Chapter 18
Days later, Elise sat on the edge of her bed, staring blankly at the pale cotton pajamas Alexandru had laid out for her. Her fingers twitched as she reached for them, hesitating as if the fabric might bite her. The texture was wrong - too dry, too loose, too alien against her skin. Her body had known nothing but the slick, constricting embrace of latex for an entire year, and now every movement, every sensation, felt raw and unnatural. The air itself felt like an unfamiliar thing, too open, too unpredictable.
She yanked the shirt over her head and grimaced as the cotton dragged over her bare scalp. The sensation made her shiver, a fresh reminder of what had been taken from her. Bald. Browless. Stripped of even the smallest vestiges of herself. She had been shaved regularly, unconscious from etheric gas, taken out of the coffin in regular intervals, taken care of, shaved and cleaned, disinfected. She of course never was aware of this. The silent attendants had done this just days before her release. Her head only now had begun to show a shade of stubble again.
She clenched her teeth and willed her hands to remain still, resisting the urge to rub at her scalp as though sheer willpower could make her hair grow back faster. The knowledge that it would take months for it to return to length left a bitter taste in her mouth.
The mirror on the dresser reflected a stranger - one she couldn’t bring herself to face for too long. She looked fragile in a way that made her stomach twist. She had lost weight. Her diet had been perfect in the coffin, but the muscle stim pads could only do so much. She was skinnier, her cheekbones were sharper, her skin pale and almost translucent under the soft lighting. The hollow look in her own eyes unsettled her more than anything else. She used to have presence, fire. Now, she wasn’t sure what she had left.
Alexandru was in the kitchen, moving about with careful deliberation, as if afraid any sudden noise might shatter what little composure she had left. He had barely left her side since her release, his presence a silent anchor, though she refused to acknowledge it. The kindness in his patience irritated her. Everything irritated her. The way the sheets felt too light on her skin, how the air didn’t press against her body the way latex had, how her limbs felt uncomfortably weightless without the constant pressure she had grown so used to. It was all wrong.
He appeared in the doorway, watching her struggle with the buttons of her pajama top. "Do you need help?"
"No," she snapped, the word sharp and immediate. Too immediate. Alexandru didn’t flinch, but she saw the flicker of something behind his eyes. Resignation, maybe. Understanding. She hated it. Hated that he was treating her like a broken thing, hated that he was right to do so.
She finally got the last button through the hole and pulled the fabric down over herself, fingers curling into the material at her sides. It still didn’t feel right. It was too loose, too light, offering no resistance against her skin. She missed the tightness, the pressure, the certainty of knowing exactly where her body began and ended. The thought made her feel sick.
Alexandru exhaled softly. "You should eat something."
Elise scoffed. "I don’t need you to take care of me."
"I know," he said evenly. "But I’m going to anyway."
She looked at him then, really looked at him, and for a brief moment, something cracked beneath her irritation. He had dark circles under his eyes, lines of tension bracketing his mouth. He wasn’t sleeping well. He was trying, in his quiet, stubborn way, to pull her back into the world.
Elise swallowed and turned away. "Fine. But I’m not hungry."
A pause. Then, "I’ll leave something on the table. Just in case."
She said nothing as he stepped away. The silence in the room stretched, pressing in on her in a way she wasn’t used to. For a year, she had always heard something - the soft creak of latex as she shifted, the white noise, the rhythmic hum of the breathing system, the steady beat of her own breath through the mouthpiece. Now, everything was too quiet, too still.
She clenched the sheets beneath her fingers, feeling the fibers shift against her skin. It felt fragile, like everything else in this new reality she had been returned to. She wasn’t sure if she could exist here anymore. If she even wanted to.
Sometimes, late at night, Elise drafted messages she never sent. Apologies. To Alexandru. To Nadia. To her sister. She always deleted them. Words were fragile things, easily broken, easily misread. Better to say nothing and maintain the illusion. Even when she wept alone, the tears were silent. She hated weakness. But not in others. Only in herself. She was the one who survived. Who didn’t act. Who stood before the raging fire. Who failed. Now she had survived once more, a year in the rubber hell she had designed.
