*Content Warning* This story contains themes of kidnapping, drug abuse, animal cruelty, and physical and verbal abuse. Read with caution if such themes may be upsetting.

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Shelby slowly walks down the corridor into the living room, where she sits in a round wicker chair. She looks down at her feet and clasps her hands prayer-like.

No prayers can help me, she thinks.

Shelby looks up to see a pill sitting by the bar table. One blue pill is left in there, perhaps forgotten by a henchman who was late for something.

Shelby’s mind focuses on the pill, then takes her back in time when she exits the bus wearing her new white lab coat with an espresso in her hand and heads to Polo Medicine, Inc.

The elevator on the main floor carries Shelby to her new career and gives her a bird’s eye view of the city she lives in, works in, and someday will die in.

Living in a metropolis has downsides, especially with violence, Shelby thinks to herself, but the perks make you give it a chance. Besides, nowhere else has this many opportunities to carve out a living.

The elevator stops and allows Shelby to view hundreds of medicine bottles with pills. Each pill matches the shape and size of their comrades gathering around it. The only things refusing to let every pill escape and breathe are the caps and tops of each pill bottle.

 It seems claustrophobic, Shelby thinks. To have so many like each other, but even one pill must feel the suffocating pressure from being with its own kind.

Shelby disposes of her coffee and heads towards the main office, where birds in ornate cages greet her with loud squawks. Each squawk becomes more frantic and urgent every second, seemingly telling Shelby to “Get out, NOW!”

A large man enters the room, claps his hands, and silence falls among the birds. Shelby stands to attention and greets the man.

“Hello, Miss Kinder,” he says warmly, “I can tell you’ll be a credit to Polo Medicine. My name is Kendall Mercy, the CEO of Polo Medicine Incorporated. Please follow me to my office.”

Kendall takes Shelby by the hand, surprising her for one second, and she’s led into a dim hallway that becomes dimmer each time she walks. The walls distort, and the hallway becomes bone-numbingly cold. Shelby’s breathing becomes rapid, and Kendall walks faster and faster.

Shelby returns to the present time and realizes something is wrong with her. A sudden urge to vomit has her rush towards the nearest bathroom when she is struck by sharp pain.

Shelby falls to the ground, screaming in agony. Her heart feels like a boa constrictor is squeezing and biting on it, and it’s ready to burst in a bloody explosion. Her body thrusts up and down, slamming her into the side of a nearby wooden desk.

Before blacking out, Shelby hears rapid footsteps come her way, and the last thing she notices is the pill on the bar table.