Unorthodox Resonance

Ⅳ

I steeled myself and strode forward, nodding curtly as they swung the wrought-iron barrier open. Father's withering glare pierced me before I even reached the courtyard.

"You've returned quite late from studies this evening, 127-8492," he intoned, his voice as dry and dusty as the statute tomes he revered. "Let's continue this discussion in the disciplinary chamber, shall we?"

My stomach clenched, but I nodded meekly and followed his towering form toward the foreboding doors. This wasn't my first such reprimand, nor would it likely be my last.

But this time, something resonated differently within me. The dull dread I typically armored myself with felt...porous somehow. As if the weight of the coming lashes couldn't penetrate the illumination burning inside me.

We reached the chamber - a spartan cell lined with cruel instruments of correction. The scent of stale sweat and fear cloyed the air like a miasma.

Father secured the door behind us, then deliberately removed his uniform jacket and rolled up his sleeves. I recognized the ritual well and obediently peeled off my own shirt and breeches before assuming a kneeling position on the scoured floor.

"State your deviations," he commanded, retrieving a wicked-looking quirt from its rack.

"I returned late from studies without approved reason, Father," I recited woodenly. "I am impure and require disciplinary action to reinforce the teachings."

"Correct," he said, the quirt's braided tendrils hissing through the air experimentally. "And as my issue, you shall accept your corrective actions to remain worthy of the New Order's grace."

The first lashes rained down upon my back in rapid succession - a familiar biting anguish which paradoxically sparked my newly kindled determination into an inferno.

Because this time, I knew the depravity fueling this ritualized abuse. The lies and malice underpinning the New Order's every tenet and belief.

Their fear, not my perceived transgressions.

No doctrine on Earth could justify such barbarity visited upon those they claimed to uplift and protect. Every lash seared away another layer of deception leaving only naked truth in its wake.

A brutal thwack snapped my head sideways. My vision swam for a moment as Father's cold rasp demanded: "Do you now accept your deviations and atone through suffering, 127-8492?"

Meeting his pitiless stare, I worked my jaw and spat out a mouthful of bloody phlegm before rasping back in a voice that didn't sound entirely my own:

"The only deviation I accept...is your complicity in perpetuating this deceit upon us all."

His brow knitted in confusion for just an instant - then his expression contorted into a kilned fury. The quirt whistled down again with bone-shattering force, but I barely felt the impact through my full-body conflagration of revelation.

Each successive lash and bludgeoning strike only further stoked my inner pyre against the lies and oppression of this dogmatic regime. I was reborn in those moments, shedding the mental shackles keeping me bound in willful ignorance.

When Father finally stepped back, chest heaving like a spent bellows - I rose on shaking limbs, crimson streaking my naked form yet radiating more power and conviction than I'd ever known.

"You've revealed an uglier truth than you can fathom," I told him, not recognizing my own steady tone. "One exposing your whole rotten system's depravity and fear. And no amount of brutality will ever bind me to those shackles again."

Twin spots of rage burned in Father's cheeks, but he seemed to read the finality behind my words and held whatever vicious retort he wished to unleash.

"Then you are lost," he rasped through clenched jaw. "A vile recreant unfit for the New Order's light. You'll be remanded for reconditioning amongst your fellow impure."

Those chilling words should have withered my resolve, but I only felt it solidifying into an adamantine purpose. Because now I recognized the true face of the enemy and swore to oppose it utterly.