It would take time. Too much time. But maybe, just maybe, she could find her way back.
Two weeks had passed, and the distance between Elise and Alexandru had only grown.
He still stayed with her, still tried to coax her into eating regularly, still made sure she had everything she needed. But the warmth was fading. Conversations that once held quiet understanding now felt forced, the weight of unspoken frustrations pressing between them.
Elise could see it in the way he hesitated before entering a room, the way his fingers twitched slightly before he spoke, as if bracing for her next sharp remark. She was aware of how cruel she had been, how short tempered and closed-off she had become. But knowing it and fixing it were two different things. She was close to breaking it off with him. The main reason not to do it at this point was to keep Nadia locked in her belt. As long as they were a couple… She was ready to let Alexandru go, but she was not ready to let Nadia go. But she needed distance. A year in solitary confinement made it hard to allow anyone near to her.
She sat by the window, watching the rain streak down the glass. The cotton sweater she wore still felt foreign against her skin, too soft, too loose. She rubbed her bare scalp absently, wishing the sensation would feel less alien, first stubbles were being felt, like abrasive paper. Fitting her mood. Her reflection in the glass was distorted, blurred by the raindrops sliding down its surface. A fitting image.
Alexandru sat at the kitchen table behind her, scrolling through his phone. The silence between them stretched, heavy and awkward. He used to fill these gaps with soft conversation, idle observations about the world outside, gentle reassurances. Now, he said nothing unless she spoke first.
"You don’t have to stay here," she said finally, not turning to face him.
There was a pause. Then, "I know."
She expected him to argue, to insist like he always did. Instead, he let the words settle. "You’re not the same," he said after a long moment. "And I don’t think you want to be." Elise flinched. The truth in his words cut deeper than she wanted to admit.
"You think I chose this?" she snapped, turning to glare at him.
Alexandru sighed, rubbing his temples. "I think you don’t know how to come back. And I think you don’t want me here while you figure it out."
The words sent a sharp pang through her chest, but she refused to let it show. She folded her arms, looking away. "So go."
She heard him push his chair back, the sound of footsteps retreating down the hall. A door clicked shut. Elise stared at the rain until it blurred into nothing.
But her thoughts weren’t only on Alexandru. A new, burning hatred had begun to take root inside her, growing with each passing day. Nadia. The one who had been given mercy. The one who had walked free while she had suffered. The one who had been given a choice. How smug she looked as Evelyn dripped the oil into her shoes. Elise's hands clenched into fists at the thought. Nadia should have been the one in that coffin, not her. The injustice of it all gnawed at her, twisted inside her like a sickness she couldn't rid herself of. Even before Evelyn had confronted her for adding the silicone oil into Nadia’s heels, she always wanted Nadia trapped in latex, for as long and as severe as possible. She had dared to challenge her over Alexandru’s affection. Her belt and capped rings were not enough. She needed to destroy her old rival. This time for good.
Elise didn't just want to recover. She wanted retribution.
The next week, Elise sat in the dim light of her apartment, alone this time, fingers curled tightly around the edge of the table. Her mind was running in circles, her dreams strange and her waking hours she found focusing on the person she wanted most to destroy: Nadia. The rain pattered steadily against the window, a dull, rhythmic sound that she barely registered. She wasn’t thinking about Alexandru anymore. He had left a few days ago, slipping away with a quiet, resigned expression. She had barely acknowledged it at the time, too consumed by the bitterness brewing inside her.
Nadia.
The name itself sent a sharp jolt through her veins, a spark igniting the embers of resentment that had been smoldering since the moment she was freed. It was irrational, she knew that. Nadia had not been the one to place her in the coffin, nor had she lobbied for Elise’s suffering. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that Nadia had walked free.
