The correction arrived wrapped in courtesy.
That was how they ensured it would be accepted.
Late morning light rested on the desk when the woman with pinned hair returned. Her steps were even. She never hurried. She never lingered. She carried a thin folder under her arm, pressed flat against her side, as if it were a habit rather than a task. She placed it beside my ledger and tapped it once with her finger.
"An inconsistency," she said. "You will resolve it."
Not explain. Resolve.
I opened the folder.
Two records lay inside, aligned so cleanly the mistake revealed itself without effort. One name. Two destinations. The handwriting was familiar. Mine.
Stone hauling reassigned to furnace auxiliary.
External labour, outside the walls.
The dates differed by one day.
A thin crack. Narrow enough to disappear with a single stroke of ink.
I remembered writing the name. I remembered slowing my hand, checking each curve of each letter. At the time it felt careful. Responsible. I thought accuracy was protection.
Now the work waited for me.
The pen rested beside the paper. Its nib was clean. Its weight felt natural in my fingers, like something learned rather than chosen. My breathing stayed steady. That unsettled me.
I tried to picture the man attached to the name. His face refused to settle. The prison trained that out of you. Bodies mattered only while they moved. Names existed so ink had somewhere to land.
I thought of the sorting chamber. Of hands pulled apart. Of bodies turned sideways and measured. This was the same act, only quieter. No shouting. No chains. No crowd to witness it.
I drew one line through the external assignment.
The motion was smooth. The line was straight.
Nothing happened.
No sound. No reaction. Light continued to spill across the desk. Dust drifted through it. The room remained calm. That was the lesson. Violence did not need noise. Sometimes it arrived already finished.
At midday, a tray appeared. Bread that held its shape. Cheese with a faint smell of life. Water without grit. I ate at the desk, alone. That detail mattered. From the window, I watched the yard below.
Overseers exchanged lists. Boots stopped. Boots moved. Orders passed hand to hand. Bodies changed direction without pause. The prison answered ink faster than it ever answered pain.
I saw the furnace crew rotate. I did not look for the man by name. I already knew where the ledger placed him.
The woman returned later. She read before she spoke.
"You chose," she said.
"Yes."
"Did you understand the consequence?"
"I understood the record."
She nodded. "Good. Intention slows people down. Process keeps things clean."
She closed the ledger. "There will be more. Some will look smaller. Pay attention when they do."
She left without another word.
The man was moved that evening.
I did not witness it. I knew because the ledger told me. Furnace auxiliary confirmed. No margin notes. No return mark. The prison trusted paper more than memory. Paper never hesitated.
That night, the cell felt tighter.
Rook watched me settle onto the stone. His eyes lingered on my hands.
"They had you write," he said.
"Yes."
"Did you resist?"
"No."
He nodded once. "Then it worked."
"I had another option," I said.
"You always do," he replied. "Once."
The drip from the ceiling counted time between us.
The second correction arrived the next morning.
Not from her. From a junior clerk whose eyes slid away as soon as the folder left his hands. Same structure. Same calm. Different name.
A woman.
Laundry or infirmary.
Steam or sickness.
Neither kind.
My hand stayed steady.
That frightened me.
I corrected the record.
Another followed that afternoon. Then another the next day. Dates misaligned. Symbols misplaced. Transfers shifted by hours that stretched into weeks. Each change looked small. Each one carried weight.
By the fourth correction, my body knew the motion. Lift pen. Align ink. Continue.
This was the real lesson.
Not cruelty.
Not mercy.
Repetition.
Privilege widened around it. Chains came off during work hours. Doors opened when I approached. Guards stopped following me closely. They did not need to. I stayed where I belonged.
Silence followed me differently now. Not avoidance. Expectation.
I noticed how others watched me. Not directly. Side glances. Pauses. Whispers that stopped when I passed. My usefulness had become visible.
One afternoon, I made a small error. A mark leaned too close to the margin. Barely noticeable.
She noticed.
"Again," she said.
I rewrote the line.
"Again."
When it aligned, she said, "Precision shows respect. You stay because you understand that."
Stay.
The word lodged in my chest.
That evening, I passed the infirmary corridor. The door stood open. Inside, bodies lay spaced apart, arranged with care. The woman from the ledger lay on one of the cots. Alive. Exhausted.
She stared at the ceiling.
She did not know my face. She did not know ink had guided her here.
I kept walking.
Back in the cell, Rook said nothing. He watched the ceiling drip.
Sleep came fast that night. Too fast. I dreamed of pages without end, names repeating until they thinned into shapes. Lines crossed other lines until nothing remained but order.
When I woke, my fingers twitched, already searching.
The prison did not ask for belief.
It asked for continuation.
The next morning, the desk was already set when I arrived. Fresh paper. Fresh ink. The ledger opened to a page marked with a ribbon. Someone had been here before me, preparing the work, trusting I would continue it without being told.
I sat down and took the pen. It felt familiar now. Outside the window, the yard formed its lines. Inside the room, the lines waited for me. I understood then how the days would move. Not forward. Not back. Only on.
I noticed a mark on the ledger I had not made. A faint symbol near the margin, light enough to miss if you were careless. It told me someone else had checked my work and found it acceptable. Approval, quiet and complete.
When the bell rang for labour, I did not stand. No one corrected me. The room remained still, waiting. That was when it settled fully. I was no longer being tested. I had been placed.
The walls smelled faintly of oil and old paper. The sunlight pooled across the desk in warming patches. Dust motes floated like tiny spirits in the light. My fingers carried a trace of ink. My hands itched to touch more names, to draw more lines, to fold every day into order. I breathed the quiet of the room, and it filled me with a strange weight.
I had become part of the prison without leaving it. I had learned the shape of survival inside its lines, its ink, its silence.