistakes.

  Still, even if the penalised ‘Lily’ survived, the following low performance for the next week meant that another punishment was to be expected.

  We pitied them and rarely harmed them during the spars. It was the only way to help them.

  Our pillows were taken from us – one of the few amenities we possessed.

  There were numerous casualties.