Nadia had known the pain of restriction, the torment of denied pleasure, the suffocating hold of Abyss’s devices - and yet she was still out there, living, breathing, unburdened. Elise had been stripped of everything, reduced to a ghost of herself, while Nadia had been spared.
Her nails dug into the wooden surface beneath her palms.
She remembered the moment Evelyn had announced her fate. The cold calculation in her voice, the way the club had watched as she was sealed away. The tightening latex when the vacuum engaged, the finality of it all. She remembered the glass above her, how they could see her, but none of them could reach her. None of them cared to.
But Nadia could have been inside instead. Even with the oil in her heels, Elise would have beaten her. Nadia was trembling that night, an image burned into her mind.
She should have been inside the coffin.
Elise’s breath came in shallow, uneven waves. The need for retribution clawed at her insides. She couldn’t undo the past, couldn’t erase the year she had lost, but she could ensure that Nadia understood what true suffering felt like. Not the aching, teasing torment of denied release, not the slow descent into madness from pleasure withheld. No. Real suffering.
She pushed away from the table, her movements slow, deliberate. She needed a plan. Something to ensure that Nadia felt the weight of every stolen second, every breath Elise had been denied.
Nadia had made the final choice. She could have condemned Elise to eternity in the coffin. She could have made sure Elise never walked free again. And yet, in that moment, she had chosen mercy.
Mercy.
Elise let out a short, bitter laugh, the sound hollow in the empty apartment. She could still hear Evelyn’s voice whispering in her mind: Mercy is weakness in Abyss. And Nadia, foolish Nadia, had shown it. Had hesitated. Had given Elise a way back into the world.
And for that, Elise despised her. Not because she was spared, but because she had demonstrated power over her. She was suddenly seen as the generous angel, the victim, the gracious. Not the slut who tried to steal Alexandru from her, and put a belt on her while doing so. Abyss thought she should be grateful, like a good girl. She was the dominant hand in this game. Nobody should forget that, least of all Nadia.
Mercy was not an act of kindness. It was control. It was Nadia telling her: I had the power to erase you, and I chose not to. Worse yet, by refusing to duel her and demanding the solo challenge, she had taken away the chance to prove her superiority. That cowardly act of Nadia had cost her a year of her life, spent in this hell. Nadia had thought she had power over her.
Elise would not allow that kind of power to remain unchecked.
She wanted Nadia gone. And if the club had given Nadia mercy once, Elise would ensure there would be no second reprieve.
She walked to the small shelf where she had placed her phone, scrolling through past messages, past whispers of threats left hanging in the air. There had been a time when Nadia had feared her, a time when the thought of exposure had left her shaken. That time would come again. Nadia still had something to lose, and Elise intended to take it from her piece by piece.
A statue challenge.
The thought settled over her like a thick, velvet cloak. Slow. Merciless. The kind of game that stripped a person of their will, their identity. Nadia had played many games in Abyss, had suffered in layers of latex, had known restriction - but she had never been still. Not truly.
But Elise could make her still.
She smirked to herself, fingers tightening around the phone. She would pressure her, push her toward it, dangle her deepest fears and desires over her head. And when the stakes were set, when there was no turning back, the coffin would be waiting.
Her body still ached from its touch, her mind still trembled at the memory of its silence. But it had made her something else. Something sharper. And it would take Nadia in the same way.
Elise tapped out a message on her phone.
"Nadia. Did you think I forgot about you? Did you think my year in silence meant I let things go? That was borrowed time. Nothing more. You spared me, yes - but not from kindness. You did it to remind me that you had the power to erase me, and you chose not to. And that? That is something I can never forgive."
She paused for a moment, letting her fingers hover over the screen before continuing.
