The torture went on and on, day after agonizing day. I thought I would go crazy. I thought I would break. I thought…I thought I thought I thought…

Then one day I had it. The key to my final, greatest victory.

A penny.

It must have fallen from a guard’s pocket. Maybe they didn’t think it was worth bending over to pick it up. It was worth it to me. I stumbled, fell, and palmed it as I got up. I spent the next three days in my room sharpening it…grinding it against the tile floor under my bed, where the cameras couldn’t see.

Finally, it had enough of an edge.

And so my next time in that room, I took it out and sliced the inside of my left wrist. And as the red pigment flowed, I dipped my finger in it and painted.

Before they came and pulled me out, before everything went dark, I had my victory. They would clean it away, of course, but the duration didn’t matter as much as the fact I had done it at all.

Despite all they had done to break me, to keep me from my art…I had tagged that immaculate white chair.