Behind the jagged black walls of the looming metal mega-tower was, of course, a prison. Surstrom Spire prison. The largest prison in the world. Built atop the Surstrom Lake and home to tens of thousands of prisoners and guards alike, not a single person could ever hope to breach its thick, impenetrable walls or impregnable security. Especially with the man they called the Warden in charge of running the place.

Surstrom Spire was a prison with one hundred floors. Each floor packed with prisoners ranging from those incarcerated for minor sexual harassment, to those wanted for murder and cannibalism. The higher up the floors you ascended, the worse the criminals you would find.

High above the clouds and beyond the prison’s thick metal walls, an ominous laugh echoed out across the confines of the ninety-ninth floor—the floor known as the Curse Ward. A floor so dangerous, that no guards were allowed inside the prison wing itself. Only prisoners were allowed through its doors, and none were ever allowed to leave.

“Fwahahaha!” A woman laughed, her lips curling up into a devilish smile, showing the rows of sharp, razor-edged teeth from beneath. Her eyes were a piercing bloody crimson, and her dishevelled head of hair was black like coal.

Sitting inside the confines of her cell, the woman was at her desk, scrawling something onto a scrap of paper.

“Keep it down, gorilla!” a sharp voice spat from outside the cell. It was a girl. Another prisoner of the Curse Ward. Her skin was a sickly pale grey, and her eyes were gaunt and hollow. Her once vibrant hair had dulled to that of a faded-pink and she looked like nothing more than the walking corpse of a young child. “Do you have to be so damn noisy? What are you even doing?”

Though the woman inside the cell was shorter than average, her battle-weathered physique of hardened muscle was clear to see. Looking up from her scrawlings, the muscular woman gave the girl a razor-edged grin.

“I told you to stop with the gorilla stuff! Pick a cuter animal to call me. Like a slow loris or something.”

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The girl narrowed her hollow eyes at the woman through the bars. “What the hell is a slow—? Ah, forget it. What are you doing anyway?”

“I’m writing a letter!”

“To who?”

“My mom and sisters!”

“Keh… I’m surprised you even know how to read and write…” Wandering into the woman’s cell, the sickly girl peered at the scrawlings on the desk. Drawn in rough crayon was an unreadable mess of illegible lettering and random sketches. Despite being a grown woman, it was more akin to what a child would produce instead. “… Actually, I’m still not convinced you do know how to read and write…”

The woman shrugged, and continued to scribble across the page in rough crayon, her tongue sticking out from the corner of her mouth in deep focus. “Well, it can’t be helped. My sister usually helps me with this kind of stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Reading and writing.”

“Ah…”

Watching the woman’s serious efforts in silence, the sickly girl eventually gave a sigh and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Fine. I’ll help you write it. Just keep it down from now on though, idiot. I don’t know how you can be so damn noisy while writing a simple letter, and I can’t concentrate on planning our— Ah, I’ll tell you about it later. Here, tell me what you want to say and I’ll write it down. Then you can copy it down yourself in your own handwriting.”

“Fwah! Thanks!”

“Move over, idiot. I’m not tall enough to reach the desk.”

“You can—”

“No, I’m not sitting on your lap.”

“Ah…”

“And you said your sister usually helps you with reading and writing? I figured you were from a family of meathead gorillas. I guess it was just you then.”

The woman gave a fervent nod. “She’s really smart, you know! The smartest out of all my other sisters! Even smarter than Mom too! Maybe just as smart as you!”

“… Really now?”

“Yup! She’s tall, and super pretty and has cute freckles too!” The woman gave a cheerful grin as she recalled the memory of her beloved sister. “She likes to drink a lot though, so she’s usually pretty drunk most of the time. We even had a cute nickname for her because of it!”

“… And what was that?”

“Liquor Trish!”