"You chickened out of the duel, you decided I had to do the solo statue, with oil. I had a true chance in a duel, but it is your fault that you took that chance from me. You sent me into that coffin for a year by your cowardice. You think you showed mercy by making it a year? I would have had the chance to survive the statue, even with the oil under my feet, in a direct competition. If I had lost that way, it would have been fair. But you doomed me, you COWARD. You BITCH. I will not forgive you for it."
"Your little secret and video are still in my hands. The club knows some of it. But the world? They don’t know the depths of your desperation, how you wagered everything - again and again - just for a fleeting chance at an orgasm. How you begged for games, gambled for something as small as a night of edging, lost yourself to the rules of Abyss. The sight of you licking my superior feet. Imagine how that would look, laid bare. Imagine the whispers, the looks, the judgment."
Her smirk deepened as she crafted the next part.
"But there’s a way out. I’m giving you a choice, Nadia. A challenge. A simple one. A test of stillness, of will. The same challenge. Win, and you walk away. Lose, and you know the price. You know what’s waiting beneath the stage. You know where I should have left you when I had the chance. If you refuse? Well, then maybe Abyss isn’t the only place that should know your story. Maybe it’s time the world learned about the real you."
She read it over once, relishing the weight of her own words.
She pressed SEND without hesitation.
The rain outside grew heavier, the sound of it swallowing the silence in the apartment. Elise barely noticed. She had work to do.
Later that night, Elise sat in the dim glow of her penthouse, at her expensive glass desk, the city skyline stretching endlessly beyond the massive windows. The lights flickered like distant stars, cold and indifferent. A cup of expensive tea rested untouched beside her, the deep green liquid steaming slightly from where she had set it down too hastily. She pulled up the schematics of her design on her screen, when she worked on the blueprints of the contraption. Her fingers, still trembling despite her composed exterior, brushed over the polished surface of her desk, tracing the edges of the designs she had once drawn with such wicked delight.
The transparent rubber coffin. The black coffin had been designed by Abyss for temporary confinement, for prolonged suffering, but not permanence. Its occupant was simply trapped within the inflated latex cushions, held firmly, in sleeves, but with slight movement allowed. But the transparent coffin - her true masterpiece - was a refinement, an evolution, an inescapable fate. The vacuum-sealed layers would remove even the last semblance of freedom, pressing the body into complete submission, reducing movement to the smallest, most pitiful tremors. And the enforced writhing mechanism - gentle pressure pads ensuring that the trapped figure never lay entirely still while the club danced - was the final touch of perfection. Art demanded motion. Even if it was only the involuntary, restless shifting of a broken soul.
Before, it had been an intoxicating fantasy. A work of art, a flawless trap designed to dismantle Nadia, to strip her of agency and will. Elise had envisioned it in painstaking detail, relishing the thought of watching her rival struggle, of seeing her slowly break under its merciless embrace. She had dreamed of Nadia's fate with amusement, imagining how she would writhe, how she would beg, how she would fall into the depths of silent, unending frustration. She had designed it, yes - but she had never truly understood it. Not until she had been sealed inside, entombed in its slick embrace, left to drift in an existence stripped of everything but sensation and time. Now, she knew. Now, she understood every nuance, every torment, every minute detail that had eluded her before. But now… now she knew.
That was the sweetest part of it all. Others - Camelia, Celeste, Emma - had all faced the black rubber coffin, even if only briefly. They had glimpsed its horrors, even if they had not fully succumbed to them. But Nadia? She had been spared. She had no knowledge of what lay on its inside, no reference point, no true understanding of what it meant to be swallowed whole by latex, to be denied everything, to exist only in sensation and longing. Elise took a slow breath, savoring the thought. Would it be better if Nadia knew? If she understood, truly, the magnitude of what awaited her? Would it break her more, knowing, before the lid was sealed, before the vacuum hissed and locked her in place, just how deep the abyss went? Or was it better this way - leading her blind, unknowing, into the fate Elise had spent so long preparing for her?
And the damned vibrator.
