Muse and Mischief

“T265 survives Hell in the carcass of who she used to be, but the whisper of her ghost forces her to intervene for a stranger. Now there is no going back, only death, betrayal, or the futile quest for the last shred of hope in damnation. The only certainty is she can’t live like this anymore.”

She Thrives in Hell is a dystopian novella about a transwoman’s fight to reclaim identity and hope after years of torture and slavery.

Readers of I Keep My Exoskeleton to Myself and The Saint of Bright Doors might enjoy this journey of searching for hope within a regime built to erase you.

She Thrives in Hell is my latest novella pubishing for free on my Substack Ink and Indigo. I will post each chapter here on Muse and Mischief as well three days after it goes live there.

What you won’t find here on Muse and Mischief is all of the promotion bonus content and special perks for paid subscribers, but you can still enjoy the story. It is a pretty good story if I say so myself.

So, without further ado….I present to you:

The acrid taste of the air within the Perdition Work Camp infested T265’s mouth as she trudged through the heavy South Texas heat. No matter how often the breeze blew between the barracks, it never brought any respite. She spat the taste onto the dusty ground of the Strand, a stretch of beaten path between the rows of barracks that towered over her. 

Even with the workday cut in half for Sunday, the fields were harsher than normal. Her skin, from her bald head to the small of her back, ached and burned. The scars on her chest, a void where her breasts used to be, itched more than they hurt. They always itched though. Of all the things ripped from her when they threw her in there, that cut her the deepest. Whether the itch on her chest rivaled that of the T-shaped burn scar on her cheek, wasn’t certain.

Not even past B barracks, she had to ease herself on the steps of the building. Several of the Is walked past, yammering on in Spanish so fast her ‘No Sabo’ ears couldn’t grasp onto any of the words. They didn’t say much to the Ts like her beyond the occasional slur. 

The ‘Illegal’ Immigrants were the first ones sent to the work camps, and with the courts bogged down with a lack of support, they never really left. Then it was the Ts, trans women like T265 who mostly kept to themselves, and Gs, the gay men, came after. A group of them gathered on the stoop across the Strand from her.

The sky was clear that day, except for T424, who hung by a withered rope from the edge of the Spire, a tower where the guards could look over all quadrants of the camp. For the past several weeks, the COs would give the occasional kick to scatter the flies. T265 hoped they would cut it down before limbs started raining down onto the Octagon where meals were served. Her stomach turned; it never occurred to her that she would ever be so callous before she became T265.

Her legs groaned as she resumed her journey back to her barracks. Across the Strand, G655, a man she had issues with, broke off from the group and sped towards her. She fought her body to increase its pace.

“Tranny,” he called out.

“What do you want?” she answered through clenched teeth without stopping.

He rushed into her path and slammed his palm into her chest, which sent her stumbling back.

“You have to use my name. You do remember what that is right?” The snark wasn’t unusual for him, but the arrogance got worse since he became a Born Again. Names were the one thing taken from everyone during processing, replaced with a number that became their identity within those walls. 

Reclaiming a name was just one of the many privileges for those who ‘recommit themselves to Christ’, as Warden Nettles reminded them in services that morning.

“What do you want, Andrew?”

“You weren’t participating this morning,” he scolded.

“I don’t have to do anything besides be there,” she replied and pushed past him. The desire to punch him in his bulbous face was overwhelming, but as the favored children of the camp, any attack against them drew harsh punishment.

“Don’t walk away from me bitch.” Andrew grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.

“Well at least that’s something,” she grumbled and glared ino his eyes.

He moved in so close she could smell the remnants of strawberry jam on his breath, which made her angrier at how much she missed the smell. 

“If it wasn’t for you freaks pushing your fucking agenda they would have left the rest of us alone.”

“They would have just started with you instead. We were the canaries you ignored,” T265 whispered.

“What’s your name?” The shout tore through the quadrant. A tall, lanky G threw a scrawny, bald T to the ground.

The muscles in T265’s legs screamed as she forced them to run through the pain to close the distance to the fray. Four Gs from the stoop encircled the girl, kicking and taunting her until she screamed.

“Fuck off!”

A black, stocky G T265 didn’t recognize slammed his foot into the girl’s gut, making her croak. Another kick sent blood flying from her mouth to splatter on the pant leg of the tall, lanky one. He raised his leg to kick again.

T265 seized the opportunity to slam her shoulder into his torso and knock him to the ground.

“Caleb!” the black man called out.

“Shit,” T265 said under her breath and put herself between the Gs and the girl.

A shrill cry broke the air as CO Rubens blew his whistle just behind T265.

“Break it up!” CO Rubens yelled and pushed his way into the circle. His mirrored sunglasses reflected T265’s own worry back to her. His angry huff carried the unmistakable stench of whiskey just before his mustache bounced to herald his next statement. “The fuck you think you’re doing…” He paused to look at her uniform number. “T265?”

“They were attac—”

“I don’t give a shit what they were doing!” He looked over at Caleb and his tone changed dramatically. “You okay there Caleb?”

“It attacked me sir,” Caleb answered.

CO Rubens licked his bottom lip. “That it did. That it did.” He returned his attention to T265. “You’re cleaning the Octagon after lights out tonight.”

“Yes sir,” T265 replied and dropped her head.

CO Rubens backhanded her across the face. “You better be grateful I don’t hang you from the Spire.”

The shockwaves of the CO’s strike rumbled pain throughout her head. His hits were always the hardest, like he had something to prove.

“Thank you sir. I’m sorry sir,” she whispered and forced the anger and tears down, which only made them pulse and grow. Even hollow as she was, she didn’t want to hang from the Spire.

“Damn right you are,” Rubens scolded. He waved his arm to the remaining Gs to disperse.

Most of the crowd left with a few hanging back long enough to realize they wouldn’t finish what they started. T265 knew there would be hell to pay later. All of the eyes on her looked away when she met their gaze, except for one. T316, a statuesque trans woman, maintained eye contact. Her amber skin glistened in the sun under the veneer of sweat that covered her face and scalp.

“Thank you,” the girl said as she pulled herself up.

T265 looked her over and tapped the number on the fresh uniform. “Your name is T921 now.” T265 stepped away and frowned. “I’ll give you the advice someone gave me, keep your head down, trust no one, and stay alive.”

T921 nodded. Her wide eyes reminded T265 of her first moments in the camp a little over five years ago, when the reality of what happened to her finally sank in. Just like her, T921 searched for some semblance of hope in their surroundings. When the tears escaped her eyes and traveled down her cheek, T265 knew she had come to the same conclusion.

There was no hope in Perdition.