K did not speak again.

He realized that he must be the last to receive his sentence. After the judge had concluded his case, the others rose one by one, heads bowed, hands cuffed, and filed out of the courtroom in the same order they had entered. K could no longer distinguish one from the other. Perhaps only by their hair color, skin tone, tattoos, or the occasional piercing could they be differentiated—but even those details seemed meaningless now. Beyond the surface, there was nothing to separate them. Their faces all wore the same resigned expression, their eyes dull and lifeless, radiating the same bleakness.

K remained seated the whole time, the weight of the room pressing on him. He watched them go, each figure retreating into the shadows of the corridor.

He caused this all himself. He is guilty of not being himself.

“Move, you” a man gave him a hard nudge in the back. K refused to stand up. K felt himself act out of character. He was supposed to go, supposed to follow the others, but something in him—some stubborn, unfathomable part—held him in place.

Then, without warning, strong hands gripped his arms, pulling him up with force. His body obeyed against his will, and he was thrust forward, into the sea of people that flowed steadily toward the door. His feet moved of their own accord, but his mind was elsewhere—lost, adrift in the absurdity of it all.

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K refused to lower his head. What had he become all these years? The endless grind of work, the constant bowing in the office, and now this—a place where he was either an office worker or a criminal, stripped of any identity beyond what this court had assigned him.

What has made him become who he is now? He tried to recall, maybe for a long time ago, he is already on death row, like the rest of the tenants, maybe everyone on the tube too that night too. They will be sentenced too, in a moment that caught them off guard, when they put their phones and newspaper or any other form of distraction away. They will be taken away, sentenced, just like him, and they will likely accept the outcome.

His body moved, almost on its own, through the crowd. He didn't hear the murmurs of voices around him. He didn't notice as they shuffled out the door, where a line of priests stood, repeating their short passages of final blessing, their words hollow in their routine. All streamlined, maximized for efficiency.

He already knew where he was going next.

His hands trembled, and despite being held tightly by the guard, he desperately twisted, managed to shake off the guard’s grip just for a moment. He struggled to rip his shirt off, the hands were tightly handcuffed and proven to be unsuccessful, he then started to gnaw on his shirt. But it was futile too. His hands then quickly fumbled, desperate to pull off his underwear, as though trying to strip away everything that had bound him, even if only for a moment.

What did it matter anymore? He was just another faceless, nameless soul in a sea of condemned people to be forgotten. Maybe, in his own small, absurd way, this was the only way he could differentiate himself. But even that was too little, too late. His body was quickly restrained, the guards’ grip tightening, leaving him no room for escape. His underwear was quickly put on again, and none in the crowd seemed to notice.