The bullet vibrator. Her lips curled into a slow smirk. That, too, had been altered, improved. She had thought it cruel before, when she learned about the first version in the black rubber coffin, ensuring that pleasure would forever remain out of reach, that frustration would mount and mount until it hollowed the mind. The updated software would detect when arousal faded, only to fan the flames of desire again. Alternating patterns of buzzing, impossible to predict, impossible to get used to. But she had been naive. She had thought she understood what it meant to endure such torment. She had believed herself clever. But inside the coffin, with nothing but the edging and eventually the slow simmering far below the edge to accompany her isolation, she had learned just how monstrous her own creation was. Her fantasy had become reality, but not in the way she had planned. She had tasted her own creation, had felt the unbearable, inescapable truth of it. And the denial of the edge had been far worse than she could have ever imagined.
Designing the vibrator’s algorithm was one thing. Being aroused under its touch was something completely different.
Her fingers clenched involuntarily at the thought, nails pressing into her palm. She had designed it for torture, for denial, for slow edging and eventually: slow simmering. It worked perfectly. But experiencing it firsthand… The cruelty of it had gone beyond even her own expectations. Sometimes, early on, it would continuously edge for what felt like hours. Sometimes it would stay dormant for a small eternity, making her wish it would give her at least some distraction from the slippery latex. It never let her forget. It had kept her trapped in a cycle of rising need, of desperate, mindless longing, of frustration so profound it had reduced her to silent, shuddering sobs within her latex prison. Eventually, the edges grew further and further in between, becoming very rare events in themselves. The long phases of tiny vibrations and minimal stimulation was so much worse. She remembered her pussy contracting emptily and the gushes of wetness. And it had never, not once, given her release. Just a cruel, lingering touch that mocked her, that kept her dangling over a precipice she would never cross.
Now, weeks after her release, she still felt it. She still had trouble reaching orgasm again, her mind thoroughly conditioned to expect abandonment on the edge and the inability to fulfill her needs. In her mind, in her bones, in the way her body tensed at the mere thought of being touched. The ghost of it haunted her, a phantom sensation that made her shiver in the stillness of her own home. She had been strong. She had survived. But she had not come out unscathed.
The stillness. That had been the first horror. At first, she had raged against it, against the vacuum-sealed embrace that stole her movement, her ability to do anything but exist. She had pushed, fought, twisted - only to feel the sheets of rubber resist, stretch, and then snap her back into place, unyielding, uncaring. It had taken weeks - months? - before she stopped trying.
Then the silence. The absolute absence of sound, the way it had driven her thoughts into wild, looping spirals. Her own breath had become a torment, amplified inside her head, the only thing tethering her to the passage of time. She had tried to count seconds, to measure the hours, but time had dissolved into nothing, into an endless void of sensation and waiting.
It was a fate beyond cruelty.
And yet -
She still wanted it for Nadia.
No, not wanted. Needed.
The cup of tea was nearly empty. The city lights blinked in the distance, indifferent. She leaned back into the cushions, her head tilting to one side as the dull hum of her building's nighttime machinery vibrated somewhere in the walls. She could feel the silence crawling over her skin. The coffin was empty now, a fact that twitched like a sore nerve in the back of her mind. No one was in it. Not yet. But it was there, waiting. She imagined Nadia inside it. Imagined her sealed, entombed, motionless. That thought made Elise close her eyes, almost as if she could hold the image long enough to feel something settle within her. Something quiet. Something finally under control.
The thought was madness, maybe. She knew that. She’d spent a year in the same coffin. It hadn’t healed her. It had chipped away at what little remained. But the loss had already happened long before. Elise could still hear her sister’s voice - just flashes, really - her laughter, the way she always looked to Elise like she had all the answers. And Elise had failed her. She hadn’t saved her. Too busy, too slow. She was supposed to go with her. She was supposed to be in control. But crashes don’t always spare 19-year olds trying to act older than they are. Her parents never blamed her. They drowned her in comfort and indulgence. Princess Elise. But Elise knew better. She had given up control once. Just as the drunk driver jumping the red light had. And now, she could never afford to lose control again.
