My tears had dried, leaving salty tracks on my skin. The hysteria had passed, leaving behind a brittle, hollow shell. The Architect stood before me, his face a mask of detached curiosity.

“Your spirit is fractured,” he said, “but the body’s conditioning is incomplete. You must learn your place in the choreography of pain.”

Before I could process his words, his hand lashed out. Not a punch, but an open-handed slap. The crack echoed in the silent cell, my head snapping to the side with the force of it. The sting was sharp, but the humiliation was a burning fire. He was striking me as one would discipline a misbehaving pet. He hit me again, a hard, punishing blow that sent me stumbling.

He grabbed me by the hair and threw me against the wall. The impact jarred my teeth, my weakened body absorbing the full, brutal force. I slumped to the floor, dazed.

Some vestige of the hero I was, some muscle memory, sparked to life. I scrambled to my feet, my bare feet providing little purchase on the smooth floor, and threw a punch. It was a pathetic, clumsy swing, devoid of the cosmic force it once held. He caught my fist in his hand, his grip like iron, and twisted my arm, forcing me to my knees.

“You see?” he said, his voice low and menacing. “There is nothing left. No strength. No steel.”

He looked down at the ‘S’ on my chest, the proud symbol of my heritage, now just a piece of fabric. With his free hand, he hooked his fingers under the edge of the shield and ripped it from my chest. The sound of the tough Kryptonian weave tearing was a final, rending sound in my soul. He had torn my heart out. He held the iconic red and yellow emblem in his hand for a moment before dropping it to the floor like a piece of trash. I stared at the empty, raw space on the blue fabric of my leotard, and a wave of shame so profound washed over me that I wished the floor would swallow me whole. My beautiful body, a gift from Krypton, was just flesh, and it was his to damage as he pleased.

“Now the preparation is complete,” he announced.

The all-too-familiar beam of yellow sun bathed me, knitting my new bruises and scrapes, but it could not mend the shredded fabric of my suit or my spirit. A compartment opened, and a new costume was presented. A perfect replica of my own, but it felt like a cheap Halloween costume. The fabric was thin, the colors too bright. The ‘S’ shield was a separate piece of molded plastic.

“Put it on,” he ordered.

My hands trembling, I obeyed. I pulled on the flimsy suit, the feel of it a constant insult. I attached the plastic shield where my birthright used to be. I was a mockery, a cheap imitation of myself. I was cosplaying as Supergirl in the ruins of my own life.

“It is time to meet your first paying customer,” the Architect said as the main gate to my cell rumbled open.

A monster shambled in. He was immense, a hulking giant of pale, gray flesh, his clothes little more than tattered rags. His eyes were dull, black pits of mindless malice. Solomon Grundy.

The camera drones whirred to life.

Grundy roared and charged. I tried to fly, to evade, but I was grounded, weak. His first blow, a fist the size of a cinder block, sent me flying across the room. I hit the wall and crumpled. He was on me in an instant, dragging me up, his grip like a vise. He slammed me into the floor, again and again. Each impact was a universe of pain, my bones rattling, my head swimming in a sea of agony.

He held me up by my throat, his other hand grabbing my left arm. He grinned a broken-toothed grin and simply… bent it. A wet, sickening snap echoed in the cell, followed by my own high-pitched, piercing scream. The pain was a supernova, a white-hot, blinding agony that erased the world. My arm hung at an impossible angle, the bone clearly shattered. Tears of pure, physical torment mixed with the blood trickling from my lip as I collapsed, cradling my broken limb.

Grundy grunted, satisfied with his work, and lumbered out of the cell.

The beam of yellow light returned, lancing my arm with the excruciating pain of accelerated healing. Once I was whole again, the robotic arms returned me to my cell, the door sealing shut. The phantom pain of the break still lingered, a ghost of the agony I had endured.

I sat there, broken and weeping, until the monitor on the wall flickered on. It showed Diana’s cell. The gate opened, and Solomon Grundy shambled in.

My heart stopped. I watched, helpless, as Diana, clad in her own perfect replica armor, met his charge. She didn’t have my raw power, but she had a warrior’s soul. She moved with a deadly grace, evading his clumsy swings, her replica bracelets deflecting a blow that would have shattered my skull. She fought with a skill and ferocity that defied her weakened state, landing precise, powerful strikes that staggered the behemoth. For a fleeting moment, I felt a spark of hope. She was Wonder Woman. She would win.

But Grundy was relentless. He felt no pain. He simply absorbed her attacks, his own brutal blows eventually finding their mark. A devastating punch sent her reeling. Another broke through her guard, and she fell. He was on her then, his fists rising and falling like pistons. He beat her, breaking her down with the same mindless brutality he had used on me.

I watched as the greatest warrior I had ever known was pummeled into unconsciousness on the floor of her cell. I saw her perfect, replica armor dent and break. I saw her fall.

And in that moment, I understood. The hope I felt was a lie. There was no winning here. There was no escape. Skill, spirit, strength—none of it mattered. The Architect had created a system where failure was the only possible outcome. We were rats in his maze, and the only exit was more pain.

My tears were no longer for myself. They were for her. For Diana. For the very idea that a hero could ever win against such calculated, endless cruelty. I pressed my face against the transparent wall that separated us, my own reflection showing a terrified girl in a cheap costume. I watched the monster leave Diana’s broken body, knowing that tomorrow, or the day after, it would be my turn again. And then hers. A perfect, unbreakable, eternal cycle of defeat. And a new, deeper, and more profound layer of hopelessness settled over me, as cold and as final as the grave.