Agnikaa pulled on her bed frame, working the muscles of her arms to draw her chin level with her hands. Sweat dripped down her back, running between her shoulder blades. Her nanofibre prison gear should have wicked away the moisture, but it was saturated. Before incarceration, she’d done thirty reps max, now she had nothing but six feet to work in and twenty four hours free time thirty wasn’t enough.
Fifty, she thought, her biceps screaming at her, fifty was a good number for today. Whenever today was. Time was meaningless in a windowless cell on a space station out past Luna. Sweat ran along the burn scars on her cheek, funnelling towards her mouth. Disgusting. She twisted her head mid-rep and spat.
A jolt rocked her cell. It slammed through the station, knocking her against the wall. Her heartbeat hammered in her chest as the alarms wailed.

Then there was a rush of air, a click and harsh red emergency lighting flooded the room. She blinked. Her eyes weren’t used to the light, her cell in a constant state of darkness since she’d been incarcerated. Even this muddy light made her eyes ache. She took a moment for them to adjust, orienting herself. Her cell had moved by a few degrees. Barely noticeable, unless you’d been pacing it for months on end. She calmed her breathing and pushed herself off the wall. Her balance felt odd, worse than zero G and she loosened her knees to compensate. Whatever had happened, she needed to be ready. She needed her eyes to be ready.

–excerpt from Phoenix Rises my collaborative write-a-thon project.