Putting Nadia in the coffin wasn’t about vengeance, not really. It was about making the world make sense again. Nadia had defied her, exposed her, and threatened her perfect composition. She’d clawed at the cracks Elise worked so hard to seal. Elise needed to bury that. Literally. Needed to see her silenced, still, forgotten beneath glass and rubber. A symbol, a sacrifice. If Nadia went into the coffin, if Elise could stand above it and watch her breathe through that narrow little tube - then maybe, just maybe, the past could be buried with her. Elise would never admit it, not even to herself in full clarity. But she wanted Nadia beneath her. Wanted her trapped. Wanted her to carry the weight Elise had been dragging for years. So Elise could finally let go.
Trapping Nadia - ensuring her stillness, her silence - wasn’t vengeance, not entirely. It was an exorcism. A way to stuff the howling grief into a sealed chamber, lock it shut, and pretend it couldn’t reach her anymore. If Nadia vanished into silence, into rubber and confinement, then maybe Elise could pretend she had power over the one thing she had never been able to stop: the moment when everything was lost. Smoke and bend metal.
Her fingers tightened around the cup. She had rivaled Nadia for so long. Had loathed her defiance, her audacity in ever challenging her. It had been satisfying enough, forcing her into rubber, watching her struggle through suit after suit, layer after layer, until her world was nothing but latex. The chastity, the rubber bedding, the full enclosure in suit and bondage bags - each step had been delicious. But this? This would be the final, perfect act.
It was no longer just about dominance or revenge. It was about balance. About making Nadia understand. About making her taste the same slow, unraveling madness, the same exquisite suffering that Elise had endured. Nadia had been the reason she was locked away. If not for her, Elise would have never known the depths of her own creation. And so, Nadia had to go inside it. Permanently.
Nadia would never know freedom again. She would never touch another, never be touched again, never see the world again, never to taste food, never to hear music, or any human voice. She would be reduced to a display, a legend whispered about in the depths of Abyss, nothing more than a restless, desperate figure behind transparent floors. Always writhing, always aching for orgasm, always denied. Forever.
Elise exhaled sharply, steadying herself. The designs were still there, laid out before her, their lines crisp and perfect. The coffin was ready. Abyss had embraced its presence, had already made it a centerpiece of their cruel, intoxicating games. All that remained was Nadia’s turn.
Elise imagined it now - not as an abstract vision, but as something real, something inevitable. She saw Nadia, stripped of resistance, her body slick against the transparent sheets, the blindfold rendering her world into darkness. She saw her tense as the vacuum sealed her in, her panic rising as she realized, truly realized, that there was no escape. And then, as the hours stretched into days, into months, into years, into decades, she would understand.
She would feel the silence eating at her thoughts.
She would learn the futility of struggling against latex that would never yield.
She would come to know the vibrator’s cruel precision, the way it teased without mercy, turning need into agony, into a slow dissolution of self.
And, most deliciously, she would learn the final, undeniable truth: that this was forever.
Elise shivered, but not from fear. A slow mad smile curled her lips. The thought no longer just thrilled her - it completed her. She had survived her own invention. And now, she would make sure Nadia never did.
Nadia sat on the edge of her bed, hands gripping the sheets as another wave of frustration coursed through her body. The relentless torment of the latex extension in her chastity belt had become unbearable. It was not just the physical denial - it was the maddening, ceaseless teasing, the sensation designed to keep her on edge, to drive her thoughts into an endless loop of yearning and suffering. It had been six months now, and she was unraveling. On some nights, red scratch marks were visible on her inner thighs, where she dug her fingernails, part of her trying to stimulate herself, another part trying to distract herself with pain.
Before, she could barely manage, avoiding stimulation, at least the involuntary kind. But this was beyond her breaking point, the little piece of rubber driving her to the edge of sanity.
