They receive a reminder from the night before.

In her locker, Magi found a small, lacquered wooden box. Inside, resting on black velvet, lay the instrument the other woman had chosen for her punishment. Magi found the slender rattan whip. There was no note. Just the object, clean and pristine, like a trophy or a promise. It was a mute reminder of her **** choice, and that the tools of their pain were now in their possession—a poisoned gift from May to ensure they never forgot their place or their complicity in the game.

The day at the aquarium unfolded under a tense, unbreakable bell jar. For Magi, every crossing of the hallway, every time she handed a report to May, every moment of silence in the office, was marked by the weight of the small but devastating object in her locker. It wasn't a gift; it was a seed of terror planted in the deepest depths of her being.

Magi stood at her locker, her hands trembling slightly as she touched the lacquered wood. Upon opening the box and seeing the rattan, the realization hit her: May had not only given them the whip they had chosen, but the one her partner had chosen for the punishment. The terror of the previous night mixed with a new, cold clarity. As she carefully closed the box, Julia appeared at the locker room door, pale, her eyes fixed on Magi’s locker.

"Magi..." Julia whispered, her voice barely audible. She carried an identical wooden box in her hands, holding it with a stiffness that betrayed its contents. The mere sight of the box resolved any doubt. Magi nodded, a bitter grimace on her lips. She didn't need Julia to say it: You have the rattan, I have the leather. The perverse mechanism of May's game had revealed itself: the choice of the other's punishment was now one's own tool to wield.

Magi couldn't speak; she only slightly lifted the rattan wrapped in black velvet inside her own box. Julia's gaze darkened with panic and understanding. They both snapped their respective boxes shut at the same time, sealing the terror inside.

Neither of them mentioned the punishment of the previous night. The memory of the whips, the public humiliation in the elevator, or the **** intimacy they shared afterward—everything was encapsulated in a dense and absolute silence. It was a non-verbal agreement, a **** denial that the ground had opened up beneath their feet. To speak of it was to make it real, to invite May to listen. So they stuck to the surface, to mundane tasks, building a wall of silence between themselves and the truth of what they had lived through.

The self-fulfilling prophecy took hold of them. Where before there was complicity, now there was an abyss of anticipatory fear. Magi would see Julia cleaning a glass tank in the distance, and her treacherous mind would draw the sharp, horrifying image of the rattan whip whistling through the air to strike the young woman's already marked back. Julia, seeing Magi organizing papers with slightly trembling hands, would imagine the black leather whip, heavy and cold, in those same hands, turning against her.

They avoided all contact. If their eyes met by accident, they looked away instantly, as if they had seen something forbidden. If they had to pass through the same narrow hallway, one would press herself against the wall to leave an exaggerated amount of space for the other. There were no words, not even a whisper of complicity. The silence between them was no longer one of union, but of a shared terror that isolated them instead of binding them together.

May, like a sadistic conductor, seemed to feed on that energy. She didn't mention the whips, but her gaze swept over their bodies with renewed curiosity, as if evaluating the quality of the tension she had sown. Once, walking past Magi, she said softly:

"Muscle tension affects flexibility. Something to keep in mind for... future performances." And she kept walking, leaving the threat floating in the air.

The workday ended without further incidents. But the time to leave brought a new agony: What to do with the whips? They couldn't leave them in the lockers. Taking them home meant physically carrying the symbol of their **** and fear.

In the end, they acted on survival instinct. Magi, with furtive movements, wrapped the rattan whip in a brown paper bag she found in the office trash and buried it at the bottom of her backpack, under books and clothes. Julia did the same with the leather one, hiding it as if it were a body to be disposed of.

The journey home was mute and ghostly. Each was in her own world of terror, feeling the ominous lump in her backpack like a black heart beating against her back. They didn't say goodbye. They only looked at each other one last time—a quick glance, charged with an understanding so deep and terrifying it was almost unbearable—before turning and walking in opposite directions. The day ended, but the threat did not. It had moved into their homes, into their supposedly safe spaces. The whips were no longer at the aquarium; they were with them. And the prophecy they both feared—that May would **** them to use them—now seemed not like a possibility, but an inevitable destiny they carried in their own backpacks, waiting for the moment to be unwrapped.