With congratulations

Officer Costa's final whistle rang out like the release from a sentence. Magi straightened up with superhuman effort. Every muscle screamed, and every inch of her skin felt the abrasive memory of the sweaty, elastic fabric that still clung to her like a parasite. Breathing was difficult, her chest oppressed by the shirt that had been her prison all session.

She mentally prepared herself for the reprimand, the biting comment about her performance, the uniform, and her very existence, which felt like a mistake in that place. She fixed her gaze on the cracks in the asphalt, expecting to be ordered to stay behind to clean the yard or iron the uniform ten more times.

But Costa's voice didn't come laced with anger. It came with a calculated coldness that was much worse.

"Cadet Rojas," she called, her voice cutting through the tired murmur of the other cadets.

Magi looked up, compelled by the tone of command. Costa stood before her, hands clasped behind her back, her expression inscrutable.

"Today, you have demonstrated a notable degree of... resilience," the Officer said, and the word landed like a whip. "Despite the logistical adversities"—her gaze briefly dropped to the tight, damp, and obscene uniform, then locked back onto Magi's eyes—"you have completed the session without complaining. Without faltering. That is mental fortitude. Something not taught in manuals."

She paused, letting the words, poisoned with cruel irony, settle in the air.

"You are an example of how to overcome imposed limitations," Costa continued, a corner of her mouth twitching slightly in what could have been a smile or a sneer of contempt. "You have followed orders to the letter, regardless of the situation's... discomfort. That is discipline. Congratulations, cadet."

The "congratulations" resonated in Magi's ears like the echo of a slap. They weren't praise; they were the consecration of her humiliation. Costa wasn't commending her effort, but her submission—for enduring the mockery, the exposure, and the violation of her privacy without protest. She was effectively making Magi an accomplice in her own degradation.

Magi felt the ground shift beneath her feet. She wanted to scream, to tear off the uniform that was now a trophy of her shame, to tell Costa that she didn't want her congratulations, that all she wanted was to disappear.

But she didn't. She only clenched her jaw so hard her temple ached and muttered a dry, hoarse:

"Thank you, Officer."

They were the most bitter words she had ever spoken.

The journey back to her apartment was a blur. She didn't remember walking or taking the bus. All she felt was the weight of the sweaty uniform glued to her skin, the stares of strangers who seemed to know, and the searing burn of Costa's praise in her mind.

As she crossed the threshold of her small apartment, the facade of strength she had maintained so fiercely crumbled. The lock clicked behind her, and it was the trigger.

A dry, heart-wrenching sob escaped her chest. Others followed, uncontrollable, shaking her entire body. The tears, held back for hours, burst forth with a torrential ****, hot and salty, streaming down her face and mixing with the cold sweat that still covered her skin.

She undressed with trembling, clumsy fingers, flinging the tight uniform into the darkest corner of the room as if it were contaminated. But even naked, under the hot shower that tried to wash away the invisible filth of the day, she couldn't escape.

The water ran over her body, yet she kept feeling the stares, the rub of the fabric, the cold voice of Costa congratulating her for her submission. She scrubbed her skin until it was raw, trying to erase the sensation of that repulsive touch, of that elastic material that had turned her into a spectacle.

Stepping out of the shower, she wrapped herself in a rough towel, but the cold didn't come from outside. It came from within. She slumped to the floor, next to the bed, and buried her face in her knees. Sobbing shook her uncontrollably.

She wasn't just crying from exhaustion or the humiliation of the day. She was crying over the certainty that she was losing herself. Because somewhere, between the freezing water and the elastic fabric, between the mockery and the poisoned compliments, the Magi who loved books and silence was fading, being replaced by an empty shell that only knew how to endure and obey.