Callum helped me down from the table, his hands firm beneath my arms, but his gaze already held that familiar disappointment.
"I told you," he said quietly. "It wasn't going to work."
I didn't answer. Couldn't. My throat was dry, and not just from shouting.
"It's not that they don't care," he added, glancing over the room as the others began to shuffle away, heads down, shoulders sagging. "It's that they've stopped believing their voices matter. Changing someone's mind after they've spent their whole life being trampled on.... that's not something that happens with just a speech."
Elise nodded beside him, her voice softer but no less crushing. "You were brave, Lorraine. But this place doesn't leave room for hope. It's been drained from everyone of of us, one death at a time."
Felix, now clutching on to a mop, scoffed bitterly. "Or maybe everyone here's just a coward. Scared little sheep pretending they're wolves. Letting people wipe their boots on our backs like we're dirt. I don't get it, why live if you're not going to fight?"
His words echoed, harsh but not untrue.
Disappointment pressed heavy on my chest, but not just in them, in myself.
Still, we picked up the cleaning supplies and got to work. The protest had failed, and the mess remained.
Garbage bags. Broken bottles. Rotting food smeared across the floor. The nobles had gone all out.
The stench was unbearable.
No one spoke much. The silence was only broken by the scrape of brushes, the slosh of water, the occasional cough or sigh. It was like we were cleaning more than trash, we were scrubbing our shame, our fear, our worthlessness.
Hours passed. Slowly, the common room began to look normal again.
It was nightfall when we finally finished. The last bag was taken out. The last mop rinsed. Everyone looked ready to collapse.
Some leaned against walls, others slumped onto couches or just lay flat on the floor, staring at the ceiling like they were waiting for it to fall.
And I... I looked at them. Really looked.
Their faces. Their bodies. The exhaustion that went deeper than just their muscles.
It hit me then.
This wasn't laziness.
It was trauma.
Generational, unending, soul-crushing trauma.
No one had ever given them permission to believe they mattered.
My heart ached.
This wasn't fair.
None of it was.
Not the points. Not the beatings. Not the disappearances. Not the rules made to keep us in chains.
But what broke me most wasn't the system.
It was seeing how thoroughly it had succeeded.
I don't know what pulled me back onto that table. Maybe it was desperation. Maybe it was the fury burning in my chest, or maybe it was the look on their faces, so beaten, so hollow.
They were exhausted, every one of them. Their limbs dragged, their backs ached, their eyes dull from years of being stepped on like nothing more than pests. But in their stillness, I found something rare: silence. Attention.
This time, I didn't shout.
This time, I spoke low. Calm. Measured. Like I was speaking to something wounded, because I was.
We were all wounded, badly.
"To those who cleaned tonight… thank you," I began, my voice soft but clear. "To those who wanted to scream and couldn't, to those who stayed quiet not out of choice but out of survival… I see everyone of you."
Some heads slowly turned toward me.
"I know you think we're nothing. That's what they've always told us. Ferals. Trash. Last in the hierarchy. Bottom-feeders. We're taught to believe that even daring to hope is foolish. That speaking up is suicide. That fighting back is a joke, an abominable idea that is not even supposed to be thought of"
I paused, swallowing the lump in my throat.
"But do you know what's worse than dying?" I looked around the room, meeting their eyes. "Being erased. Forgotten. Like we never mattered. Like we were never here at all."
A quiet stillness settled over the room. No one moved.
"They've taken everything from us. Our names. Our strength. Our families. They even took that girl's life and left her to rot on a cafeteria floor. And still, we're the ones being punished."
A few lowered their eyes. I saw jaws clench.
"This will keep happening. Every week. Every month. One by one, they'll pick us off. You'll lose your room mate. Your best friend. Your seat mate. And no one will care. Not unless we make them care."
A flicker of something, rage, maybe, crossed Callum's face. Elise's lips parted.
"I'm going to the front of the Academy buildings," I said, lifting my chin. "And I'm going to stand there until someone listens. Until my voice is heard. I will not move, I will not beg, and I will not back down. Anyone who's tired of being silenced... anyone who doesn't want to be the next body... anyone who still believes we deserve better, come with me."
I didn't wait to see their reactions. I climbed down, back straight even as my knees trembled, and walked out of the dorm.
The hallway was quiet. Cold.
My boots echoed softly against the tiles as I walked.
I prayed I wasn't walking alone.
I prayed my voice had stirred something.
The wind outside was biting, sharp against my skin, but I kept walking, crossing the training grounds, then the courtyard, until I reached the front of the Academy buildings.
A vast space, stone pillars towering on both sides, banners flapping in the night wind. Empty. Grand. Intimidating.
I stood there. Alone.
For a moment, I let hope slip.
Then I heard footsteps behind me.
I turned.
Felix.
Hands stuffed in his pockets, eyes set with quiet fire.
"That speech was better," he said simply. "Still a little dramatic, though."
I choked on a laugh.
"You're really going to stand here all night?" he asked.
I nodded.
"Then I guess I am too."
He stepped beside me, shoulder to shoulder.
It wasn't much.
But it was something.
One voice.
One spark.
Maybe that's how revolutions begin.