She tried to remain composed, to endure as she always had, but the battle was wearing her down. Every time she thought she had gained control, the device reminded her that she was helpless against it, the latex extension sliding ever so slightly over her wet and slick nether lips. Nights were the worst - lying awake, her body burning, throbbing, craving something that would never come. She would toss and turn, pressing her thighs together in futile attempts to find some kind of relief, but it was useless. The sensation was relentless, designed to break her. Even during the day, the torment never fully subsided. It gnawed at her sanity, reducing her focus to nothing but the cruel, constant reminder of her predicament.
She had approached Evelyn several times again, trying to mask her desperation, but the woman saw through her easily. "You’ll endure," Evelyn had said with that knowing smile, her amusement barely concealed. "After all, what would you do if the stakes were suddenly raised? Would you risk it all to be free?"
Nadia had clenched her fists at those words. She knew Evelyn was baiting her, leading her toward something much bigger. A game. A challenge. A final test that would push her past every limit. She knew it was coming, and yet, she couldn’t stop herself from wanting it. The sheer thought of escape, of even a chance to rid herself of this torment, was enough to make her pulse race.
Tonight was worse than usual. She could barely think straight, the tension inside her coiling like a spring ready to snap. She paced her room, trying to distract herself, but every movement only reminded her of how trapped she was. She pressed her forehead against the cool glass of her window, staring out at the neon glow of the city’s skyline. The club had taken everything from her, molded her suffering into something it found entertaining. She hated it. Hated how weak it had made her. And yet, it was the only place that held the answer to her torment.
A knock at the door made her freeze.
Camelia’s voice followed a moment later, soft yet firm. "Nadia, are you awake?"
Nadia took a deep breath, forcing herself to steady her voice. "Yes. Come in."
Camelia stepped inside, her expression unreadable. She had always been composed, controlled, but there was something different in her tonight. Something almost determined. "I’ve been watching you," she said, closing the door behind her. "You’re breaking."
Nadia’s jaw tightened. "I’m okay."
"No, you’re not," Camelia countered, folding her arms.
"I got a message from Elise. She’s coming after me. She’ll expose me on social media. Not my rubber suits, that’s already common knowledge. She wants to present the world with my frustration in the belt, my gambles for orgasms, the bondage bag it earned me, and of course that fateful video. She’ll force me into a challenge." Nadia confessed, "I don’t know which stakes I would still accept to avoid this."
Camelia looked at her in sympathy. "So both Elise and Evelyn want to see you back on the stage. Evelyn is pushing you to a breaking point with your upgraded belt. We both know where this is leading. Both will push you towards the rubber coffin."
Nadia swallowed hard, not wanting to admit how right she was. "And what do you suggest?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Camelia hesitated, then stepped closer. "I don’t know yet. But you can’t do this alone. And if Evelyn is setting you up for something, you need to be prepared."
Nadia let out a shaky breath. "Prepared for what? A duel? Another challenge? Another year in rubber or bondage?"
Camelia’s gaze was steady. "Maybe all of it. Maybe something worse. And I don't think it's for a year, you know that, right?"
Nadia shuddered. She knew it. Everyone knew it. Even Camelia. Elise wanted Nadia’s suffering to become permanent. Nadia wanted to laugh, but there was nothing funny about it. "And what? Alexandru teased me about it, months ago. Even before I got this … extension installed. Into the coffin. Permanently. As Elise had desired it for me. For daring to challenge her over Alexandru. She wants me gone. You’ll protect me? You’re a dancer, Camelia. How?"
Camelia’s lips pressed into a thin line. "I didn’t. But I see what’s happening to you, and I see how Evelyn works. She thrives on suffering. I think she is onto me as well. It would be best if we stay strong, together. She wants you to break so you’ll gamble everything. And if you do that now, when you’re like this, you’ll lose."
"With this … thing… inside my belt, I cannot go on. Not much longer. It takes me apart. It has to end, one way or another."
