Option A: Hand over something made of metal (empty tin can). He evaluates it. If he accepts, you pass the gate.

I stand in the silence of the cell a moment longer, turning the choices over carefully inside the emptiness where memory should be. Metal might keep me alive later. The empty tin can is light, already opened and scraped clean, but metal is metal. Offering my mouth or the full use of my body would buy more—shelter, wages, a place inside the wall—but the cost feels heavier than I am ready to pay while I still understand almost nothing of this world. The temporary options are clearer. Only time. Only his hands for a while. No deeper claim. And there is no one else here. Just this one man and the cold concrete walls.

I decide the empty can is the least I can spare.

“I’ll give you metal,” I say, keeping my voice even. I reach into the bag, fingers brushing past the folded teal dress and the diamond necklace until they close around the empty tin. I draw it out and hold it up between us. “This.”

He takes it from my hand, turns it slowly in the dim light, examining the clean rim, the smooth sides, the faint stamped markings still visible on the bottom. His thumb scrapes across the metal as if testing its thickness. For a moment his expression shifts—surprise, almost hunger—before it hardens again.

“Where the fuck did you find this?” His voice is rough, edged with something like disbelief. “An empty can, sure, but it’s clean. No rust. No dents worth mentioning. Someone who knows what they’re doing would pay ten cap coins for metal this good.” He looks up at me, eyes narrowing. “Where do you come from?”

“I cannot remember anything,” I answer, the same honesty rising before I can shape it into anything safer. “I woke up in the woods. I walked this way with what I could carry.”

He studies me a long moment, the can still in his hand. Then he gives a short, dismissive laugh and tosses it back toward the bag. It lands with a dull clink against the other contents.

“I don’t want it.”

I keep my expression steady, though the rejection lands harder than I expected. “It’s metal. You said metal is valuable here.”

“It is.” His gaze drifts deliberately over me now—lingering on the soft fall of the shirt across my breasts, the way the skirt rests against my hips, the long line of my legs in the sturdy boots. The look is open, assessing, and unmistakably hungry. “But now my eyes caught you. So why don’t you just strip naked and let me fondle a bit—those ass and tits for a while—and I’ll let you pass.”

I hold his gaze, refusing to look away. “Ten cap coins. That should be more than enough for passage.”

He steps a fraction closer, still on his side of the cold cell, and shrugs with a smile that holds no warmth. “Maybe. But that is the deal. Take it or leave the wall.”