Three days under Cain's supervised curriculum felt like three weeks.

The training load doubled overnight — Soren's doing, according to the official memo, a routine intensification ahead of end-of-term assessments. What it actually meant was that we were watched from six in the morning until curfew, every session logged, every result noted by a junior professor who reported directly to Cain.

There was no room to breathe. No room to plan. No room to be anything except exactly what we were ...