"Nadia, if you rush in and play a game on their terms, you will lose. Look at you, you are coming apart indeed. I can’t imagine what that latex finger is doing to you, but you need to find a stable basis to stand on first."
Nadia hated how much sense it made. Hated how much she wanted to believe that someone actually cared about what happened to her.
"Why do you even care?" Nadia finally asked, voice quieter this time.
Camelia hesitated. Then, "Because you were kind. To Elise, of all! Even when she didn’t deserve it. And I think deep down, you don’t deserve this either. And you are a good person. One of few. We are human. They, maybe, are not. Evelyn, I think she may even be something else entirely. Something supernatural."
She continued. "Can’t you just refuse the games? Delay them at least?"
Nadia looked at her, desperation in her eyes. "Not with this thing inside the belt. It is … eroding me. I go insane at night. It limits the way I can move. It is … indescribable. And then, I could swear, whenever she looks at me or even thinks of me, the Rings seem to suck, to pulse, to grow heavy. I know she is setting me up for a challenge. Both are pushing me to balance over the coffin! Even if I refuse Evelyn, Elise will demand the rematch challenge… my social exposure… that video…"
She paused for a moment before stepping closer. "But tell me something, Nadia. Do you even know what the rubber coffin will be like if you lose?"
Nadia exhaled sharply, her shoulders tense. "Yes, you have told me about your time. And I’ve spent many nights in my inflatable bondage bag myself, Camelia. I’ve been encased in a rubber suit day and night as well. And every time I thought I was done, they reset the counter, extending my suffering again and again. If I end up in the coffin, it will just be another version of some torment. I already know how latex enclosure bondage feels."
Camelia shook her head. "No, you don’t. It’s different. The wet, slippery stillness, the unyielding embrace - it’s not just about being trapped in latex. It’s about losing all sense of time, of self. You don’t see. You don’t hear. It’s the kind of silence that swallows you whole. You only feel. The latex, the pressure, the slickness, is all there is. I spent a month in the normal latex coffin in the basement, and it was the worst experience of my life. And the black one doesn’t even include the vacuum packaging which would sandwich you between the inflatable interior layers. I counted every second, but time stopped meaning anything. The pressure of the material, the way it held me in place, not allowing even the smallest movement… It wasn’t only a punishment. It was erasure. The vibrator. I went insane while inside. It broke me apart in a month. You have seen what it did to Elise after a year. She fractured. She is not the same person anymore. Her eyes look through people. She is only half there."
Nadia swallowed hard. She had thought she understood, she had seen Elise squirming many times, but hearing Camelia describe it made her stomach twist.
"I wish Alexandru had never walked into the store. We would have never chatted, never talked; Elise would never have recognized me."
"But he did. Such an insignificant event, such consequences down the road. Like a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazons, having now caused a hurricane around you."
Nadia sighed, looking at her folded hands.
Camelia sat down beside her, laying her own hands on top of Nadia’s. "I don’t want that fate for you, Nadia. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Not even Elise. Even you didn't wish it on Elise, instinctively you understood the hell waiting for her in the coffin. And I definitely wouldn't wish it on you."
"It’s a death sentence." Nadia contemplated.
Camelia was lost in thoughts before she answered. "No, it’s not death. It is a life. A different one. And forcing someone to live… here, in this Abyss… is somehow worse than death."
Nadia looked down at her hands, confused at her words, the tension in her body unrelenting. "So what do we do? How do we stop this?"
Camelia’s hand brushed against hers, grounding her. "We stand together. We fight. And we don’t let Evelyn turn us into pieces in her twisted game."
For the first time in months, Nadia felt a flicker of something beyond despair. Camelia had been through it. She understood. And she was right. They had to resist - together. The words struck something deep in Nadia’s chest, something she hadn’t let herself feel in a long time.
She looked into Camelia’s eyes and, for the first time in months, felt something other than frustration - an ember of something else, something dangerous. Hope.